DON'T QUIT: THOUGHTS OF THOSE WHO HAVE SUCCEEDED
... The following are thoughts, beliefs and ideas that I have kept. They all come from others I have encountered who were once struggling with alcohol or drug use, but do not struggle anymore. These people do not consider themselves "addicts" or in "recovery" for their values and focus in life have changed. Enjoy! ........
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- My capacity to change comes with my practice of life. The longer I continue to make the wrong decisions, the more my heart hardens; the more I make the right decisions, the more my heart softens and I become alive with vision. With each right decision in life my self-confidence, integrity, courage and convictions increase making my capacity to choose good more desirable. I have found that my failure in life was not because I was inherently bad or without vision of a better life, but rather because I did not wake up and see that when I stood at one of life’s forks in the road, I had to choose. When life asked, “What will you choose?” I did not realize that with each step along the wrong road it would become more difficult for me to accept that indeed I had made a mistake. The idea that so much time and energy would have been wasted and so much hurt to others, I would of rather turned a blind eye.
But there comes a time when you accept who you have become, or lose yourself. I started to see possibilities and hope (vision). When this happened I saw what change can be and lead to. It began to reduce my fear and encourage action. You see for me, fear only existed prior to making an active decision. I found that if my vision is clear enough, it will assume the burden of leadership to get me through my struggles. With my ultimate goal in mind, it becomes less important of what my fears are along the way for I have a destination. This destination and leader is my vision.
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*** "Other's ideas weighed on me and the use of alcohol was not a means to party. It was a cause. A cause against the injustices of society. Surely, they would never understand my conflict. My facade was one of rebellion obtained through an empty drink. A chaotic life dependent on my feelings of helplessness and desperate attempts to regain a sense of identity and control".***
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QUICK QUOTES AND THOUGHTS .....
- One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential.
- If you don’t have a focus. Achievements will go to other people’s demands.
- All human progress is proceeded by a new question. The questions I ask myself control what I focus on.
- Dreamers and good feelings are a dime a dozen. Changing these into a plan of action is more rare.
- Cry out while you have the passion. I don’t need all my “ducks in a row” to pray to God. Pray as you are, sincerely and from the heart. Change in life gets momentum when I don’t sit still with fear but rather cry out while I have the passion.
- There is no such thing as failure, only certain results for a chosen behavior.
- Pain can be accepted when there is a purpose for it.
- The danger is not setting goals too high and not achieving them, but setting them too low and achieving them.
- Even when bad things happen to us, we have a choice of whether we will let fear define who we are. It is not what happens that carries so much importance, but how we respond.
- Only talk from experience, for in this business everything else would just be an experiment with others lives.
- There is one way to do anything: As a statement to the world of who I am. There is no right or wrong. Just a decision to paint a portrait of who I am. Change something when you no longer want it to be a statement of who you are.
- What I open my eye at and look at disappears, what I resist becomes stronger.
- Sell cleverness and purchase bewilderment.
- Luck = Readiness + Opportunity
- Goal: anything that doesn’t hurt yourself or others and makes happy or enriches all who are touched by it or the experiences the process of achieving it.
- I arranged life so that it would best fit my thinking.
- What can complicate and create fear and hiding is the memory of who I am and who I am suppose to be.
- Mental illness = perceiving without testing.
- Silence is God’s answer – NO.
- Ignorance is not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of defining yourself as who you truly are.
- I must remember God. For I know from experience that “goodness” can be lost when I anxiously await results or hold on too tight. I must give the helm to God and simply do what is right and just.
- Be interested in my character, not my convenience.
- If I get stuck in frustration, fear, or hurt; the meaning I give to the moment is in question. I must look at my perceptions and my procedure (how I am responding or communicating).
- There is no excitement in maintenance; only in creation is there joy.
- For change to occur, find out what disturbs people, for when disturbed people will be motivated to change.
