Respect Your Limits

Just claiming my seat. Feeling a little calmer, able to meditate about 3 respirations at a time, respecting & surrendering expectations that are products of a busy, tired mind. Staying in the moment 'uz the rest is too overwhelming. A change is a change is a change.

Night, night.

Four Routes?

My friend, Denise grabbed me a daily reader at the Episcopalian Church and I have thought to read it every couple days. Last night I read the entry for 2/19 and a feeling of well being and relief poured over me. Yesterday was the kind of day where my boss asked how it was going and I burst into tears, the kind of day where we strategized how I can NOT have to work every Saturday including the five days ahead of it.

Here's what I read . . . Philippians 4:1-9. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made know to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing . . . if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Anxiety (the reader goes on, written 1946) is a kind of fear--not of God, but of the unknown future. It is unreality. We draw the unreal future into the present and proceed to stab ourselves with it.

Keep it in the moment and focus on gratitude, where have I heard that before?? Labeling my problem as anxiety makes all the sense in the world to me, a sick mind cannot heal a sick mind and I cannot come up with solutions myself, I need the wisdom of others, always. And that's what's good about today.

Another Missed Meeting

Was supposed to lead tonight an hour away, would have left me a whole 10" after work to have supper with my mom and relax after another overfilled day at work. Called the other members to apologize but only reached voicemails. Maybe I'll leave home early enough tomorrow to drop in on the open AA morning meeting.

I need to play but I'm tired, I've settled into a plod, all things happen for a reason and there is no sense in beating myself up about it as in 'I should be doing better'. My problems are 'champagne problems', the imaginings of a tired brain. The lips are saying the words but the heart beats slow and heavy.

What's good about today is that I held my temper and my tongue.

Checking In

I am still influx . . . in a hurry . . .overscheduled . . . calm at times . . . 3 wks of birthdays=self, son, mother . . . loving often . . . failing more often . . . communion . . . meditation . . . and sometimes sleep . . . reading often . . . writing seldom . . . winter masquerading as spring.

Can I Picture Me

Episcopalian? Friends met me at the church and I am grateful for that support. For the first time in my life I accepted communion. Like most things that I enjoy, I want it to happen again and again, next Sunday is too far away.


I am straddling two lives, a growing awareness that I am moving away from what I have established. A good but disturbing feeling, I do not want to draw back into familiarity and stand on the dock anymore. My writing is barely coherent, my work life incrasingly difficult and so I can only hope to stay in the moment, which is not so bad and always the gift that I'm given. Free, no strings.

Thank You World

The tough parts about change are that first it feels painful and then it feels strange. I feel a little floaty today. I am not (gasp) following through on 30 in 30. I am doing what I need in a moment, hour to hour kind of manner. Tomorrow I will probably go to a church that I've never been to before. I am keeping my thoughts directed to God and that is enough to keep me entered. Spirit is with every respiration.

I went to my meeting this am and heard people complaining about people. I returned a call to my morning phone person and heard that she felt snubbed and then heard her apologizing for 'offending' me and I could not say much except that I respected her decisions and then heard her say that I was condescending and then I excused myself from the conversation. Wow.

Breathe in, breathe out. As simple and as satisfying as it gets.

The Big Answer

is small. Slow down. Breath, rest, observe and then one foot goes ahead of the other.

Today, I will not let my mind's obsession supplant a glimpse of my higher power.

God Box

Last night I put 'shame' away in the box and asked for that defect to be removed from me. So, I will do my part and not expound on THAT anymore. Re-reading some Kate Braestrup, a Maine author who wrote Here If You Need Me, a book about her work as a chaplain for the forestry service.

What's good about today is taking a day at a time.

A Too Much Monday

Well Day 2 and I've flubbed up, started stew for supper, helped my mother with something, answered friend's phone call and then caught my sister's call asking for update-missed mtg that started at 6pm, sigh . . . thought I would catch some of the 7pm meeting, sigh . . .

Tomorow is another day.