“We discover that we receive guidance for our lives to just about the extent that we stop making demands upon God to give to us on order and on our terms.”

In praying, we ask simply that throughout the day God place in us the best understanding of His will that we can have for that day, and that we be given the grace by which to carry it out.

There is a direct linkage among self-evaluation, meditation and prayer. Taken separately, these practices can bring much relief and benefit. But when they are logically related and interwoven, the result is an  unshakeable foundation in life.”

As Bill Sees it. Page 33.

A Higher Thought just for today

“Strangely, I feel as if I have been incredibly lucky. Logically, I don’t believe in luck. I believe that people make their own lives what they are, but still feel so lucky to have been involved in a group which gave me the opportunity, and incentive, to start to make changes in my life. To understand why I am so angry, why I have been  so self-critical and self-destructing. Understanding why you feel as you do opens the gate for the even harder struggle of changing what you do.” (7)

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

Making changes is part of making a life. If I choose to stay mired in the deep pit of depression, I can choose that. I have this as an option. But, if I want to choose and risk changing myself, I have the option of working to construct a different way of looking at my world. Just by changing my attitude about my life and the direction where I want it to go. I can make the hard changes. I want to change my attitude. I will now want to listen to those who have been in recovery for months/and or years and listen to their hopeful attitudes and how they are feeling better now that they are living one day at a time, and no longer fearful that their old nemesis, the sadness, will sneak up and change everything back to the way it was.

I can only change myself. I will try always and keep the focus on how I need to change, not how others around me need to change..

 MEDITATION

God, we are always heartened and healed by the group. Please guide us and let us be led to that healing community of those persons who are struggling to find the serenity that you promise to those who do your will. “Fear not, for I am always with you.”

SOURCE: Copyright(c) Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for all members of 12 Step fellowship groups. (1993, 1999) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 43. February 27.

Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith, MD are my Super Heroes. No, they are not the fantasy figurines so popular these days with our children and grandchildren. Nor are they  the plastic bobbleheads we find in the toy stores.

Bill Wilson, was a Wall Street  stockbroker who since his sobriety day, began to  make investments in peoples lives that had become shattered by alcohol.    Dr. Bob Smith, hearing Bill’s story,  joined him. Bob was  a physician who himself personally   saw the ravages that alcohol did to other human beings, including himself and family.

Together, these two men brought men and women together  as mutual partners in helping to keep each other sober, by what was to be called the Alcoholics Anonymous program of recovery. It was this mutual aid for other alcoholics who were  till suffering  from addiction to alcohol who heard Bill and Bob’s stories of recovery, plus the many other recovering alcoholics  and  who made their stories their own.

Our one-time stockbroker and physician  have given us all, and thousands more around the world, a story about struggle,  where one recovering addict, who by  sharing their own story of recovery, give strength,  hope, sobriety to another human being, one at a time.

“To share your story is to save your life.”

Become a Super Hero your self. Share your story.  Join with Bill W., and Dr. Bob S.,  and become the hero others are looking to for help.

Hugh

Yesterday I was clever,

so I wanted to change the world.

Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

Rumi -13th century Muslim Sufi

“Those of us who cope with life have put up some barriers, have made some disconnections but maintained many connections.  Those people who became depressed have disconnected themselves completely, and the barriers they have built are the walls of the prison of depression.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

One of the many good connections that arise in taking charge of my life again is the many fine people that I meet at meetings. When I am depressed, it is true I tend to disconnect and withdraw away from family and friends. But, my admiration is for those who come to the meetings of the fellowship and who successfully connect with other members who are there trying to get better.

Now, since I have groups that meet specifically with the needs of the depressed people in mind, I am hopeful that these new connections with others can provide me with diverse ways to escape depression.”

MEDITATION

We are all connected in the life force which  we call creation.  This life course we call God.  No matter what many cultures have called this force, we all know it is the source of all life. Right now, we want to ask God, as we understand God to help us start anew, connect with others who can help us grow, so we can begin to live with hope. (Personal comments).

_______________________________________________________________

SOURCES:  Higher Thoughts for Down Days: 365 Daily Thoughts and Meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship  groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed  Anonymous Publications. Louisvlle

Promise # 12 of Depressed Anonymous tells us that: We would suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Pages 51-53.

“Before we discovered  the program of Depressed Anonymous we were convinced that the only chance that we had to get better was to wait while the drugs kicked in and then everything would be alright. But now we are certain that our ability to get well is based on how much we develop the belief that we can choose how we feel and think.  Indeed, we are now convinced that we can either sad ourselves or choose not to sad ourselves. The community and common bonds of the Depressed Anonymous fellowship produce a feeling that as other members of the group are recovering so can I.