- We see things (understand them) by the emotions we attach to them. If we don’t get what we desire we must look to change ourselves to elicit the response needed in another. When we are troubled by a response ask, “What else can this mean?” Remember don’t assume. Find out how it disturbs you and how you can change.
- Be aware of the language or stories we tell ourselves about why we can or cannot do something.
- Emotion is motion. We need momentum to change. Pain will make you aware of faults and disturb us. When we are disturbed we can often find the momentum to change.
- Sometimes I do not know what role I am to play in God's plan, but I must show up.
- Watch out for complacency. Trust in God's grace. Avoid judging others. Point finger at self and ask, "what am I not doing?"
- The Psalms are filled with discomfort of God's ways. Even Jesus proclaimed, "Why have you forsaken me?" God can handle hesitency for it is real and from the heart. The intellect can never truly approach an understanding of God alone. Our value of time spent with God cannot (should not) depend on our emotional or mental state. We should not worry about this. Don't try to make your heart love God, just give it to Him. God doesn't watch us fall to shame us. In our moments of brokeness and exposure our hearts are most vulnerable to God's amazing grace.
- Just because we are on the "good track" does not mean this will translate to earthly goods. It can be a personal or spiritual gain instead.
- What I know of being unhappy: If I dislike one person, I will not help them but judge them and isolate myself from them. I start associating others with this person I do not like and pretty soon I have isolated myself from most. I become lonely and unhappy. Solution? Help the one I do not like.
- Arogance will kill you. It will make you believe you know more than God.
- If you want to see your past, look at where you are... If you want to see your future, look at what you are doing.
- I often mistake anger with hurt. If I trust someone and they lie, I get angry that they violated my trust. However, I am actually hurt but afraid to admit it so I cover it with anger. For me to grow I must admit my hurt to myself (if they are lying they are also covering up hurt) and not fall into the pattern of distrusting everyone out of anger.
- When I finally realized my vision it reduced my fear and increased action.
- A goal is only as good as the effort and pride put into the process of achieving it.
- My intellect must learn to socialize and cooperate otherwise it will only incorporate self-centered motives and forces.
- Slaves are often made not from external forces, but from your internal dialogues, mandates and agreements.
- People are moved by myth, not mandates; fables, not logic.
- Confusion is used by evil to distract. It is important to remember that deep psychological issues, questions and philosophies can be used negatively to punch holes in issues when confusion or fear occurs. Beware of this as deep intellectual probing can often have the opposite motives than those of personal growth: these being personal defense.
- I have come to realize that others are going to be exactly who they are regardless of my opinions or judgements of them. All that I influence is my behavior and response.
- The biggest disability in life is a bad attitude.
- Saw a friend who brought up the concept of repressed memories. When self-love is low, repressed memories can be powerful. It can provide identity to a cause and justify a screwed up life. One could hide behind this power and avoid personal responsibility of forgiveness. Do we need closure for everything or is responsibility for what we hold on to today just as important.
- Be carefull about getting stuck in a certain paradigm, thinking patterns, practice that eliminates other possibilities or choices for growth. One sidedness in life is dangerous for it harnesses the mind and traps the soul. Be on alert for a particular practice that takes precidence over principal. I don't believe a theory can ever be bigger than the people it is trying to help.
- God has set us up with "territories". These are personal and part of His plan. People enter our personal territories everyday. With these chance occurences our lives are forever altered. It is our choice if we admire these occurences or not.
- Motives are the most important in my decision making. My mind can filter and manipulate info until my own apparent motives become confused. The confusion sets up a "false prophet" which is mistaken for God's voice. Look for negative emotions to alert you to the possibility of wrong decision making. Emotions are the nerve center to the soul.
- Even the most far-fetched dreams are often another person's reality.
- Limits come from agreements we make with the world about what is possible. Change the agreement and then what is possible changes.
- Being capable and competent doesn't mean the right choice will always be made. Often my choice was guided by what I perceived, or what appeared to make me happy at that time. A guiding principle when choosing should be "am I choosing this because of love or fear".
- Don't die with the music still in you.
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