Chicken Soup for the Recovering Soul Daily Inspirations

by Jack Canfield

  Brian Andreas

  Footnotes for Life

  NOVEMBER 6

  When you are in the grips of a compulsion to act on an addictive behavior, be kind to yourself; stop, breathe and, above all, remember the feeling will pass.

  Reach out to supportive friends, go for a walk or see a movie and wait; one minute, one hour, one day–until the agony and temptation pass leaving strength, determination and pride in their place.

  Lisa Jo Barr

  Be very careful, then, how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity.

  Ephesians 5:15,16 NIV

  Footnotes for Life

  NOVEMBER 7

  Everything needed for our happiness and serenity already lies within. Problem is, it’s often buried deeply beneath the lies, prejudices, chaos and traumas that we experience or are taught. Life’s challenge, your challenge, my challenge, is to avoid the search for happiness or serenity through external or chemical means. Rather, we must commit to passionately and to consciously find the kingdom of heaven within us, sifting through the debris, finding the best parts of our inner selves, finding that which connects us spiritually, and bringing that inner self to life.

  Kevin J.Holmes

  There is always a certain peace in being what one is, in being that completely.

  Ugo Betti

  Footnotes for Life

  NOVEMBER 8

  Isearch for silver linings, for the deeper meaning of events in my life. When I feel pain or confusion, when I am discouraged or hurting, I look for the hand of spirit in my life. I try to understand what I am meant to see that I am not seeing, what I am meant to hear that I am not hearing. My life is a journey and I cannot stay on my path of spiritual development if I am not willing to experience the truth of my inner world. I can grow in joy and pain. It doesn’t need to be one or the other because pain can transform into joy. It can be the fire that clears the field for new and tender growth.

  Tian Dayton

  Whatever you can do or dream you can begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.

  Goethe

  Footnotes for Life

  NOVEMBER 9

  Iwas cleaning out my files when I came across some things I had written during my darkest hours. The writing was full of pain and anger. I felt for that woman, for the horrible things she had been through. Tears rolled down my face as I looked into the black hole where I used to live. My first instinct was to throw the pages of despair into the trash, then I realized that this is what all the work had been for. Everything I had been through had allowed me to move outside the hopelessness to a place where I could recognize the light.

  Anne Tiller Slates

  The life of every man is a diary and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.

  James M. Barrie

  Footnotes for Life

  NOVEMBER 10

  Time is the currency of our lives. We get another stash of it every morning. We trade it for what we want or need, or we waste it–it’s really up to us. But one thing is for sure: we can’t save time for tomorrow. We have to use it up today. It won’t wait for us. If we do not spend it on purpose, it’ll disburse itself, one second at a time. It runs out at midnight.

  Barbara A. Croce

  Life is meant to be a celebration! It shouldn’t be necessary to set aside special times to remind us of this fact.

  Leo Buscaglia

  Footnotes for Life

  NOVEMBER 11

  Driver’s license suspended, I did what any normal person would do. I bought a horse and I rode him every night to my hangouts. Morning would find the horse out back and me in my own bed with no recollection of how we had gotten home. Years later a newcomer in the rooms told us about a young man arriving at her bar drunk on a horse. “I wonder what ever happened to that guy?” she mused. To the amusement of the rest of the group, I took the opportunity to properly introduce myself. I am often asked why I still attend meetings after so many years of sobriety. The answer: my presence might help the newcomer.

  Reverend Bob Lew

  Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  Footnotes for Life

  NOVEMBER 12

  Awinter landscape can be cold, hard and bleak. The ground is unyielding and barren, devoid of vegetation and hungry for the sun’s warming touch. There is no sign of spring, and you wonder if it will ever come. The tulips of March and the daffodils of April are nothing but a hazy dream.

  Life can feel like that. You become lonely and hardened because of attacks and defeats. You step back from relationships and avoid challenges. It is easier to isolate yourself than to be vulnerable once more. And then, out of the hard, snow-covered ground, when it is least expected, a crocus blooms.

  Ava Pennington

  Have patience with all things, but first of all with yourself.

