Trauma Reminders and the Urge to Drink: What a New PTSD Study Shows
A song on the radio. A smell in a hallway. An anniversary date on the calendar. For people living with trauma, a reminder can show up out of nowhere, and the feelings that come with it can be fast and heavy. For many of us in recovery, that is exactly the moment an old thought […]
Make Room for the Light!
“But first of all we shall want sunlight; nothing much can grow in the dark. Meditation is our step out into the sun.” That line from As Bill Sees It, page 10, is today’s reading in Daily Reflections, “Stepping Into the Sunlight.” Good news for a Monday: you do not need a mountaintop, a free […]
Little Ones Surround Us!
“Great occasions for serving God come seldom, but little ones surround us daily.” – St. Francis de Sales, The Wisdom of the Saints That line arrived this morning in the Dynamic Catholic Daily Reflection, and it stopped me cold. We keep waiting for the big moment, the grand gesture, the dramatic chance to prove our […]
Let Go and Let God!
“. . . praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.” – Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 96, quoted in Daily Reflections, November 7, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services (“LET GO AND LET GOD”) That short line is the whole practice in one breath. Ask for knowledge […]
Stop Fighting Your Pain!
Psychool Digest asked a question that lands hard in recovery: what happens when you stop fighting your pain? Their November 6 piece, “What happens when you stop fighting your pain”, frames pain acceptance the way psychologists often do. It is not giving up. It is making room to live anyway. That maps straight onto sober […]
Keep the Channel Open!
“One way to keep the channel open and to improve my conscious contact with God is to maintain a grateful attitude. On the days when I am grateful, good things seem to happen in my life. The instant I start cursing things in my life, however, the flow of good stops. God did not interrupt […]
Lonely No More!
“Why are people still so lonely?” That question landed in my inbox this morning from TED. It comes from the first episode of TED’s new podcast, Corner Piece, “All the lonely people”. Host Sabrina Cruz, with co-hosts Taha Khan and Melissa Fernandes, looks for the roots of her own loneliness and talks it through with […]
Thoughts Aren’t Facts!
A quiet kind of exhaustion has nothing to do with how many hours we worked. It comes from treating every thought as a fact, an emergency, or a verdict. That idea landed in my inbox this morning from Psychool Digest, in a piece titled “The quiet exhaustion of believing every single thought.” The article walks […]
Untie the Ribbons!
“Each day comes bearing its gifts. Untie the ribbons.” – Ruth Ann Schabacker That line opens today’s reading in Keep It Simple, shared in Daily Ponderables, and I love the picture it paints. Every morning a package lands on the doorstep with our name on it. Most days we step right over it on the […]
Slow Down and Listen!
Meditation is listening. Prayer and meditation in recovery start when we slow down, get quiet, and hear the whisper. Five simple ways to begin today.