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Endigar 971

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on June 6, 2025 by endigar

From Courage to Change of Jul 29:

Al-Anon is a spiritual program based on no particular religion, and no religious belief is required. To those of us who have had less than wonderful experiences with religion in the past, this freedom is important. Spirituality doesn’t have to imply a particular philosophy or moral code; it simply means that there is a Power greater than ourselves upon which we can come to rely. Whether we call this a Higher Power, God, good orderly direction, Allah, the universe, or another name, it is vital to our recovery that we come to believe in a Power greater than ourselves (Step Two). Until we do, the rest of the Steps will not make much sense.

This Higher Power might be likened to the electricity that operates the lights and machinery of our recovery. It’s not necessary to understand what electricity actually is to enjoy its use – all we need to do is turn on the switch!

Today’s Reminder

I may be seeking a more loving God in who I can place my trust, or facing a challenge that puts my long-established beliefs to a test, or struggling with the very idea of a Higher Power. Whatever I believe, I can pray for greater faith today. Just that little act of willingness can work miracles.

“When I have at last realized that my problems are too big to solve by myself . . . I need not be alone with them if I am willing to accept help from a Higher Power.” ~ Al-Anon’s Twelve Steps & Twelve Traditions

END OF QUOTE—————————————

When I first walked into the recovery rooms, the mention of a “Higher Power” stirred something unsettled inside me. The wounds I carried from past religious experiences were still fresh in many places, and I didn’t want to trade one dogma for another. But the 12 Step program didn’t ask me to convert, confess, or conform. It asked only that I be willing.

Willing to believe that maybe—just maybe—I wasn’t the highest authority in my life.

The idea that I didn’t have to define my Higher Power in religious terms gave me permission to breathe again. In my darkest moments, I had already exhausted the power of self. I had been trying to fix what was broken using the very mind and habits that were shaped by the chaos. And when that stopped working—when control gave out and my answers failed me—there was space for something else.

Today, I don’t have to understand my Higher Power. I only need to use the switch—to ask, to pause, to listen, to reach beyond myself. My recovery doesn’t require theological precision. It requires honesty, openness, and a flicker of willingness.

Sometimes, I don’t even know what I’m praying to. I just know that the act of reaching outward and upward does something. It opens my clenched fists. It interrupts my spirals. It softens my self-reliance.

And maybe that’s the miracle.

Recovery has taught me that spirituality is not about arriving at certainty. It’s about showing up with humility, again and again, asking for help. And when I do that—even when my faith is the size of a mustard seed—I am not alone. That’s enough for today.

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Endigar 961 ~ The Water We Try to Hold

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 27, 2025 by endigar

From Courage to Change of Jul 20:

In the past, joy was a rare visitor to many of us. Al-Anon recovery often leads us to find it more frequently. But instead of sitting back and enjoying these pleasant moments, we tend to cling desperately to happiness, trying to freeze time and hold change at bay, as if our joy will be snatched away forever the moment our guard is down. We can become too busy avoiding change to enjoy the gifts we fear to lose. By clutching at what we most want to keep, we lose it all the more rapidly.

Change is inevitable. We can depend on that. When we become willing to accept change, we make room for a loving God. By letting go of our efforts to influence the future, we become freer to experience the present, to feel all of our feelings while they are happening, and to more fully enjoy those precious moments of joy with which we are blessed.

Today’s Reminder

Today I will try to open myself to receive the abundance God holds out to me by experiencing what is and allowing God to diced what will be.

“The harder we try to catch hold of the moment, to seize a pleasant sensation . . . , the more elusive it becomes. . .. It is like trying to clutch water in one’s hands – the harder one grips, the faster it slips through one’s fingers.” ~ Alan Watts

END OF QUOTE—————————————

Litany Against Fear ~ Frank Herbert through his work, Dune

Joy has often felt like an intruder—unexpected, fragile, and fleeting. In those days, I didn’t know how to welcome it. But recovery has shown me that joy doesn’t have to be a stranger. It can live here, with me. It can visit often. But when it does, a part of me still panics. A part of me thinks: This won’t last. Something will go wrong. I have to hold on tight, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And that’s when the grip begins. I tense. I try to freeze time. I try to control the uncontrollable—because underneath that beautiful feeling is an old fear: that if I relax, if I trust, joy will slip away like it always has.

