Chicken Soup for the Recovering Soul Daily Inspirations (Chicken Soup for the Soul)
Page 7
Michael Faraday
Footnotes for Life
MAY 5
If you want to change your behavior, focus on the thinking which causes it. Thoughts are like seeds. From them grow your attitudes and, in turn, your actions.
When you build a house, every brick counts. When you build character, every thought counts. So think constructively.
Brahma Kumaris
World Spiritual University
It is because you are determined, not flawless, that you attain perfection.
Brahma Kumaris
Footnotes for Life
MAY 6
Another rainy day–and I was so hoping for some bright sunshine. At first I feel disappointed, but then I begin to realize how comfy and cozy I feel inside my home curled up in a throw with a good book. I listen to the soft patter of drops outside my window, and I think I can feel the Earth soaking up and drinking in the nourishing rain. I imagine seeing the roots of my perennials and vegetables; fat and juicy from the moisture they are taking in. I think about how relaxed and refreshed I now feel, having been gifted with a day of repose. What joy–another rainy day.
Anne Conner
You have to accept whatever comes, and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Footnotes for Life
MAY 7
My mother had a stroke that left her struggling to talk, walk and swallow. She had no trouble hearing. We spoke of love. We told her our secrets. Then, one night, we put Mom in a wheelchair and took her to church for a service for the sick. The place was packed. “Raise your hand,” said the priest, “if you think your illness is a punishment from God.” I watched in disbelief as my good mother slowly lifted her hand just inches off her lap. That’s when I learned that healing begins in the heart. In time, Mom walked and talked again. Trust God with your secrets.
Mary Lee Moynan
True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.
Charles Caleb Colton
Footnotes for Life
MAY 8
Iwas a freshman in college, three hours from home and not one face at the meeting looked familiar. During a lecture the mention of “Al-Anon” had caught my attention. That was a new one on me. No harm in checking it out–for clinical research reasons, of course.
I looked for a seat way in the back and began having second thoughts when someone touched my arm. “Please, join us.” I didn’t know what to do, or if I belonged there. I felt eyes searching, looking for clues, trying to uncover my secrets, my memory. In a moment of true clarity, as I tried desperately to come up with an excuse for leaving, the woman simply said, “It’s okay–we know.”
Patricia Holdsworth
Love wholeheartedly, be surprised, give thanks and praise– then you will discover the fullness of your life.
Brother David Steindl-Rast
Footnotes for Life
MAY 9
There is a great deal of power in humility. Sometimes that power is useful for your own protection. Sometimes it is useful in the protection of others. The power of humility allows you to see the benefit in everything, even the criticisms of others. It enables you to say, “Maybe there’s something for me to learn here. Someone is saying this to me, there must be something to it.” Your own self-respect works to keep you steady, no matter what comes your way.
Brahma Kumaris
World Spiritual University
Dive deeply into life’s mysteries, and fly high above life’s challenges, all the while keeping your feet firmly on the ground.
Brahma Kumaris
Footnotes for Life
MAY 10
This morning I wake up looking forward to what I can accomplish. I have chosen my path and I will concentrate on positive goals; the power of ambition and embracing change. I will embody positive transformation and revel in every step I take in the process of becoming who I want to be, moving forward with determination toward my future.
Stacey Chillemi
Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
C. Archie Danielson
Footnotes for Life
MAY 11
It may be impossible to capture life in all of its beauty, splendor and glory. Yet, by catching even bits and pieces of those significant moments, we are endowed with the wonderful opportunity to relive them, to savor them once more. And then we realize life is truly beautiful.
Maria Isabel A.Arellano
Some people have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy.
A.H. Maslow
Footnotes for Life
MAY 12
Iwas used to living with insanity. Living with an alcoholic parent prepared me for survival. I learned to enter into destructive relationships and then to wait for the craziness to end. I learned to see a person not for who they are, but for whom they might become . . . if only. I now know I must protect myself emotionally. It’s not safe to place my psyche in the hands of an insane person. I was not put on this Earth to be abused emotionally or physically. I cannot wait for permission to get help or leave an abusive relationship. I cannot wait for overwhelming approval from others for my choices. My life is my own and I must make decisions in my own best interest.