  St. Francis de Sales

  Footnotes for Life

  NOVEMBER 13

  Iwill not insist upon perfection from myself in order to feel good. Why should each thing I do have to be excellent in my eyes, or someone else’s, in order for me to feel happy with it? The idea is that I enjoy the process, that what I do feels satisfying and interesting. Being addicted to success every time means that eventually I will dry up my own creative source because success every time is not natural. When I allow myself to enjoy and experience satisfaction with whatever I am doing, I keep the doors open for my own creative flow. When I do not accept what I do unless it’s just right, I close off my own inner flow.

  Tian Dayton

  I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper.

  Steve Martin

  Footnotes for Life

  NOVEMBER 14

  It is by experiencing something’s opposite that we come to know the thing itself. Fearful, we find faith; a victim, we become empowered. Knowing lack, we understand abundance. Being stuck, we can embrace flow. Enduring pain, we can embody joy. Because we have hated, we can know love. In flirting with insanity, we can understand clarity. Having locked ourselves in a mental prison, we can know freedom. As we peer over the ledge of death, we can truly embody life. To the exact degree that we have cut ourselves off from the divine, infinite flow of God, we can now recognize its presence.

  Jeffrey R.Anderson

  God gives every bird his worm, but he does not throw it into the nest.

  Swedish Proverb

  Footnotes for Life

  NOVEMBER 15

  What is the difference between maintaining sobriety and living a life in recovery? Staying sober often means just hanging on with white knuckles or facing the day with clenched teeth. Recovery brings heartfelt gratitude and joy to life. Both require a commitment to yourself and both are based on choices. Sobriety is a choice to avoid the negative behaviors that draw you back to the old ways of living and thinking. Recovery is a choice to incorporate positive behaviors into your life that allow you to move toward health and well-being, physically and spiritually.

  Joyce McDonald Hoskins

  Things do not change, we change.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Footnotes for Life

  NOVEMBER 16

  When you believe you’ve committed an offense, do not berate yourself or your mistake will be compounded. Instead, offer prompt amends, correct your awareness for the future and move the experience into your past. Remember, even at our very best we will never surpass being human. Accept the fact that recovery does not prevent you frommakingmistakes, itmerely provides the tools you’ll need to fix the things that need mending.

  Lisa Logan

  He who keeps his face towards the sun, will find that the shadows fall behind him.

  Native American Saying

  Footnotes for Life

  NOVEMBER 17

  Iam sorting out my relationship
s with a new awareness, with a new vision of what I desire in an intimate relationship and I am slowly making the changes necessary to get what I want. In my alcoholic home, intimacy was confused with smothering or caretaking. In my adult life, I have isolated myself for periods of time to avoid it. My notions about what it means to be close to another human being are being redefined. I’m beginning to understand that I don’t have to be responsible for someone to show my love for them, nor do I have to give up my identity in order to achieve intimacy. Allowing the ones I love to be human means I can search for happiness not perfection.

  Rokelle Lerner

  Love demands infinitely less than friendship.

  George Jean Nathan

  Footnotes for Life

  NOVEMBER 18

  It is heroic to feed a starving village and noble to give water to a thirsty man who is about to perish. Yet, when someone is obnoxious, irritating and generally unpleasant we stay away. Their chosen demeanor isolates them, deepening the loneliness that reinforces their unpleasant personality. Such a person is starving and thirsting for love, dying for the very commodity we withhold. To reach past the thorns and touch such a soul is an act of true compassion. This is what changes the world.

  Renee Hixson

  To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

  Howard Zinn

  Footnotes for Life

  NOVEMBER 19

  Iwill pay attention to the contents of my thoughts. Even when I do not give voice to them, others feel them as nonverbal messages. What I think is more powerful than I care to admit. The thoughts I think exist in living tissue and move through and beyond me. They become a part of the creative substance of life. They take a shape, they have an impact. I see myself as a traveler moving through the world knowing I am not here forever. I am here to experience where I am. I will observe my thoughts and my actions and see how they affect my life.

  Tian Dayton

  We cannot withdraw our cards from the game. Were we as silent and as mute as stories, our very passivity would be an act.

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  Footnotes for Life

  NOVEMBER 20

  Emergency room personnel transported the dirty outsider to the sterile world of the cardiac care unit. Thick, scaly, ruddy skin told a story of an abusive lifestyle, punctuated by addictive behavior to food, alcohol and drugs. As his nurse began to bathe him she prayed for the soul of a little boy grown up, rejected by life and striving for acceptance in a hostile world. She finished with warmed lotion and baby powder, such a contrast on the huge, rugged surface. As he rolled over onto his back, tears fell from beautiful brown eyes and a quivering voice whispered, “Thank you.” In this hurting world, with its concern about the appropriateness of touch, dare to touch the untouchable.

