The following are ideas that have helped me.

-My friend sees himself as a survivor of Pancreatic Cancer, not a victim of cancer. Perhaps I can learn to see myself as a child abuse survivor, not a victim of child abuse.

-Pain is inevitable, but misery is optional.

-In the same way as an alcoholic’s situation never improves if he drinks, my situation never improves if I blame.

-When I tried to free others from the fundamentalist religion that had so seriously wounded me, they were not grateful.

-I am beginning to consider that the religion I grew up in, was in some powerful ways, the village that raised me.

-I feel much kinder toward my parents when I am grateful for all the help that is available to me, that simply was not available to them.

-Victims victimize.

-When I could not “Get It” in my program, I realized just how very hard I needed to listen.

-Sometimes when I am not on an emotional and spiritual roll, I need to be militantly positive.

-First accept reality and then move on to the next indicated thing.

The following ideas have helped me.

-When I find I am trying to please everyone, I know I am probably pleasing no one.

-Am I willing to stay present to my short term pain for sake of long term gain?

-Anytime I have to say something that arouses one of my strong emotional feelings, it is good for me to to say it in ten words or less.

-When I am asked “How are you doing?”, I sometimes answer, “I am happy at the moment but I am subject to mood swings.”

-I never had a hope for myself when I walked into these rooms. All my hopes were for my qualifier.

-Forget St Francis. I”m tired of loving. I want to be loved.

-My name is George. If I accept the responsibility pointed at in the adage, “Let George Do It” I am also saying to myself “It is George’s fault”, if anything goes wrong.

-I am now one of the On Call people at the retirement center where I live. From the perspective of working this job, I can see that I have been the On Call person for everyone I know, most of my life. I want to keep my On Call job at the apartments where I live. However, I hereby resign, without notice, from the job of being on call to my world.

-When I came to this program I felt trapped. I felt I had to do stuff in order to get a better self image. However, in my case, I had to get a better self image in before I could get stuff done.

-In the Bible, the Old Testament system was “If I obey, I will have peace”. The New Testament system is, “Since I have been given peace with God as a free gift, I now have the power to obey”.

The following ideas have helped me.

-A test to see whether or not my idea is actually a solution: “Is it likely that my idea will lead to serenity?”

-Get off the cross, we need the wood.

-God is not primarily concerned with how often I make mistakes. However, She is deeply concerned that I know how to learn from my mistakes.

-With some people, asking the question, “How are you doing” can be an invitation to cross my boundaries.

-The idea of setting boundaries can also be expressed as teaching other people how I want to be treated.

-Boundaries are about me, not about the other person.

-I need boundaries for my myself in the areas of food consumption and self critical thinking.

-When I try to live without boundaries, I shrivel up on the inside.

-Another boundary for me is when I am tired I take a nap.

-In a family without effective boundaries, the family members tend to end arguments by a period of everyone going for the jugular.

The following ideas have helped me.

-I grew up badly overloaded with pain and shame. In self defense, I forgot most of what happened as soon as it passed.

-When I discovered I had forgotten much of my youthful life, most of my larger family would not help me remember. They badly wanted me not to remember to avoid having to remember themselves.

-Years ago, my only connection to my forgotten past was a paralyzing nausea in my belly.

-Today, I no longer have to live vicariously through my kids.

-Without self trust, intimacy and trust with my siblings was nearly impossible.

-In my family growing up, nothing was simple. All the subtle dishonesty’s made normal relationships within the family impossible.

-Either I work with my sponsor, or the committee in my head becomes my acting sponsor.

-In the old days, my idea of meditation was to sit and think about what I was going to do about everything bad that might possibly happen.

-The beginning of faith for me is believing a solution is possible.

-I catch myself being an angry parent with myself.

The following ideas have helped me.

-I use to feel like there was no one at home inside my skin. My solution to that problem was to fill my insides up with adrenaline.

-I used to constantly feel panic like the fear I feel when I am unexpectedly charged by a big dog while riding my bike.

-To find the adult, I needed to embrace the child.

-Contrary action is doing the very opposite of what my diseased impulses are trying to get me to do. Sometimes, contrary action is the clearest indication of my Higher Power’s will for my life.