Rokelle Lerner
I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.
Sigmund Freud
Footnotes for Life
MAY 13
Leave the whispers of the tempter. Today, the strength to walk away is within reach. The taste still charms, but the enemy lives there. An image of new life clings to the mirror. The sweetness of sin turns to bitter memory. Once held captive by cravings, release comes through prayer. Life’s path was steep, but now grows level. Peace replaces the agony of physical yearnings. A fortress shields me from the tempter. Tomorrow, fill my heart with more prayers to protect me.
Ann Coogler
Trials, temptations, disappointments–all these are helps instead of hindrances, if one uses them rightly.
James Buckham
Footnotes for Life
MAY 14
Ican think of no burden that can be heavier upon the shoulders and conscience of someone than the wreckage of one’s past, left untended.
The Steps give us the tools to relieve ourselves of that burden, clean up the wreckage and live happy, joyous and free with the freedom, excitement and wonder of a child once again.
Jeffrey R.Anderson
Pain nourishes courage. You can’t be brave if you’ve only had wonderful things happen to you.
Mary Tyler Moore
Footnotes for Life
MAY 15
Astudy of people living over one-hundred years included their secret of happy living. They awakened each day being grateful for another day of life, stating life was too short to hold grudges or spend time complaining. Every day presents an opportunity to be happy. Joy is obtained by making others happy. All it takes is a little act of kindness . . . a note, a smile, an encouraging word, a pat on the back and a loving heart.
We can learn a lot from these centenarians. The gift of life is priceless.
Joan Clayton
Being happy today takes care of tomorrow!
Joan Clayton
Footnotes for Life
MAY 16
Hardships sensitize us to the everyday parts of life. When we have been stripped bare by the happenings of a dark season, the simple fragrance of lilac on a spring evening, the smile of a stranger, or even the pleasure of crunching a carrot can wrap themselves around us like a hug.
These ordinary events are like a cool drink of water in a parched land; we can take them in and allow them to flood the dry places in us.
Barbara A. Croce
Take the most difficult challenge you are now facing and turn it in
to the greatest opportunity to grow simply by changing how you see it. Dead ends then become turning points.
Bob Perks
Footnotes for Life
MAY 17
When I get a very strong intuitive message, I will listen to it. I may not be right but I will not discount the feeling or the impulse, knowing that intuition plays an important part in my life. My intuition is real. It is a combination of feelings and instincts that help me to navigate this world. I will not silence that quiet inner voice with “shoulds” today. Living true to my insides is more comfortable for me than working around them. Intuition is real. It is there to guide me.
Tian Dayton
Lead me from the unreal to the real. Lead me from darkness to light. Lead me from death to immortality.
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
Footnotes for Life
MAY 18
Life is full of choices that we make with great and little thought. Whatever the case, you should look back on the moment without regret. Regret is empty and futile and brings with it stagnation. Instead look forward with wishes. Wishes of another opportunity to make another choice with the memory of the lesson learned from that outcome.
Michelle Gipson
I have no regrets, only many, many wishes!
Michelle Gipson
Footnotes for Life
MAY 19
Irun the risk of getting burned out when I give wholly to others that which I need myself. When I see to it that my own needs are met, I am not tempted to fill my unmet needs in ways that harm others and myself. I seek nurturing support from my friends and my Higher Power and take time to relax and unwind. I understand that if I fail to support myself I become exhausted, lethargic and angry, helping no one at all. Attending to my own needs before I help someone else is an act of love.
Rokelle Lerner
Hope is faith in the me yet to be.
Treatment Counselor
Footnotes for Life
MAY 20
We never knew each other, let alone had a relationship as sisters. She was the first daughter of my dad, but we had different mothers. Our father had fallen in love with one of his students, a girl fifteen years his junior. He left his wife and young daughter and married the student, who became my mother. We had lived separate lives, become women, wives and mothers, coming together as our father lay dying. I was impressed with her courage and her talents and I admired her forgiving spirit toward a father who had abandoned her. We heal because of the pain we share and in doing so, refuse to repeat the mistakes of our parents.