But here’s the truth recovery teaches me gently, again and again: clutching doesn’t preserve joy—it strangles it. Like water in my palms, the more I try to keep it, the more quickly it escapes. I become so focused on protecting the gift, I forget to experience it.

Change is inevitable. Loss and gain, fear and joy, are part of the same breath. But when I soften my grip—when I allow change, allow joy, allow pain—I also make space for grace. I make room for a loving God to surprise me. Not with a perfectly controlled life, but with a deeper peace, even in the chaos.

I choose not to chase joy or hoard it. I will receive it as it comes and let it go as it must. I will trust that more is always on the way. I will be present, not because it guarantees happiness, but because it honors the truth: that this moment is sacred, and it’s enough.

Recovery isn’t about building a fortress around my joy—it’s about learning to swim in it, even as the tide shifts.

And so, I open my hands. I let both fear and joy pass over and through me.

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Endigar 960 ~ Step Three

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , on May 26, 2025 by endigar

Step Three: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”

3rd Step Principle: Our free will must be activated in trust for our Higher Power to channel Its creative life force through us. (Principles after the First Step are constructed from personal reflection and acceptance. Use my version or formulate your own.)

AA Extracted Value: Faith

ACA Extracted Values: Willingness & Accepting Help

Other Extracted Values: Spirituality

I used to think surrender meant weakness—like giving up, backing down, or losing control. But Step Three isn’t about giving up—it’s about handing over. Not in fear, but in faith. It’s the first time I truly tested the idea that something greater than me might actually want what’s best for me.

This step asked me to decide—not to fully understand, not to perfect a belief system, not even to feel spiritual, but simply to activate my free will in the direction of trust. That was enough to begin.

My will had been running the show for so long—driven by fear, ego, shame, and the desperate need to protect myself from pain. I thought I was strong because I was in charge. But what I really was… was exhausted. I wasn’t free. I was trapped in my own survival mechanisms. Step Three invited me to consider another possibility: that there might be a Life Force, a God, a Higher Power—not only bigger than me, but also kinder than I could imagine.

The principle behind this step hits home: Our free will must be activated in trust for our Higher Power to channel Its creative life force through us. That truth rearranged something inside me. My will isn’t the problem—it’s the isolation in which I tried to use it that caused the pain. Step Three offers a path where my will doesn’t have to be erased, only aligned. That means I still get to show up. I still get to choose. But now, my choices are made in partnership, not panic.

Faith is the AA value, and it’s the word that probably scared me the most when I got here. It sounded abstract, soft, maybe even naive. But in practice, faith became something simple: a willingness to keep walking even when I didn’t know the way.

In ACA, the values extracted are Willingness and Accepting Help—both of which were muscles I hadn’t used in years. Willingness meant being open to change, to guidance, to not knowing. Accepting help meant admitting I couldn’t heal alone—and trusting that help wouldn’t humiliate me. That felt revolutionary.

And Spirituality—the value that quietly hums beneath all of this—isn’t about religion or doctrine. It’s about connection. It’s about believing that my life has meaning beyond my mistakes. That there is something alive in me that’s worth protecting, nurturing, and guiding.

Step Three is a decision—a quiet but powerful one. A shift from fear to faith. From control to connection. From surviving alone to living in relationship with a Source greater than myself. I don’t always do it perfectly. But every time I choose trust over terror, even for a moment, something holy happens.

And I keep deciding. One day, one step, one surrender at a time.

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Endigar 942

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , on May 12, 2025 by endigar

From Courage to Change of Jul 03:

Normally, our group welcomes newcomers in a particular way — we share what Al-Anon has done for us, introduce our literature, and offer a few Al-Anon slogans before getting on with the meeting. No one ever took a group conscience about this procedure, it’s just the way we’ve done it for some time.

