Steps on our Road to Recovery

Daily Steps On Our Road to Recovery for 19 to 25 July 1999.

Published Last Week. A daily hint published each day since June 1996. This is past my third year anniversary since starting my web pages. Page Down for the next days that are added a day at a time. I have moved to http://www.recoverybydiscovery.com and this daily page is now here at https://www.recoverybydiscovery.com/daily.htm . I would appreciate any feedback, questions and suggestions that you have.

19 July 1999

Questions

One of the most valuable things we can have, is questions.

I have come to realize, that many blessings, came from questions,

I asked long ago. I have come to realize, that prayer is better,

when prayer is a question. Then, we are not begging for something.

Then we are not at the same time affirming that we do not have

that something. For example, instead of asking for a better job,

it would be better to ask, "How can I get a better job?" Instead

of asking for a better car or relationship it would be better to ask,

"How can I get a better car?" or "How can I be in a better

relationship?" Instead of asking for better health we could ask:

"I wonder how I could be healthier?" Instead of asking for

happiness we could ask: "What must I do to be happier?" or

"I wonder how I could be happier?" Then we are in a conversation

with the infinite and answers can now come as a part of our

conversation. Prayer is meant to be a conversation and not

just orders for the great bellhop in the sky.

20 July 1999

Programs

There are some free programs that I appreciate the most. I am

starting a collection on the above page. What are your favorites?

I am moving the programs on my free page to my programs page

over time.

The Blame Game

There is nothing that I can see as our challenge beyond our

blame game. Blaming runs through most of what we think, say,

do... I wonder how much blaming I can find today. I wonder how

much you can find. I expect to find a lot of stinking thinking that

I can accept and forgive.

The biggest blame game going on is our blame we give to God.

We call disasters Acts of God. We tend to blame God when any

thing goes "wrong". We tend to take credit when things go "right".

The truth is that God would prefer for us to live in His Garden of

Eden, Eden meaning Pleasure. God would prefer to walk and talk

with all of us. God would prefer us to live in the tree of life instead

of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. All we need to do is drop

blaming and accept responsibility for where we are.

21 July 1999

Advice Giving

My wife and I watched a show last night about the twin advisers,

Dear Abby and Ann Landers. They are twin sisters and their story

was about how they had a falling out, after they became competitive

with their columns. They knew what they would advise others, but

they did not know how to take their own advice.

They got back together when their families encouraged them to go

together to their 40th year high school reunion. The one that did the

Ann Landers column, advised against divorce and yet became the 50%

statistic. If she had been a man they would have said HE paid too much

attention to HIS business and HIS fights. If her husband had been a

woman they would have written that SHE needed to take on a new

career, after SHE completed HER first career. The career he took

up was raising a new wife, perhaps to be more attentive. It is interesting

how clear our solutions become when we put any situation in a new light.

It is interesting how we usually can assist others more than we can assist

ourselves. I know some that have expressed this insight directly.

First we have to be willing to put ourselves into a new light and

see what we would advise others. We have to be willing to listen,

really listen, to the wisest part of us. I have always found it valuable,

to listen to what I had to share with others, since it often applies to me.

I sometimes see what I would think when I substitute my wife for me

and I am feeling that this would be a habit to encourage in myself.

22 July 1999

Programs

Salamander 1.52 from http://vorvan.sh.cvut.cz/salamander/ is a small

free file manager program from Czechoslovakia. It reminded me of my

favorite shareware file manager in DOS, Qfiler, that I bought long ago. I

am trying out their 1.6 beta 3version and am sending my first bug report.

They have automated their bug report process and that alone is impressive.

Solutions

Some solutions take some time. Solutions are a process, not an event.

That means that our solutions are happening all the time. Our challenge is

to tune into what is happening now. Parts of past solutions are showing up

now as they will in the future. When we wonder why we have some problem,

challenge, we are setting up a future solution when we pay attention.

23 July 1999

Fate

Some of us may have been thinking about fate as we watched the

drama of the Kennedys. Yes, we all have a destiny. Our destiny is to

return to our lord most high within. Of course it is better to be returning

while we are here. Then we are comforted, in our homecoming process.

Perfectly Imperfect

I am going through some physical challenges. Of course that has

always been true, to some extent. I am now paying more attention to my

challenges. That is one of my blessings in disguise, increasing awareness

through my challenges.

That reminds me of my computer's motherboard and my motherboard

reminds me of me and my parents. My motherboard is also perfectly

imperfect. One example is that I had a ! in my "Primary IDE controller"

and "Secondary IDE controller". The ! is to indicate a problem, a challenge.

Even so, my system ran well. Then I discovered how to get Windows 95

to recognise my hard drives by name, instead of as a "GENERIC DISK

TYPE 47". That got rid of the ! and identified my Maxdor drives by their

number. Later, I discovered that "Performance" tab in the "System Properties"

went from "Your system is configured for optimal performance." to

"compatibility mode paging" and 16 bit DOS mode. Interestingly, there

was little performance difference, either way.

So, my computer system was perfectly imperfect, but I became

more aware of its characteristics. Sort of like our parents, they were

perfectly imperfect, and we could not get them perfect. Anything we

did to help in one area and showed up bad in another. That is true

of our wives, friends and clients. Their getting better depends on their

conscious intentions. They are already getting their unconscious intentions

as we are getting ours.

24 July 1999

Wondering

One of the characteristics of a child is the wonder that they live in.

They wonder about a lot of things. I wondered about what the adults

knew. I found out that it was not much.

One way to return to the wonder of the Kingdom of Heaven is to

learn how to wonder again. Some of my most effective prayers were

about wondering. I wondered about why I was shy and could not hear

in one ear. That set into effect most of the major events in my life until

I found my answer. My short story is here.

25 July 1999

Good News

The good news is that the physical problem that I was concerned

about, is getting better. The other good news is that I am paying more

attention and getting better at paying attention. The blessing in disguise

is that each challenge can wake us up some more, or not. Our choice,

of course.

What challenges are in your life? I wonder how our challenges could

be used for our continuing advancement and advantage.

Very Respectfully,

Michael Foster, MA

DiscoveryCoachemail

https://www.recoverybydiscovery.com or

http://i.am/rbd; or http://jump.to/recovery.

Total-DC or 868-2532

or 868-6749

Very Respectfully,

Michael Foster, MA

Discovery Coach

https://www.recoverybydiscovery.com

DiscoveryCoachemail

"Learn HOW to recovery by discovering the blocks you need to remove and the actions you need to take and what you need to let go of as your blocks to your blessings."

From my book in process, The Spiritual Cookbook (Generic Recipes for a Better Life)

If you would like a free monthly newsletter with coach's hints on a single subject, click RBD's Free Monthly Newsletter Registration Form.

I started my daily page, because it is useful for me to look for some recovery tip or secret each day for my spiritual growth. we and I only need one secret to work on and let it work on me each day. They are secrets because they are usually the opposite of what the majority of society teaches. They must be secret because they are not commonly used. A friend of mine once said "Common Sense is not much in Common.". Now that I have grandchildren I am also writing for them. I would have really liked for my grandparents to have passed on what they learned.

I am including Sunday as it is my formal day of learning the lord most high's secrets. If you would like ask questions, or contribute some of your wisdom, or want to make some comments or want to vote for which day to put on my tip of the month page or tell your success stories, click Michael Foster, M. A.