Chicken Soup for the Recovering Soul Daily Inspirations (Chicken Soup for the Soul)
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Anne Geddes
Footnotes for Life
MAY 28
My life is a symphony that I create. I can make it beautiful and soothing to the ear or strident and cacophonous. Focusing on losses and disappointments brings discordant notes into play. My soul cramps and I can no longer find the air to breathe a clear note through my instrument. When I instead turn to regard the good with a thankful heart, tragedy transforms into glory, disappointment becomes opportunity, and discord melts into harmony. The music of my life encourages listening hearts to rest and heal, even while bringing restoration to me.
Rhonda Brunea
You know, sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.
Itzhak Perlman
Footnotes for Life
MAY 29
Today is today. Today is not yesterday, crushing you with the mistakes you have made. Today is not tomorrow, which is always out of your grasp. But you can take hold of today.
You can face it. You can deal with it. You can rejoice in the gift that it is.
Unwrap this present with the awe of a five-year-old on Christmas morning. Pull off the bow, rip the wrapping paper and give thanks to him who provided you this gift today.
Sharon Siepel
Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks.
Phillips Brooks
Footnotes for Life
MAY 30
If someone had told me ten years ago that I would be living my dream, writing and painting every day, happily married and fulfilled, I would have thought they were crazy, but here I am. Sometimes life gets very hard and somewhere along the line you hit rock bottom. All you can do is stand there and look up to where the light is, wishing there were some way out. I’m living proof that life gets better and there were many times when I thought it never, never would, but tiny successes turn into larger ones.
Anne Tiller Slates
You see things; and you say “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?”
George Bernard Shaw
Footnotes for Life
MAY 31
The world seems impatient with time. Children can’t wait to grow up. Grownups wish time had not passed so quickly. Older ones wish for “the good old days.” In all of this process, no one seems to enjoy the present stage of life. Instead of living one day at a time many live in guilt from yesterday or dread of tomorrow.
Today is the time to love, laugh, encourage, smile and to cheer the faint-hearted. It’s the time to leave a good memory, to say, “I love you,” and to forgive a wrong. This very day is the day to give appreciation to someone you have long admired. Today is the time of your life!
Joan Clayton
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Footnotes for Life
JUNE 1
Wrestling with your mind weakens you. When negative thoughts grab hold of you, observe them without judgment and they will loosen their grip. To remain cheerful, learn how to cordon off areas of weakness. Once you refuse them entry into the rest of your mind, they can no longer influence you. Then you can work on them safely.
Brahma Kumaris
World Spiritual University
The secret of success lies in the balance of remaining firm in the goals you set, but flexible in the process of realizing them.
Brahma Kumaris
Footnotes for Life
JUNE 2
Laughter reveals a childlike trust that all will eventually be well. All may not seem well at the present moment. Things may not line up in as orderly a fashion as I would prefer, but believing that my Higher Power is at the helm, I can ease my heart with the healing nourishment of laughter as I set my hand to doing whatever can be done.
Rhonda Brunea
With the fearful strain that is on me day and night, if I did not laugh I should die.
Abraham Lincoln
Footnotes for Life
JUNE 3
On this new morning shed your anxiety and fears; treat this day as a new adventure. Streamline your daily routine and leave more time for you. Pace your wants and needs and let yourself be less than perfect. The major roadblock in your life has been cleared and you need to establish those new boundaries. Remember to look within yourself and revitalize your thinking. Take a moment for quiet reflection. Once you’re confident and motivated you’ll empower your survivor qualities. They were always there, but now they need to be recharged. Congratulate yourself and breathe in your tranquil state of mind.
Suzanne Baginskie
Most true happiness comes from one’s inner life. It takes reflection and contemplation and self-discipline.
William L Shirer
Footnotes for Life
JUNE 4
Ichoose not to let myself become a victim of circumstance. I refuse to let fear stop me from taking a chance. I understand time and persistence is the pathway to my goal and although I will encounter obstacles, I’ll not let go of my dream.
I know that faith in God will give me strength from within and I accept that I may sometimes need help from others. If there is a day I fall short of the finish line I’ll remind myself that I have tomorrow to make it in record time. I know that in every field, the expert was once a beginner and I recognize within myself and others the potential of being a winner!
