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Welcome to Bill's Place.
A collection of Friends In Recovery.
Featuring a weekly Step Study from various 12 Step Recovery literature.
With the occasional inspirational message or message pertaining to a broad spectrum of varied spiritual practices.
An open forum for discussion of the aforementioned Step Study and inspirational/spiritual practice messages.
"Dance like there's no one watching and love like you've never been hurt."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BillsPlace/

Just For Today
Daily Meditations for Recovering Addicts
August 11
Active listening
"Through active listening, we hear things that work for us."
Basic Text, p.102

Most of us arrived in Narcotics Anonymous with a very poor ability to listen. But to take full advantage of "the therapeutic value of one addict helping another" we must learn to listen actively.

What is active listening for us? In meetings, it means we concentrate on what the speaker is sharing, while the speaker is sharing. We set aside our own thoughts and opinions until the meeting is over. That's when we sort through what we've heard to decide which ideas we want to use and which we want to explore further.

We can apply our active listening skills in sponsorship, too. Newcomers often talk with us about some ''major event'' in their lives. While such events may not seem significant to us, they are to the newcomer who has little experience living life on life's terms. Our active listening helps us empathize with the feelings such events trigger in our sponsee's life. With that understanding, we have a better idea of what to share with them.

The ability to listen actively was unknown to us in the isolation of our addiction. Today, this ability helps us actively engage with our recovery. Through active listening, we receive everything being offered us in NA, and we share fully with others the love and care we've been given.

Just for today: I will strive to be an active listener. I will practice active listening when others share and when I share with others.

"Listen, or thy tongues will keep thee deaf."
~American Indian Proverb~

The Tower of Babel was so named because all the people who were working on it were speaking different languages all at the same time. Construction didn't succeed because no one listened to one another. With all the babbling, it was as if they were deaf.

Most of us have the ability to hear. Yet we don't make full use of it when we choose to talk constantly, bending someone else's ear as we endlessly babble on. We don't use our ability to listen at meetings or to family members or our lover as well as we could. We can become so wrapped up in listening to ourselves that we can't hear anyone else.

It's our choice to remain deaf to other voices but our own. This self imposed deafness can deprive us of valuable experience and knowledge from those working on the same issues as we are. To improve our hearing, we need to shut our mouths and open our ears!

I can stop being deaf to other voices around me. There is a symphony of strength and serenity if I only stop to hear it.

You should not have your own idea when you listen to someone.... To have nothing in your mind is naturalness. Then you will understand what he says.
--Shunryu Suzuki

A man who is mistrustful and self-centered has difficulty listening to someone else. Perhaps a woman we are close to wants to be understood by us. But we do not hear her on her own terms because we are so intensely involved with our own shame. So we react to our feelings of guilt rather than really hearing what she wants to say about her experience. Or we may be so worried about who has control that we fail to receive the information we are being given. Then we respond with "Yes, but..."

True learning comes - like true intimacy - when we have an open mind. As we detach ourselves, separate from our own ego, we hear the other person better and grow more intimate.

May I learn to set aside my own self-centeredness. Today, I will grow more if I set my ego aside when others are talking to me.

Contribute to life
~Ralph Marston~

Always, there is something you can contribute to life. In every place and time and situation, there is a way for you to make a positive difference.

In whatever you are able to offer, there is bountiful opportunity. For the value you give comes back to you over and over again.

The way to bring out the best in others is to put your own best abilities into action. The way to truly learn is to teach.

Every achievement is built upon the steady and focused creation of value. Learn to see each moment as an opportunity to create meaningful value, and your life will be filled with astonishing achievements.

When so many others are preoccupied with what they can get, choose to focus your own thoughts on what and how you can most effectively give. That is the path to real and lasting abundance.

The quality of the life you live has everything to do with what you're willing to give. Contribute your own special value to life, and you'll discover it's the best investment you could ever make.

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The Message Is Hope, The Promise Is Freedom

Just for today, you never have to use again.

Alive and Free

Never Alone Never Again
(neveralone_neveragain)

"Dance like there's no one watching and love like you've never been hurt."

Jimmy K.

The message is hope. The promise is freedom. Just For Today, you never have to use again.

---
"Let us move on, step out boldly, though it be into the night, and we can scarcely see the way. A Higher Intelligence than the mortal sees the road before us. We do not have to strive for good, but only go forward and possess it. Good awaits us at every step."
~Charles B. Newcomb~

Peace.
Bill

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Agents of God Montage

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To trust, have faith, is to know that whatever happens will be good.

Trust and Believe

Canookie Girl