One evening, the chairperson departed from the usual procedure. I completely forgot why I was at the meeting and spent the rest of the evening worrying about the newcomers. They weren’t hearing what they were supposed to hear! Would they be all right? Would they come back?

At the very end of the meeting, one of the newcomers timidly spoke up. I was on the edge of my seat with concern until he said hew grateful he was to have hear the words the chairperson spoke, because they were exactly what he needed to hear. Once again I was reminded that God works through our groups to make sure that we all get what we need. I certainly got what I needed that night.

Today’s Reminder

I do not know what is best for other people. Today I will remember that newcomers, and everyone else, are in the hands of a Power greater than myself.

“When I stopped dwelling on how things would probably work out, I was better able to pay attention to what I was doing.” ~ Living with Sobriety

END OF QUOTE—————————————

I have a strong inner manager. It loves predictability, order, and knowing exactly how things “should” go—especially when it comes to welcoming someone into the circle of recovery. There’s a kind of comfort in ritual, in structure. It feels like safety, like assurance that the message of hope will land exactly as it’s supposed to.

But recovery isn’t a script. And healing doesn’t always arrive in the package I expect.

I am not the architect of someone else’s recovery. I don’t control the message. I don’t carry the weight of another’s transformation. I am just one part of something much bigger—a channel, a witness, a companion on the path.

God moves in ways I cannot choreograph. And when I’m trying too hard to hold the steering wheel, I miss the beauty of the journey unfolding in front of me.

Today, I’m learning to loosen my grip. To trust that a Power greater than me is always at work, even when things go off-plan. Especially then.

I don’t have to know what’s best for others. I just have to keep showing up, being present, and letting grace move where it will.

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Endigar 939

Posted in Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on May 9, 2025 by endigar

From Courage to Change of Jun 30:

While walking through the woods one day, I was surprised to hear a child’s voice. I followed the sound, trying in vain to understand the child’s words. When I spotted a boy perched on a rock, I realized why his words had made no sense: he was repeating the alphabet. ‘Why are you saying your ABCs so many times?’ I asked him. The child replied, ‘I’m saying my prayers.’ I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Prayers? All I hear is the alphabet.’ Patiently the child explained, ‘Well, I don’t know all the words, so I give God the letters. God know what I’m trying to say.'”

Years ago, when my grandmother told me this story, it meant little to me, but the spiritual life I’ve found in Al-Anon has given it new meaning. Today the story reminds me that prayer is for me, not for God, who knows what I’m going through without explanation. With prayer I say I am willing to be helped. The meaning behind my prayers comes from my heart, not from my words.

Today’s Reminder

Prayer is my most personal form of communication. I can pray by consciously thinking, writing, creating, feeling, and hoping. Whether I reach deep inside myself or turn outward toward the majesty of nature, it is the spirit of prayer rather than its form that matters. Today I will let my heart speak.

“God meets me where I am . . . If I am just willing, He will come to me.” ~ As We Understood . . .

END OF QUOTE—————————————

For me, prayer has always been complicated. Speaking words into the silence feels like tossing stones into a void and pretending they land somewhere sacred. It’s a communication that, when stripped down to just verbal language, becomes sterile—like trying to explain a dream using only math. It feels one-sided, incomplete. Honestly, it often feels fake unless I engage something more whole-brain, more musical, more alive.

I don’t always know the words either. I just know the ache behind them, the longing for connection, for alignment, for help. And maybe that’s enough. Maybe offering up the raw materials—my thoughts, my images, my scribbles, my quiet humming—is prayer enough. Maybe the divine hears me not through my vocabulary but through my willingness.

In recovery, I’ve learned that prayer isn’t performance. It isn’t persuasion. It’s participation. It’s me saying, “I’m here. I’m open. Help me.” Sometimes it looks like writing. Sometimes it’s a melody that slips out while I’m folding laundry. Sometimes it’s just me staring at a tree and letting my heart do the talking.

Today, I don’t need to have the right words. I just need to show up. To offer the alphabet of my inner life—broken letters and all—and trust that something bigger than me understands the message I can’t articulate. That’s enough.

Today I will let my heart speak.

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