Chicken Soup for the Recovering Soul Daily Inspirations (Chicken Soup for the Soul) (33 page)

Robert J. Ackerman

If you think about what you ought to do for other people, your character will take care of itself.

Woodrow Wilson

Footnotes for Life

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UGUST
3

I
believe that life wants to work out if we let it. I believe that God is in charge and that if we hold that thought and release it every time it occurs to us, good things will follow. I believe life is a gift and that it is my responsibility to work it till it works. I believe that a good attitude is worth more than money, a good heart is worth more than a high birth and that a good character is a foundation upon which at least three generations can be built. I believe in love and its power to heal, restore and reveal our next lessons. I believe in the gift of recovery in my life.

Tian Dayton

Shared joy is joy doubled. Shared sorrow is sorrow halved.

Anonymous

Footnotes for Life

A
UGUST
4

S
ome days you arise with a zestful feeling knowing a fresh new day is before you. Other days your first thought is of a problem, a fear or perhaps simply a mundane task awaiting you. Perhaps it’s a rainy day outside, or perhaps it is a rainy day in your heart. Whether you are new or old to recovery dark days will come. Just as a squirrel stores up nuts, we should fill our pantry with nuggets of hope. A favorite poem or spiritual passage can lighten your mood. Uplifting music or physical activities can get our spirits and bodies moving in a positive direction.

Joyce McDonald Hoskins

Life is just a blank slate, what matters most is what you write on it.

Christine Frankland

Footnotes for Life

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UGUST
5

L
ove is the most healing and therapeutic gift I can give myself. I don’t have to reach outside of myself to find love–it already exists within me. My parents, my friends, my lovers may not have given me the love I need, but love has never left me. It is when I don’t nurture myself that I frantically search for someone to love me. This desperation leaves me as I go inside myself, when I open the door of my heart and embrace myself in unconditional love.

Rokelle Lerner

The main source of good discipline is growing up in a loving family, being loved and learning to love in return.

Dr. Benjamin Spock

Footnotes for Life

A
UGUST
6

G
od, let me see the ways you are working in my life today. Help me be ever mindful of your presence, and grateful for all the things you send me. Let me be open to the lessons that come my way, and let me treat every person the way you would treat me.

Use my voice to speak, use my hands to do your work. Help me to see every situation through your eyes.

Kelly L. Stone

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.

St. Francis of Assisi

Footnotes for Life

A
UGUST
7

O
nce you accept that you have “no control” over others, you begin to relax and take one moment at a time. This week whenever you start to feel tension in the pit of your stomach, say to your mind, “I have no control over what they choose. They have a right to choose whatever they think they need.”

Experience the freedom from accepting what you already knew–you have no control over anyone but yourself. Have a busy week of getting on with your life rather than trying to get on with someone else’s!

Lana Fletcher

How simple it is to see that all the worry in the world cannot control the future. How simple it is to see that we can only be happy now. And that there will never be a time when it is not now.

Gerald Jampolsky

Footnotes for Life

A
UGUST
8

I
realize that taking care of myself means different things in different situations–there is no one way to do it and that is why, as a concept, it is so hard to get a hold of. To think that if I do recovery perfectly, do it all just right, I will produce stress-free relationships is magical thinking. It is a repetition of my childhood fantasy that if I just tried a little harder or understood a little better, I could make my family well. When we talk about recovery, we are talking about life and life offers no guarantees. We do what we can do and let go of the results. My real challenge in life is in expanding the interior of my own soul.

Tian Dayton

The nurse of full grown souls is solitude.

James Russell Lowell

Footnotes for Life

A
UGUST
9

I
have come to recognize that the person my resentments and grievances hurt most is me. So, if I wish to preserve my health and to enable my continuing recovery and growth, I must regularly practice forgiveness. When I do, I release those emotion-filled perceptions that otherwise will inhibit my ability to experience and express love and also will continue to color and poison my relationships and interactions with others. The benefits are enormous– immediately, a “lightness” of spirit, and over time, greater serenity and joy.