Chicken Soup for the Recovering Soul Daily Inspirations (Chicken Soup for the Soul) (26 page)
Read Chicken Soup for the Recovering Soul Daily Inspirations (Chicken Soup for the Soul) Online
Authors: Jack Canfield,Mark Victor Hansen,Peter Vegso,Gary Seidler,Theresa Peluso,Tian Dayton,Rokelle Lerner,Robert Ackerman
Turkish Proverb
Footnotes for Life
O
ur 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
T
hroughout 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
A
t 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
D
o 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
S
hedding 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.
James Gordon, M.D.
Footnotes for Life
W
hen things were going too well, it was time to self-destruct again. Finally close friends and my wife urged me to complete a checklist that I often used with clients during their assessment for treatment. I did it to prove everyone wrong, but even with my background as a professional I was unprepared for my memories of sexual molestation. As my past began to unravel, there were times I wanted to deny it, but everywhere I turned my memories were being confirmed for me. I am not alone as a male survivor, but if it were not for my faith in God and my wife’s faith in me, I would have given up. My life has started to make sense.
Stuart Brantley
He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils, for time is the greatest innovator.
Francis Bacon
Footnotes for Life
W
hile in the process of “coming to believe,” I realized that I had the wrong perspective about money. My money, as all things, belongs to my Higher Power. I am merely the agent responsible enough to see that it reaches its proper destination.