Comments on “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.”

-I do not have an acceptance switch I can flip when I am struggling. For me, meetings, my sponsor, and phone calls are the tools that most often restore my serenity

-Serenity is never thought up or worked up. It is always granted by my Higher Power as a gift.

-Among the things I need to accept is my own acceptance by my Higher Power and by those I love.

-Acceptance is not a commandant of my program. Instead, it is a very wise and kind suggestion. It is not anything to fear, it is a wonder to anticipate.

-If God can use the murder of Her innocent son Jesus, to bring salvation to the entire world, She can certainly make any unhappiness I surrender to Her, work to my great advantage.

-Among the things I can not change and therefore must accept, are my character defects. When the gift of serenity allows me to accept my defects, I become quiet enough to hear Spirit whisper the life giving truth in my deep ear. Only then can I receive the healing I so desperately want.

-Serenity allows me to believe that I am making progress when my disease is trying to make me feel stuck.

-Before program, I didn’t even know enough about serenity, to realize I didn’t have it.

-I was surprised to find out that serenity would allow my life to overflow with powerful, exhilarating passion.

-The price I pay for insisting on my right to hang onto my resentments is the loss of the possibility of serenity.

The following ideas have helped me.

-Back then, things looked good, but they were actually bad.

-I was so empty on the inside that the winds of life howled within  me.

-As the facts change, I change my mind.

-Instead of setting my own boundaries, I set other people’s boundaries in an effort to make my self feel safe.” If I do this they will [will not] accept me.”

-In this culture of materialism, individualism, prejudice, and judgmentalism, it seems possible to me that virtually the entire population needs recovery.

-When I make a growth step, it is important for me to communicate it, so that others can share my joy.

-Shame only involves my feelings. Guilt is not a feeling. It is my culpability.

-Shame has to do with who I am; guilt has to do with what I do.

-The saying “Sticks and Stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” is staggeringly in error.

-My co-dependence included helping my Higher Power out when it seemed to me She wasn’t getting things done I thought needed done.

-There is so very much to be enjoyed in today if I am not focused on yesterday and tomorrow.

The following ideas have helped me.

-Before my program, I had friends who were really acquaintances and acquaintances that turned out to be enemies.

-Sometimes I are so caught in who is right and who is wrong that I forget what is right and what is wrong.

-My relational assumption, used to be that you are out to use me.

-I will never be able to think my way through my obsessions

-Am I willing to protect my rights at the expense of my serenity?

-Give me a rut and I will move in and furnish it.

-I am so caught up in discovery, that I no longer need to predict the future.

-I was raised to trust everyone, unless of course they were male or female.

-Unconditional love sometimes seems beyond my capability, but reciprocal love is mine to enjoy.

-Experience is what I gain when my Higher power’s answer is no.

The following ideas have helped me.

-I find that the joy of my life depends upon the quality of my thinking.

-The trouble with my being a bullshitter is that I am strongly tempted to believe my own stuff.

-The dirtiest thing I have ever done is hanging on to my prejudices.

-If I am terrified into doubting my own worth and ability because of my perfectionism, I am finished even before ai start working.

-No one that is unwilling to work can succeed at any task. That includes spiritual, recovery, manual, relational and emotional tasks.

-Like a soldiers parachute, counting to ten before I act helps ensure an a well timed opening.

-None is allowed to know what might have been. Anyone can know what might be.

-Serenity is a gift not wages.

The following ideas have helped me.

-My people pleasing, is a classic example of a character asset becoming a character defect when it is not managed. It is an asset that I know how to please people. Also, program people pleasing me has taught me that I am loved. For me, pleasing people only becomes a defect when I please people by throwing myself under the bus.

-Whether my action is good, bad or indifferent, my Higher Power’s question is always, “Given what just happened, what is the most loving action I can take.” Her question is never “What punishment should I dish out?”

-I use to need to earn love by performance because I thought I could keep my supply of love flowing as long as I kept doing exactly the right thing. If my supply of love was freely given, I seemed to have no control. Instead, I had to trust that God and the people upon which I depended, would keep on loving me.

-Making nice all the time is a character defect.

-It turns out, that when I try to avoid criticism, I am actually inviting criticism.