We must be willing to let go of all thoughts that tell us that we will never get  well. These are the same thoughts that have imprisoned us over the years. We now listen to the God of our understanding and proceed with the belief that what we hold about the world on the outside of us is determined and governed by the world that is lived within us.

We are in a brand new way, on a new path, and find ourselves committed to a fresh belief that something powerful is starting to blossom within me. A peace that surpasses all understanding is beginning to be born as we learn to relax and wait and listen for that still small voice.  We let go, we surrender, we relax and let it speak.  We pray that the God of our understanding make a way out of this desert of misery just as it has already created a way for those of us who live in the fellowship. Our thoughts move inside us with light and peace.”

———————————————

SOURCE:  I’ll do it when I feel better. (2015) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Pages 51-53

So far today, God, I’ve done  all right.

I haven’t gossiped,

I haven’t lost my temper.

I haven’t been grumpy,

nasty or selfish.

I’m really glad of that.

But in a few minutes,

God, I’m going to get out of bed, and from then on,

I’m probably going to

need a lot of help.

_____________________

Sounds good to me!

 What the Heart of the Young Man said to the Psalmist

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to -morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no future, howe’er  pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, – act in the living present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

TO THE READER : Comment on the poem.

The above poem, penned by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, appeared in POETRY FOUNDATION.  I found this poem to be an appropriate encouragement for any of us who are or were feeling hopeless and helpless. Indeed, as the poet believes, we all can make our lives sublime. “Let us, then, be up and doing…”

Hugh

I can make it as long as I know that my life is supposed to have some ups and downs.

“You might now be feeling better for the first time in your life as you continue to make a conscious effort to take responsibility for your sadness.”

CLARIFICATION OF THOUGHT

One of the hopeful sights to see at a Twelve Step meeting is that the people who work their program and who are serious about leaving their depression behind,  start to not only look more content with themselves, their world and their future, but they also seem to be enjoying life once again.

Teresa told me that her Doctor never once said she was depressed after her physical exam and it wasn’t until she got involved in therapy with me did she learn that what she had been feeling for months before was depression. She was relived to  know that she wasn’t losing her mind but only that she was experiencing the excruciating sadness that we all create when we get depressed.

She will feel better when she learns that it’s her life and the way she chooses to interpret what happens to her is also her choice. Misery is an option and if she want to go for that she may, but if she wants to live with some unpredictability  in her life, then she needs to get ready for some bumps in the road –but also she needs to be prepared to smile, laugh and know that her life can be filled with hope.

MEDITATION

God, please give us the wisdom to know that you want us to enjoy this life while we are here. We want to enjoy it, so let us seek to want to be in your will. We can make it.

SOURCE:  Copyright (c) Higher thoughts for down days: 365 daily thoughts and meditations for members of 12 Step fellowship groups. Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. January 27. Pages 20-21.

The following  article is one of the items which make up the Depressed Anonymous “toolkit.”

“Jim, as a member of our Depressed Anonymous Fellowship, learned that he needed more “SUNSPOTS” to bask himself in. These “SUNSPOTS” are meditation times where we can focus on all those pleasurable events, people, places or things that can make us feel happy.  The trouble with most of us when we are depressed is that our whole life seems  to go into a deep pit with  its eighty foot hole  and an eight foot ladder.

One good way to escape from this prison is to get with a group of people who by joining each other’s section of ladder, will all eventually get to the top and out of this deep dark hole that we call depression. Think upon these small  “SUNSPOTS” throughout the day and know that you are gradually coming into the light of a new day. Prepare a list of memories which at one time in your life were the cause of some joy and pleasure:  try to recreate that activity in your imagination as often as you can. At first, all you might be able to do is just make a mental decision to do it,  though at the time you don’t feel any particular pleasant emotion.  Keep at it and with the continued encouragement of the group, you will be able to recapture a little joy and peace. You will begin to have more mastery over your life  and the world: this in itself can lower your feelings of sadness. When you have a negative image or thought which produces an unpleasant feeling, replace it immediately with three positive and pleasant thoughts or mental images. In Depressed Anonymous we call this THE LAW OF THE THREES.” One negative thought is immediately replaced by three pleasant thoughts and or memories.

SOURCE: Copyright(c) Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition. (2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.

COMMENT  At times we find that our thoughts become cyclical.  As we continue the rumination process we  complete the circle where we end up where we started. Many of us see this  compulsive thinking  behavior as a deciding activity affecting us physically and emotionally.  The unending worry, fear, gradually wears  us down, much  like the grit of the grinding wheel. So, when we STOP our negative thoughts we can  cut off the resulting emotional residue which follows and continues to numb and  immobilize   us.

Hugh