  Naomi Rhode

  When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.

  John Ruskin

  Footnotes for Life

  NOVEMBER 21

  When we are truly ready to surrender–after weeks or months or years of pining halfheartedly for that something greater than ourselves, that intangible power that has always seemed just beyond reach–we find the faith to fall into the arms of hope and love that have been there all the while.

  Candy Killion

  There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden, or even your bathtub.

  Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

  Footnotes for Life

  NOVEMBER 22

  Every so often, the enormity and complexity of my work gives me the impression that there is little I can really do to help people. I become frustrated and overwhelmed with the problems of others. And with this powerlessness, I may become controlling. As a helper, I am a catalyst. It isn’t my job to provide others with “the answers,” rather I can be a powerful change agent, providing others with opportunities to discover their own solutions. I believe in the inherent beauty and strength in all human beings, and I will not assume that I know what’s best for everyone. Instead I will model decisiveness, strength, security and inner peace that will reverberate to those around me.

  Rokelle Lerner

  The first step towards the solution of any problem is optimism.

  John Baines

  Footnotes for Life

  NOVEMBER 23

  Some things eat away at us, nibbling like mice on Swiss cheese. And, if we allow it to continue, we risk winding up as nothing more than holes. Revenge is one of those things. A canker. A corrosive. A corrupter of our souls. Entertaining thoughts of vengeance can satisfy our taste for spite, at least for the moment. But, in the end, it is, quite simply, exhausting. It prevents us from healing and moving on. How much wiser of us to recognize that the only people we need to get even with–to pay back–are those who seek only to help us.

  Carol McAdoo Rehme

  Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach.

  Ayn Rand

  Footnotes for Life

  NOVEMBER 24

  Real recovery has little to do with what the path that we walk looks like–where we live, what we drive, how much money we have–but everything to do with how we choose to walk our life path.

  It is our perspective, our attitude and our choices that transform us into who we are, that make our life experience what it is. We get to choose. Real recovery means learning to look at life in ways we never have before.

  Jeffrey R.Anderson

  Life is like an echo. We get from it what we put into it and, just like an echo, it often gives us much more.

  Boris Lauer-Leonardi

  Footnotes for Life

  NOVEMBER 25

  It is easy to confuse greatness of character with strength and brawn. Greatness of character, however, is usually best defined in the grace of inability or dependency. It is in the humbleness in asking for help without being forced through defeat to do it. Greatness of character is when you know that weakness is momentary and it ends when it seeks the strength of another.

  Michelle Gipson

  Discover something about yourself that will make you great: your weaknesses.

  Michelle Gipson

  Footnotes for Life

  NOVEMBER 26

  The bird doesn’t know he flys. He has no “faith” in his wings. What he has is a lifetime of little experiences in which, when he feels the edge of the earth disappear and sees nothing but emptiness beneath his feet, still he flys. A well-intentioned person will sometimes say to you, “Have faith.” If faith were such an accessible commodity why are we such a spiritually-hungry people? Perhaps faith emerges because we humans can look back and reflect. We see, in a lifetime of strung-together experiences–many of which would have felled a lesser soul–that we have endured. We did not endure because we had faith. We find faith because we endure.

  Nancy Burke

  Be like the bird, who halting in his flight on limb too slight, yet sings–knowing he has wings.

  Victor Hugo

  Footnotes for Life

  NOVEMBER 27

  Iexperienced blackouts in my drinking. Often I would wake up and not know where I had been, what I had said or done. I would peer through windows searching for my car. I would telephone to find out what time I had left the party and if anything had happened. Often as I bathed I would discover bruises or bleeding from an unremembered incident. There were other times I knew what I had done, knew what I had said, remembered how I behaved–and yet still I went back for more. I drank alcoholically for years because my pride would not allow me to be alcoholic. I created the wisest excuses for staying sick! Today my sobriety requires a wisdom that is based on reality.

  Father Leo Booth

  It is human nature to think wisely and act foolishly.

  Anatole France />
  Footnotes for Life