Miriam Hill
You can’t shake hands with a clenched fist.
Indira Gandhi
Footnotes for Life
MAY 21
Life is like soup. The same ingredients will taste differently tomorrow than today and the process is quite different experienced alone, or with another.
Two people can use the same recipe; yet end up with a different flavor and every person will have a unique experience of the same ingredients.
You don’t have to know what is in it to like it and of course, there is no one right way to do it.
Creating it with love makes all the difference.
Jeffrey R.Anderson
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Footnotes for Life
MAY 22
Someone once asked me how to pray. I think prayer is a bit like sex. It’s what happens between consenting people. So here’s how it works for me. I talk. God listens. So you might ask “How do you know God listens?” That’s the tricky part. One time, I turned a picture on its side and decided that if God’s answer to my plea was “yes” then in the morning, the picture would be straight. Well that didn’t work. But strangely enough, God’s answer was yes. Twenty-four hours later, I met the man I would marry. At our wedding,my best friend gave us a plaque “God gives the best to those who leave the choice to him.”
Mary Lee Moynan
When you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.
Victor Hugo
Footnotes for Life
MAY 23
My friend was showing me his early spring vegetable garden and he said, “And here is where the kale is coming up.” I looked down and all I saw was dry dirt. “You mean, where the kale will soon come up?” “No, look,” he said, “It’s up already.” I squatted down to look more closely and still only saw small stones and dusty soil. “Look,” he said, “Right here.” And there they were, as clear as bright green seedlings against dark, sandy soil. Suddenly, I could see fifty of them all in a row where I had seen nothing moments before. Sometimes, we need another pair of eyes to help us see what’s right in front of us.
Anne Conner
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.
Melody Beattie
Footnotes for Life
MAY 24
His brief but tormented young life was punctuated by recurring visits to the ER for treatment of unexplained, questionable injuries too numerous to count. The responsible adults who were supposed to be providing love couldn’t control their own anger, impulses and frustrations. He shouldn’t have been allowed to slip through the cracks, but in this imperfect world, he did. The battered, wounded youngster experienced moments of comfort and safety as he passed into the next life surrounded by the love that he so desperately needed and deserved in this life. Be a source of love and comfort to someone every day.
Laura Hayes Lagana
The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.
Mother Teresa
Footnotes for Life
MAY 25
Iwas the daughter with “so much potential” as my mother used to say. I used the potential to hide my drug habit, living a lie, dreading the day anyone discovered my awful secret. That was over seven years ago. My family’s love and encouragement never wavered and today I am fully enmeshed in my family. I belong. I have a wonderful job, and I’m active in my church and community. My relationship with my fourteen-year-old son is incredible. I am there to guide him, love him and to be a light in his world. So, once again my mom was right . . . I do have potential. And every day in my recovery, I live it.
TraceyW. Lee
If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.
Catherine Aird
Footnotes for Life
MAY 26
The words “Here I go again” indicate tears are on the way when I talk about something near and dear to my heart; like helping a youth from a broken home. For years I didn’t express deep-seated emotional thoughts to avoid the pain and embarrassment of losing control, of crying. Finally I realized the benefit of expressing my true feelings. I changed.
Now I cry from strength and courage, not from weakness and fright. Now I express my deep thoughts. If I cry, others hopefully will see the value in my tears. Just maybe they will see the value in their tears also.
George H.Moffett
The more often a man feels without acting, the less he’ll be able to act. And in the long run, the less he’ll be able to feel.
C.S. Lewis
Footnotes for Life
MAY 27
When Faith announced, “I have chosen the song for the father and daughter dance at my wedding,” Mina was shocked. Faith’s father was disabled and dependent on his scooter, but Faith was insistent they would have this dance. The night of the wedding the band began to play Faith’s song as Mina prayed for a miracle. Faith hugged her dad and grasped the handles of his scooter. They slowly circled the floor; mindless of the teary-eyed crowd. A determined Faith fulfilled her dream and Mina learned a valuable lesson. Nothing is impossible if one is committed to her dream.
Myrna Beth Lambert
Any man can be a father but it takes someone special to be a dad.