-Anyone looks good next to an alcoholic.

-Above the clouds of my diseased thinking, it is always a very nice day.

-Every new beginning is preceded by an ending.

-I am glad I called my sponsor because I thought I had some very good ideas.

-I used to feel that I was only worthy of comfort when I was all strung out.

The following ideas have helped me.

-Too frequently, when my Higher Power calls, She gets a busy signal.

-When I am in my disease, in my brain I am a world class channel changer .

-My sick thinking leads me to a point where practice makes perfectionism, so sometimes, practice makes permanent.

-I want to learn to parent myself like I wish I had parented my daughters.

-In a very meaningful way, my recovery group is raising me.

-Since I understand that all people of all times are children of God, the idea of being born again is not speaking of salvation to me.. Instead, When I finally surrender my life to the care of my Higher power She begins to raise me the way She wishes I had been raised the first time.

-A broken heart is a call to come home for comfort.

-Being always right is not an easy job. If I always need to be right, it becomes necessary for me to find people who are wrong.

-When I quit being a people pleaser, people were not pleased.

The following ideas have helped me.

-In my days as a leader of a religious non profit, I needed to be self righteous in order to hold onto my job.

-When I tried to do recovery without a program, I failed. That was because I was operating within my lonerism.

-I do not have to manipulate my Higher Power into blessing me. The truth is, if I open my heart even a 1/32 of an inch, She tries to quickly jam a few blessing through before the door closes again and She misses her chance.

-Before I blame God for all the starving people in the world, I should thank Her for my lunch. If I want to blame God for the hungry people, I should thank Her for all of us who have daily food.

-If this life is a veil of tears, what wonder awaits me after I have passed through the veil?

-In the New Testament view of things, God never leads me to the cross. Instead, She leads me through the cross to the Resurrection.

-When I was growing up, the fact that very heavy adult responsibilities were dropped in my lap, did not mean that I was mature. Instead it meant that I was being denied my only opportunity to be a child.

-I did not understand that I was full of murderous rage before program. I thought, ” I am not angry. I only keep exploding because I am surrounded by jerks. If I could get rid of the jerks, all my anger would disappear.

-I remember Sybil as a woman tortured by multiple personalities. Sometimes i is like I am thinking of my Higher Power as Sybil.

-Part of the reason I loved serving on skidrow was that in that cultural setting, I did not necessarily feel inferior to every other person.

The following ideas have helped me.

-Every morning, I need to get God in my head before I go there.

-It is Sunday Aug 10, 2008 at 8:50 AM. If my misery is because of you, I can not get well till you get well. If my misery is the result of my own attitudes, I can start getting better at 8:51AM, Sunday August 10, 2008.

-The first word of The Twelve Steps is “We”. That tells me that recovery is best done in as a part of a community. As long as I saw my recovery as a cerebral problem, not a relationship problem, I could not get better.

-It is quite possible for me to love someone to death; my death as well as theirs.

-My parents are not my problem. They have been dead for decades. My problem is that I have made their destructive behaviors toward me when I was a boy, a part of my attitudes and and behaviors toward myself today.

-My people pleasing is a classic example of a character asset becoming a character defect when it is not managed. It is an asset that I know how to please people. Tons of people in the program have pleased me over the last thirteen years in 12 Step. Program people pleasing me has taught me that I am loved. For me, pleasing people only becomes a defect when I please people by throwing myself under the bus.

-Whether my decision is good, bad or indifferent, My Higher Power’s question is always, “Given what just happened, what is the most loving action I can take.” Her question is never “What punishment should I dish out?”

-Some of the most beautiful words I have ever heard were, “May I take you to a meeting?”

-At the first AA meeting I ever attended I said, “This meeting is more like church than church”

-Before program I thought that feeling better than other people was being spiritual.

A sign on the wall at in a room dedicated to Twelve Step programs reads:” Vulgarity is not a sign of spiritual maturity.”

-I use to need to earn love by performance because I thought I could keep my supply of love flowing as long as I kept doing exactly the right thing. If my supply of love was freely given, I was not in control. Instead, I had to trust that God and the people upon which I depended, would keep on loving me.