PoM Office 23
“First…Seek the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness“
As I am running as hard as I can and my heart is stretching as hard as it can to be as strong and as healthy as it can, it occurs to me that this just might be God’s righteousness.
Imagine that…what a cool God.
PoM Office 24
Sometimes I just chant the slogan “ Peace of Mind” over and over again…and that slows my locomotive-about-to-fly-off-the-tressel-mind down.
PoM Office 25
After a long day wrangling with finances, but staying balanced with living foods and intense exercise, it was enveloping to let the chromatic tones of my guitar wash over me for an hour and a half.
No more thoughts…just tones.
Lovely, lovely peace…
PoM Office 26
What am I? I am a human.
What does that mean?
It means I have a need for air, water, food, sleep and exercise.
That seems pretty obvious. Excepting exercise, my alcoholic father understood that.
But I have other needs that he, nor virtually anyone else, understood in the 1950’s.
I have a need for safety: physical, emotional and financial safety. The AA 12x12 talks about this need.
Then there is the blockbuster of all needs: the need for love and belonging…the need to be accepted, exactly the way I am.
Every addict in the world, no matter what the addiction, is crying out…no matter how silently…for this need to be met.
Once I feel loved and get a little more functional I need people to esteem me, to value me…and once they do, I start to value myself…and then a certain mature autonomy starts to take place.
Then 12 step teaches not just us effectively, but the world, about two needs:
- the need for prayer…to attain sanity through humility.
- and the need for service…to know freedom and joy.
Now we are healthy, safe, loved, sane, useful, functioning humans.
But there is more on offer.
I have a need for contentment…being satisfied with who I am, what I do and what I have in life.
That is a newly discovered need, but if I can get that need met, I have the spiritual leisure to develop yet another need. The need for beauty…because I have, and everyone else has, an inherent need to be creative.
So, now we are creative and content…but there is one more need I have:
The need for peace of mind…
And that’s what we are slowly and carefully exploring in this book .
PoM Office 27
Sometimes the best thing to do for peace of mind is simply pray the steps:
“I admit that I am powerless over my mind/that my life has become unmanageable.”
“I’ve come to believe that a Power greater than myself can restore me to sanity.“
“I’ve made a decision to turn my life and my will over the care of God, as I understand God.“