"A lot happens in one day, both negative and positive. If we do not take time to appreciate both, perhaps we will miss something that will help us grow."
IP No. 8, Just for Today
Most of us seem to unconsciously judge what happens in our lives each day as good or bad, success or failure. We tend to feel happy about the "good" and angry, frustrated, or guilty about the "bad." Good and bad feelings, though, often have little to do with what's truly good or bad for us. We may learn more from our failures than our successes, especially if failure has come from taking a risk.
Attaching value judgments to our emotional reactions ties us to our old ways of thinking. We can change the way we think about the incidents of everyday life, viewing them as opportunities for growth, not as good or bad. We can search for lessons rather than assigning value. When we do this, we learn something from each day. Our daily Tenth Step is an excellent tool for evaluating the day's events and learning from both success and failure.
Just for Today: I am offered an opportunity to apply the principles of recovery so that I will learn and grow. When I learn from life's events, I succeed.
"A lot happens in one day, both negative and positive. If we do not take time to appreciate both, perhaps we will miss something that will help us grow."
Like everything in our literature, this is so true. I think many addicts, certainly this addict tend to focus more on the negative, but there are lessons to be learned from the positive experiences as well.
Hey Don! thats funny,I was just going over writing from August 7th.talks about"wefocus on anything that isn't going our way and ignore all the beauty in out lives!!Just as good and bad we can focus on our gratitude and not just whats going wrong! This is life and its gonna keep comin!!What lessons can we learn from it all???
__________________
Our purpose is to remain clean,just for today,and to carry the message of recovery.
My Sponsor always emphasises Gratitude and making a Gratitude List. In the beginning, I wasn't sure that this was a good idea, that it would really help much. Then as I usually find it easier to do what my Sponsor suggests to see what happens inspite of my thinking that this was not something I would like to do, I tried. I made a list of things for which I could be grateful for, everyday. What happened as a result was amazing, from complaining about what I lack and how I must go about achieving this or that, I actually started seeing so many blessings that ARE in my life!
Nowadays, I try to do this when I feel down and out, when I feel let down, I think of at least 2 or 3 things that I could be grateful for at that very moment, this comforts me a lot, gratitude lists does work, in fact, it's one way I get in touch with the reality of how loving God of my understanding actually is!
__________________
"If we do an honest examination of exactly what we are giving, we are better able to evaluate the results we are getting."Chapter 10 - Emotional Pain - NA Way of Life.