-It seems to me, that the religion of my youth was designed to to empower me to take contrary action to everything Christ said and did. It is like if Jesus said go right at this junction, I was shamed into going left.

-Jesus was never anyone’s victim. He laid down His life for us all.

-Jesus never wants me to be a victim. Never.

-God does not lead me to the cross, but through the cross to the resurrection. I am learning to live my resurrection life. It is thrilling to live alive.

-When I reached my bottom, my choice was between surrender or death. Being the bright sort of guy I am, I chose surrender. If I could have thought of one more alternative to surrender, I would have taken it.

-I am not sure I can promise anyone unconditional love. I can unconditionally promise to do my part to heal our relationship, if the other person also wants healing.

The following expressions have helped me.

-You have to face fear and walk through it to discover you can survive.

-The love and acceptance in your eyes gradually chases the shame out of my heart.

-Confusing homes lead to fantasy thinking in the children of that home.

-Being in program means I no longer have to be defined by my past.

-If I have as my goal to be as much like God as possible, I may feel one of two ways. I can be overwhelmed because that goal seems excessively large. However, I can also choose to feel that the goal of being like God means that my growth possibilities are infinite. That is an exhilarating thought.

-Once I dropped the reins, things began to happen.

-I can set a boundary without explaining why I am doing it.

-I can do life.

-A fish is the last one to discover water.

-My life had been upside down so long, I felt upside down when God turned me right side up.

-This too shall pass.

The following ideas have helped me.

-The little word no is hard for me to handle. I need to be able to say no to people whose ideas are not suitable for me. I need to say no to the dream breakers in my life when they come at me with their negativity in regard to my creative energies and desires. However, I need to say Yes! Yes! to my own dreams. In that way I can learn to be a dream maker for myself and others.

- I am much better at predicting potential disaster than I am at predicting how things are going to work out, as they do always seem to.

-When I began my latest spiritual journey, a family member jokingly said, “You are a little old to be figuring out what you want to be when you grow up. I replied, “One of the hardest adjustments in life, is learning that you have no way to keep the crazy ones like me out of your family”.

-Another family member said, “If you get in trouble financially, don’t expect me to bail you out.” To which I replied, “You are afraid of being 85 and poor. I am afraid of being 85 and crazy.”

-The other two “F” words: I call believing in the love and provision of my Higher Power “Faith”. I call believing the lies that my disease tries to tell me “Fear”

-Sometimes I think it is high time to make my disease make up some new lies. I have believed the same old fibs for too many decades.

-When I was a child, the constantly changing rules and expectations I faced, confused the fun right out of my life.

-My laughter in a meeting is partly based on recognition of my story as you tell your story and partly based in the sheer joy of no longer being alone.

-The honesty I needed to learn when I began my recovery, goes beyond not lying and stealing. It is the honesty of giving up my fantasies and facing the real world

-When my eyes finally opened up to the real world’s troubles, my eyes also opened up to the love of my Higher Power. Then I was able to see her ever present love everywhere.

May 5

-I recently moved to a new apartment. During the 5 day moving process, I regained 4 pounds. I was unhappy about it, but not depressed. I think that is strong progress. I still get lots of “You look good” comments.

-I lost the 4 pounds I had regained. That reinforces the idea that it is the shame not the eating that is at the bottom of my problem. Because I did not allow food shame to inflict its powerful damage, I lost the weight comfortably, without a conscious effort.

-I have two distinct problems. The most basic is the food shame. The second problem are the eating habits I have developed in a misguided effort to deal with my eating pain. That is why diets don’t work for me. Diets only focus on the habit.

-Diets are, in fact, counter productive. Paying attention to the habits without dealing with the shame makes the shame more powerful even if it results in a temporary weight loss. The increase in shame ultimately makes the bad habits more deeply embedded.

-One of the deep shames I feel is the feeling that I can not attract a woman strongly enough to win and keep her love. I remember the moment, when I was 16, that it sunk in to me that I was not going to ever win consistant love and nurture from my Mom.

-The most telling thing about the last entry, [immediately above], is that I felt I had to win her love. The design of God for me, was that I would have her love automatically based on her own character and personality, not on my performance.

-The other aspect of my shame and healthy eating struggles, is the result of all the molestation I endured. I feel the need to not be attractive precisely because I feel I want to protect myself from attracting more molestation..