Teri Mitchell
Have confidence that if you have done a little thing well, you can do a bigger thing well, too.
Joseph Storey
Footnotes for Life
JUNE 5
One cold icy night my life changed forever. I was sitting in the car with the motor running waiting for my son to finish a court-ordered A.A. meeting when a young woman knocked on my window. “Why don’t you come in and share a cup of coffee with us?” I climbed out and we hurried inside. The topic was detachment. I didn’t have a clue what that meant, but as I listened an overwhelming sense of belonging washed over me. I was not alone. I was not crazy. My son’s grown now and sober but I still attend Al-Anon. It’s not about him, it’s about me and sometimes I get the two mixed up and I need the wisdom to know the difference.
Carol Davis Gustke
Convincing yourself does not win the argument.
Robert Half
Footnotes for Life
JUNE 6
The gift of friendship can be hard to accept. I wonder, “Is there a string attached? What is that person’s motive?” I need to learn to be a gracious acceptor of what is offered to me. I can analyze the person, the friendship and the words. Accepting the friendship slowly and cautiously can help me begin to trust others. There are those who might attempt to take advantage of me, but I still need to take the time to examine the offer. Caution and time can be my friends.
Linda Myers-Sowell
It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.
La Rochefoucauld
Footnotes for Life
JUNE 7
Ihave grown beyond the need to prove to anyone that I am a good girl. I am not waiting to be rescued or saved. I do not require anyone’s permission to be who I am. I am learning not to experience myself as a child. The source of my approval resides within me and not at the mercy of others. I have the ability to see the normal frictions of everyday life in a realistic perspective and not translate them into evidence of rejection or of my not really being loved. Along with my autonomy, I am respecting other people’s needs to follow their own destinies, to be alone sometimes, to be preoccupied with issues not involved with me. I have matured and embrace my independence.
Rokelle Lerner
There is no failure except in no longer trying.
Elbert Hubbard
Footnotes for Life
JUNE 8
Often the appearance of something is not really that
thing at all,but rather the lackof something else. For whatisdarknessbuttheabsenceoflight?Sorrowbut the absence of joy?Hate but the absence of love? Lack but the absence of abundance? There is no lack in God. Embrace abundance.
Today I release old thoughts, patterns or habits that impede my life experience. I open, totally and completely, to a divine abundance of good in all areas of my life.
Jeffrey R.Anderson
If we share with caring and love, we will create abundance and joy for each other.
Deepak Chopra, M.D.
Footnotes for Life
JUNE 9
Cars rust. Rusting must start inside somewhere. Then it just pops out in spots through the paint. Once it starts, it goes fast, from a speck to many specks to a whole part. It’s the same with addicts. Rusty cars are hard to remember new. Their vexations blot out the memory of their charm, their accessories and even particular model year. It takes concentration to call up the original image. It’s the same with alcoholics. Old cars begin to look alike, inside and out, but they get the job done again and again. They gain respect, a place in the family, and even acceptance and understanding of frequent breakdowns. It’s the same with addicts and alcoholics.
Joseph R. Cruse
Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that it is always respected.
Samuel Johnson
Footnotes for Life
JUNE 10
Despite the miracle in my life, recovery remains a day-to-day process. It began with the supernatural power to forgive and it continues with a grateful and ever repentant heart.
Miracles do happen. Seekers do get healed. Lives can be forever changed. Recovery is not just a road, it is also a reason.
Rev.Ed Donnally
It is faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes life worth looking at.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Footnotes for Life
JUNE 11
Each day produces a fresh opportunity to make new choices. Sometimes my past throws a shadow over the present. A fresh outlook, a new attitude and the determination to cast off the old weights will brighten my path through recovery. I learn to dodge, scale and push through the barriers that block the road to success. Continually looking over my shoulder makes it difficult to avoid the stumbling blocks in my path or to recognize and embrace the new plans for my future. I look forward to tomorrow. The best part of life might be just on the horizon.
Valerie Frost
Goals give you more than a reason to get up in the morning; they are an incentive to keep you going all day.
