More Language of Letting Go: 366 New Daily Meditations Melody Beattie (best way to read books TXT) 📖

somehow good or desirable to be indirect. Instead, I will strive for honesty, directness, and clarity in mycommunication. I will let directness in my relationships begin with me.

August 13

Friends

Don't overlook the value of friendship. Don't neglect friends.

Friends are a joy. Adult friendships can be a good place for us to learn to have fun and to appreciate how much fun we can have with a friend.

Friends can be a comfort. Who knows us better, or is more able to give us support, than a good friend? A friendship is a comfortable place to be ourselves. Often, our choice of friends will reflect the issues we're working on. Giving and receiving support will help both people grow.

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Some friendships wax and wane, going through cycles throughout the years. Some trail off when one person outgrows the other. Certainly, we will have trials and tests in friendships and, at times, be called on to practice our recovery behaviors.

But some friendships will last a lifetime. There are special love relationships, and there are friendships. Sometimes, our friendships—especially recovery friendships—

can be special love relationships too.

Today, I will reach out to a friend. I will let myself enjoy the comfort, joys, and enduring quality of my friendships.

August 14

Owning Our Power

Many of us have someone in our life who challenges our ability to trust and care for ourselves.

When we hear that person's voice or are in his or her presence, we may forget all we know about what is real, about how to own our power, about how to be direct, about what we know and believe to be true, about how important we are.

We give up our power to that person. The child in us gets hooked with a mixture of powerful feelings—love, fear, or anger. We may feel trapped, helpless, or so attracted that we can't think straight. There may be a powerful tugofwar going between feelings of anger and our need to be loved and accepted, or between our head and our heart.

We may be so enamored or intimidated that we revert to our belief that we can't react or respond to this person any differently.

We get hooked.

We don't have to stay under a spell.

We start by becoming aware of the people who hook us, and then accepting that.

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We can force ourselves through the motions of reacting differently to that person, even if that new reaction is awkward and uncomfortable.

Search out our motivations. Are we somehow trying to control or influence the other person? We cannot change the other person, but we can stop playing our part of the game. One good way to do this is by detaching and letting go of any need to control.

The next step is learning to own our power to take care of ourselves, to be who we are free from their influence. We can learn to own our power with difficult people.

It may not happen overnight, but we can begin, today, to change our selfdefeating reactions to the people who have hooked us.

God, help me identify the relationships where I have forfeited my power. Help me unhook and begin owning my power.

August 15

Leaving Room for Feelings

We need to allow enough room for others and ourselves to have and work through our feelings.

We are people, not robots. An important part of us—who we are, how we grow, how we live—is connected to our emotional center. We have feelings, sometimes difficult ones, sometimes disruptive ones, sometimes explosive ones, that need to be worked through.

By facing and working through these feelings we and others grow. In relationships, whether it be a love relationship, a friendship, a family relationship, or a close business relationship, people need room to have and work through their feelings.

Some call it "going through the process."

It is unreasonable to expect ourselves or others to not need time and room to work through feelings. We will be setting Page 232

ourselves and our relationships up for failure if we do not allow this time and room in our life.

We need time to work through feelings. We need the space and permission to work through these feelings in the awkward, uncomfortable, sometimes messy way that people work through feelings.

This is life. This is growth. This is okay.

We can allow room for feelings. We can let people have time and permission to go through their feelings. We do not have to keep ourselves or others under such a tight rein. While we work through our feelings we do not have to expend unnecessary energy reacting to each feeling we or others have. We don't have to take all our feelings, and others' feelings, so seriously while we or others are in the process of working through them.

Let the feelings flow and trust where the flow is taking you.

I can set reasonable boundaries for behavior, and still leave room for a range of emotions.

August 16

Rescuing Ourselves

No one likes a martyr.

How do we feel around martyrs? Guilty, angry, trapped, negative, and anxious to get away.

Somehow, many of us have developed the belief that depriving ourselves, not taking care of ourselves, being a victim, and suffering needlessly will get us what we want.

It is our job to notice our abilities, our strengths, and take care of ourselves by developing and acting on them.

It is our job to notice our pain and weariness and appropriately take care of ourselves.

It is our job to notice our deprivation, too, and begin to take steps to give ourselves abundance. It begins inside of us, by changing what we believe we deserve, by giving up

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our deprivation and treating ourselves the way we deserve to be treated.

Life is hard, but we don't have to make it more difficult by neglecting ourselves. There is no glory in suffering, only suffering. Our pain will not stop when a rescuer comes, but when we take responsibility for ourselves and stop our own pain.

Today, I will be my own rescuer. I will stop waiting for someone else to work through my issues and