From Courage to Change of Oct 1:
Suddenly I am aware of thoughts racing and crashing through my mind at an alarming speed — memories, broken promises, fears about the future, failed expectations of both myself and other people. This is a familiar chaos and one that I can now recognize. It is a signal that my life has, for the time being, become unmanageable.
At such a time, serenity is often just a phone call away. A simple acknowledgment of the chaos immediately diminishes it. I step back, step outside the madness, and all at once it washes away or scatters in all the myriad directions from which it came. The pieces of my chaos return to their proper places, where I can either leave them alone or choose to confront them one at a time.
Today’s Reminder
If problems arise today, I will try to acknowledge them — and then put a little spiritual space between my problems and myself. If I can share about them with another person, I will further diminish their power. Recognizing that my life is unmanageable is the first step toward managing it.
“When we bring things out into the light, they lose their power over us.” ~ In All Our Affairs
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I admit my life becomes unmanageable. Sometimes suddenly, like a storm tearing through my skull. Sometimes subtly, like vines choking the Core. Thoughts collide, memories accuse, fears multiply. The storm pretends it is endless. But I know better: unmanageability is not doom. It is a marker on the map. Recognition itself shifts the ground.
The lesson is plain: chaos thrives in secrecy. When I hoard it, the swirl of fear and regret mutates into false identity. But when I name it — even whisper it to myself — “My life is unmanageable now,” I puncture the illusion of control. That naming is smashing the idol of my own secrecy. Chaos scatters back into fragments. Fragments can be faced. Fragments can be conquered.
Growth does not mean erasing chaos. Growth means social containment: forcing chaos into pieces too small to dominate me. The mystical edge is how quickly the storm collapses once named. Serenity is not manufactured. Serenity is revealed. It waits behind the noise, eclipsed but patient. One phone call. One word of honesty. One pause of breath. These are not trivialities. They are sacraments of a very personal spirituality.
To drag shadow into light is to strip it of false authority. That is the beginning of my negotiation with Truth. I trust that the light is stronger than secrecy. Chaos does not need annihilation in one blow. It needs to be disarmed, piece by piece, until it cannot enforce stupidity upon me.
I risk sharing what I would rather hide because secrecy is slavery. Light dissolves its power. When I bring chaos out, I discover it was never infinite. It scatters, weakens, and yields. Serenity is not absence of storm. Serenity is the deliberate spacing between storm and soul.
Daily Reprieve 
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