Topic of the week - Humility

[caressa]

Humility, not humiliation as so many people think it means. It is about saying, "I don't know and being willing to learn." It isn't about feeling shame and failure because you don't know. You can't know what you have never been taught. I have had some great teacher put in my path. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. My thoughts are not original, they came through others, they are what I have been given, and I pass them on with the hope that it will help others as it helped me. It is also my perception and my interruptation of what I heard, so it is my thoughts and my truth. When I do my prayer and meditation, I ask for an open mind, clarity of thought, new perception and awareness.

I was told to obtain true humility, you had to remain teachable. When I think I know it all, I know nothing. I pray that I never get to a stage in my recovery, that I think that I need to teach instead of being open to be taught or given new insight.

Every time a newcomer comes into the rooms of recovery, they teach me: 1) It isn't any better out there. 2) This disease is still cunning, baffling and powerful. 3) That all I have is today, daily reprieve for this 24 hours. 4) That I am only an arms length away from my first drink and that all I have in defense is my spiritual condition. 5) to be grateful, not only saying it but by showing it.

Step Seven says, "Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings." When I fall short of who I believe my God would have me be in today, I take things to Him, knowing that of myself, I do not have the power to change. Like when I was drinking, I could stop but I couldn't stay stopped. It was only when I went to AA, that I found that I didn't have to drink, one day at a time.

I no longer have to act out in my disease. I can take those thoughts and actions to my Higher Power. When I go to Him and ask for help, I know that I am empowered to do what I need to do for myself, just for today. I am not the power, I am not the center of my Universe, and I am not the be all, know all, to everyone else and playing God with their life and my own.

[caressa]

Reflection for the Day

"It is the privilege of wisdom to listen," Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote. If I try as hard as I can to cultivate the art of listening - uncritically and without making premature judgments - chances are great that I'll progress more rapidly in my recovery. If I try as hard as I can to listen to the feelings and thoughts expressed - rather than to the "speaker" - I may be blessed with an unexpectedly helpful idea. The essential quality of good listening is humility. Does a holier-than-thou attitude sometimes close my mind to the shared suggestions of others?

Today I Pray

May my Higher Power keep me from being "holier-than-thou" with anyone whose manner or language or opposite point of view or apparent lack of knowledge turns me off to what they are saying. May I be listening always for the voice of God, which can be heard through the speech of any one of us.

Today I Will Remember

Hear the speech, not the speaker.

You are reading from the book:

A Day at a Time (Softcover) by Anonymous - Jan. 26, 2009

When I am open to listening for the good orderly direction in my life, then I become aware of those special gifts that are there, that prior to recovery I wouldn't have even noticed, let alone know they were even there for the taking.

Humility for me, is being able to listen to other ideas other than my own. Doesn't mean I will always agree with them, but it is about being open to receiving the message and not shutting down when it comes to something I don't totally believe in.

Humiliation kept me from allowing myself to become vulnerable. Humility allows me to be vulnerable and open to new things.

Attachments: