We can trust and listen to ourselves. Help me stop pleasing other people and start pleasing myself. Setting Our Own Course

We can trust and listen to ourselves. Help me stop pleasing other people and start pleasing myself. Setting Our Own Course

We can trust and listen to ourselves. Help me stop pleasing other people and start pleasing myself. We are powerless over other people's expectations of us. We cannot control what others want, what they expect, or what they want us to do and be. We can control how we respond to other people's expectations. During the course of any day, people may make demands on our time, talents, energy, money, and emotions. We do not have to say yes to every request. We do not have to feel guilty if we say no. And we do not have to allow the barrage of demands to control the course of our life. We do not have to spend our life reacting to others and to the course they would prefer we took with our life. We can set boundaries, firm limits on how far we shall go with others. We can trust and listen to ourselves. We can set goals and direction for our life. We can place value on ourselves. We can own our power with people. Buy some time. Think about what you want. Consider how responding to another's needs will affect the course of your life. We live or own life by not letting other people, their expectations, and their demands control the course of our life. We can let them have their demands and expectations; we can allow them to have their feelings. We can own our power to choose the path that is right for us. Today, God, help me own my power by detaching and peacefully choosing the course of action that is right for me. Help me know I can detach from the expectations and wants of others. Help me stop pleasing other people and start pleasing myself.From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, https://aaa12stepcccsociety.blogspot.com/2017/03/aaa12stepccounsellingcsociety-john_8.htmlhttps://sites.google.com/site/aaa12stepccounsellingcsociety/home

Forgive yourself for your faults and your mistakes and move on.

Forgive yourself for your faults and your mistakes and move on. It is always a mistake not to close one's eyes, whether to forgive or to look better into oneself. Maurice Maeterlinck https://sites.google.com/site/aaa12stepccounsellingcsociety/home https://aaa12stepcccsociety.blogspot.com/2017/03/aaa12stepccounsellingcsociety-john_8.html It is easy to look outward and find faults with the world and people around us. We criticize family members or complain about our friends. We always notice disease in the trees around us. But if we take time to be quiet, to sit alone in a tree or by a lake, we become more aware of how connected we are to the life around us. We are part of the beauty and the imperfection. When we notice our own tree is not perfect, it becomes easier to forgive the blights of those around us. It is also important to forgive ourselves our faults. Though all the trees are beautiful, they each have their scars. Being human means we are, like all humanity, both beautiful and imperfect. Will I see through the flaws to another's beauty today? From Today's Gift: Daily Meditations for Families ©1985, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation.

Everyone needs to be loved. I care today?

Everyone needs to be loved. I care today? Love cures people - both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it. - Karl Menninger

Receiving a loving hug from a parent or perhaps a smile from a friend or even a stranger gives us a special feeling inside. We know we are important to others when they show us their love through attention. And we sometimes forget that we matter to others. Family members and friends feel good in the same way when we show them our love. Everyone needs to be loved. How can we show our love? Must it be through a hug? Doing a favor for someone is loving. Helping around the house or the yard is loving, particularly when we've volunteered our help. Giving an unexpected gift to a friend is a way of showing love. Showing others we care, even when they are angry, is perhaps the nicest of all expressions of love. What new way can I show someone I care today?https://sites.google.com/site/aaa12stepccounsellingcsociety/homehttps://aaa12stepcccsociety.blogspot.com/2017/03/aaa12stepccounsellingcsociety-john_8.htmlFrom Today's Gift: Daily Meditations for Families ©1985, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation.

What problems am I lucky to have?

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What problems am I lucky to have? Edmund Vance Cooke "Oh, a trouble's a ton, or a trouble's an ounce, Or a trouble is what you make it, And it isn't the fact that you're hurt that counts, But only how you take it." Once, a woman decided to throw a problem-exchange party. As guests arrived, they shed all their personal problems and tossed them onto a pile with everyone else's. After all had discussed their own problem for others to hear, the party ended with guests selecting from the problem pile those they wished to carry away. Each person left with the same troubles he or she had brought to the party. We who worry a great deal about our problems are always sure no one else has troubles as bad as ours. Too often, we complain, "If you had my problems, you'd really hurt." Our problems are tailored to us, and geared to help us learn by solving them. No one else's would be quite right. When we cope with problems, rather than wailing about them, we discover that our own are minor irritations compared to those we see in others. What problems am I lucky to have? From Today's Gift: Daily Meditations for Families ©1985, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation.

Our own gentleness is a powerful force in our lives. kindness and gentleness prevail over violence and force.

Our own gentleness is a powerful force in our lives. kindness and gentleness prevail over violence and force. https://soundcloud.com/anne-starke-615558911/the-north-wind-and-the-sun Let the gentle bush dig its root deep and spread upward to split one boulder.Carl Sandburg There is a fable about the sun and wind having a contest to see who can get the old man to take his coat off first. The wind blows fiercely, but the old man just pulls his coat tighter around him. Finally, the wind gives up and the sun comes out. The sun shines a steady warm light down on the old man, who soon takes his coat off. More and better things are accomplished in this world by kindness and gentleness than by force. When we find ourselves most frustrated, it is often because we are trying to force certain things to happen. Our own patient and steady desire to grow, fed by the love and kindness of others, will not be stopped by anything or anyone. Our own gentleness is a powerful force in our lives. It is like the gentle bush that grows through granite. http://aaa12stepcccsociety.blogspot.ca/2017/03/aaa12stepccounsellingcsociety-john_8.html What can I gain by gentleness today? https://sites.google.com/site/aaa12stepccounsellingcsociety/home From Today's Gift: Daily Meditations for Families ©1985, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation.

We will be stronger if we do not try to hide our feelings out of fear.

I will accept others' imperfections; I do not need to be right.

I will accept others' imperfections; I do not need to be right. Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it - what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellowmen. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone. Carlos Castaneda Were we offended by someone today? Do we harbor resentment for remarks, oversights, or unpleasant mannerisms? Do we feel tense or uneasy about how someone else has treated us? We can probably make a good case to justify our reactions. Perhaps we are in the right and they are in the wrong. Yet, even if we are justified, it doesn't matter. We may be puffing ourselves up and wasting energy. When we are oversensitive, we take a self-righteous position, which leads us far from our path of spiritual awakening. Our strength is diminished. How much better it is to let go of the lightness, let go of our grandiosity, and accept the imperfections in others. We need to accept our own imperfections too. When we do, we are better men, and our strength and energy can be focused on richer goals. I will accept others' imperfections; I do not need to be right. From Touchstones: A Book of Daily Meditations for Men ©1986, 1991 by Hazelden Foundation. http://aaa12stepcccsociety.blogspot.ca/2017/03/aaa12stepccounsellingcsociety-john_8.htmlhttps://sites.google.com/site/aaa12stepccounsellingcsociety/home