An Adult Child's Job

© Tomas Stasiulaitis | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Plant seeds of expectation in your mind; cultivate thoughts that anticipate achievement. Believe in yourself as being capable of overcoming all obstacles of weaknesses. --Norman Vincent Peale


Today's affirmation adapted from  the book One Foot in Front of the Other by Tian Dayton, Ph.D.

Life is a gift and I will not devalue it with negativity.

Is this you? 
"My only job today is to have faith, to stay positive and to put one foot in front of the other. When I slip into negativity, I head down a slippery slope. I make things important  that I could just as easily release and allow to move past me. I obsess, argue with myself, and convince myself that there is something wrong in my life that needs fixing, something wrong with my relationships that makes me dissatisfied with them, or something wrong with me that  I need to hide or run from. Just for today I am going to try to live the principles of the program in all my affairs, not just in some of them. I am going to live one day at a time and surrender my resistance to change and my need to control my Higher Power. I am going to live a a clean and wholesome life and I am going to love the life I have. I am grateful for the gift of one more day for recovery."

What does it mean to be negative? Are we taking for granted this new start our recovery has brought us? Are we looking the gift horse in the mouth, as the saying goes? Are we forgetting how much it hurt, how humbling it was to get to the place we are, where we can take one day at a time?

We are supposed to want what we have. And, if we desire more (did you know 'desire' means "of God?" I just learned that the other day. Random fact.)

Anyway, are we going to continue wanting the normalcy we've been guessing at our entire lives, or are we going to allow this transition to happen and ease into 'normal.'


"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul," Emily Dickinson famously quoted. 

Hope sings to us and reminds us that we are kept warm on even the coldest loneliest and  lost days.  
There is hope that faith exists an by having faith, we have an increased sense of hope. Faith borders on knowing. And, having been in the dark for most of our lives, I'd say that's a pretty good place to be. 
Do you find it hard to have  hope?  Why?

From The Twelve Steps of Adult Children

The caterpillar is not sure it is going to be a butterfly. Each part of its death and rebirth in the cocoon must be experienced.

The story is told of a man who noticed a cocoon on a bush in his yard. As he started to remove it from the bush and throw it away, he noticed the end was opening and a butterfly was struggling to escape. In an effort to help the emerging butterfly, he took it inside and carefully cut the cocoon away with a razor blade. The butterfly feebly crawled away from the open cocoon and within a few hours, died. It needed the strength it would have gained from the struggle to free itself in order to survive in the outside world.

Nobody can do the recovery work for us, its up to us to live through pain and discovery to become stronger in the end. By working the steps, having patience and doing the work we need to do in recovery, no matter how long it takes and with understanding and realization there are set backs, we will create better lives for ourselves and we will fly. Our wings will be strong and will take us to heights we only dreamed of reaching before.We just have to trust the process.

Reminder of the Promises

Once in awhile I like to post a relevant video off you tube or somewhere. This one reviews the promises we get when when coming to Adult Children of Alcoholics or AL Anon. It has been coming up to three years since I first came home to ACA and I can say as we work the program, all of these promises are true.




HAVE FAITH, work the steps, believe your life will get better and it will.

Patience

I take great patience with my recovery....

Its all right to feel whatever I am feeling right now. I don't have to feel perfect every day.



Often in recovery, I have wondered why I don't feel good immediately. If I am working on my issues, it seems like everything should just fall into place.


I understand there is no cure or fix for being human, and changing emotions is part of the process of normal living.


Today I possess the patience and the wisdom to start from where I am and move forward. I appreciate myself and my emotions.