Harvey Mackay
Footnotes for Life
JUNE 12
Natural anger is meant to protect me from harm and help me to know how I feel. In the past, I learned to stuff my own anger and I lost track of my own responses to situations because I denied my feelings before I knew I had them. Today I let myself have my angry feelings without letting them have me. I needn’t let the feeling flood me or make me feel I need to react. I let my anger inform me that something is not okay so that I can be honest with myself and with others.
Tian Dayton
He who has been angry becomes cool again.
Greek Proverb
Footnotes for Life
JUNE 13
Ibelieve the day I stopped trying to get over the loss of my mother was the day I truly began to heal. Sometimes we can’t recover the person we used to be. By accepting our new persona we acquire the ability to get on with our lives–to live with new hopes and new skills.
Elva Stoelers
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Footnotes for Life
JUNE 14
Don’t deny sorrow and pretend that it doesn’t exist. Just know that with sorrow comes hope to nurture our inner strength. Hope is healing, hope is Overcoming our problems and pain. Hope rests in the Perseverance that we portray in the face of adversity and quite simply hope is Everywhere. We hope to recover and we recover through hope . . . for sometimes hope is all we have.
Elizabeth Batt
Things never go so well that one should have no fear, and never so ill that one should have no hope.
Turkish Proverb
Footnotes for Life
JUNE 15
Our little girl lost her valiant five-month battle with a brain stem tumor only weeks before her birthday, a day which dawned fittingly with a steadily falling rain. I secluded myself. The tears and questions flowed. The answers didn’t. Suddenly the sun peeked out, brilliant rays streamed through the window. I noticed a dark-eyed junco’s nest in the porch rafters and the bird flying in “protect mode.” As the mother bird made its third descent, thinking to comfort it, I said aloud, “Don’t worry Mama Bird, your babies are safe.” Those words echoed in my heart as if God had spoken them. I cried.Only this time, the tears were tears of joy.
Loretta McCann Bjorvik
I believe that laughter is the only cure for grief, and that love is stronger than death.
Robert Fulghum
Footnotes for Life
JUNE 16
Throughout my childhood, I dreamt of a peaceful yellow room where I would sit and wait. For twenty years I thought that little yellow room was a dream, some abstract defense mechanism to protect my psyche from the horrors of childhood sexual abuse. Abuse that destroyed trust, even in God. My guarded relationship with God changed through my Twelve-Step work. I hid in that little yellow room and I now know God built it lovingly, for me. He is a carpenter after all. He took hammer and nails, some sheetrock and a bucket of yellow paint that looked and felt like cool sunshine on a summer morning and created a safe place for me to wait.
Shannon
As long as a man stands in his own way everything seems to be in his way.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Footnotes for Life
JUNE 17
At ten I was amember of a street gang, rising to the rank of leader. A series of drug and gang-related crimes led me to prison where I confronted my addictions and took an honest look at the choices I had made in my life. Functionally illiterate I reentered society through a prison-based, long-term residential drug treatment program. I have been sober for twenty years and a few years ago I received an award for “Counselor of the Year” out of eight thousand counselors in my state. My work is rewarding and I feel as if I make a difference in the lives of people I touch. No one knows the potential that lies dormant in those who cross our paths.
Benneth Lee as told to Mark Sanders
A dewy spider web, spun in silence proclaims, “I’m here by design!”
Rachel Blevins
Footnotes for Life
JUNE 18
Do not allow your ego to manipulate you into believing that your material or physical life is what matters. Always allow your spirit to decide what is important in your life. To follow the ego’s path is to be empty, although if you follow the path of the spirit you will be eternally fulfilled. Today, try to seek what your spirit desires rather than what your ego demands. This choice between the ego and the spirit is the gift of recovery.
Rick Singer
An egotist is a person who plays too big a part in his own life.
Dan Bennett
Footnotes for Life
JUNE 19
Shedding the shame of the judgments of others is like losing weight–it doesn’t all come off at once. You may put some back on before you get to where you want to be. Just like that tempting chocolate cake in the back of the fridge, some people are waiting to fill you with regret and shame all over again. When you are strong and resist accepting the judgments of others, you feel lighter, brighter, able to do so many things you weren’t doing before you lost it. It takes some work not to absorb those judgments; some exercise. And sometimes you’ve just got to clean out the fridge.
Carla Edmisten
It’s not that some people have willpower and some don’t. It’s that some people are ready to change and others are not.