How To Zoom Into Happiness, Joy, and Freedom Every Day
No matter what is going on around or happening to us.
First of all, let's get the obvious out of the way right away! Every day is not full of laughing and chuckling. Life does keep on coming at us.
The way that I remain Happy, Joyous, and Free every day, even when there may be tragedy around me or physical problems within me, is to remember what I have to be grateful for.
In the most basic, I am alive and breathing! What a concept for someone like me who didn't care if I lived or died for far too long.
I was advised a long time ago to make a gratitude list by starting with three things and adding three blessings each day. As you might imagine, it started out very basic. At least I didn't puke when I woke up this morning.
Soon these basics began to flesh out with other people taking a more important part of my life. My dad told me many years ago, "You haven't got time to bitch if you're counting your blessings."
Then I am reminded of Step 3 of the amazing AA Program, which states that we turn our wills and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood him, and we did.
But then it seems like we had taken portions of it back when it seemed convenient. Nowhere in the Program does it say that we may take it back, so that means that we leave it in the hands of God and go on with living life.
I have discovered that when I take back even a little bit, for whatever excuse, things start to go wrong. I get a physical problem, disagreement with someone, or whatever.
Just something that makes me wonder where the happiness went. I soon discovered that it didn't go anywhere. I did!
So, to feel happy, joyous, and free ALL THE TIME, all I must do is leave it ALL in God's hands and go on about my life.
Misfortune hits us all because, as Spiritual Beings living in this human condition, we live in a world that has many who have taken their Free Will and used it for selfish pleasures, often at the expense of others.
When the Covid Pandemic hit us, much of the world came to a screeching halt and wailed, "Woe is me!" This stoppage came and caused a halt to many activities, including AA Meetings.
My Higher Power, who I choose to call God, took this semi-computer literate AA member and reminded him that He had given me choices, not fiats. Since I did not drink or drug today, I am not forced into anything.
I have choices for the first time in my life. I chose to count my blessings and figure out how best I could continue working on the 12th Step of this amazing program.
At this time, Zoom meetings were new, and I was computer semi-literate. The thought was that using this new program that was being used in business and industry for meetings could be used for AA meetings for people who were staying home.
This is how our Zoom AA Meeting, which to this day meets every Monday through Friday at 3:00 PM since March 31, 2020, was born. It is called Spirituality and Recovery.
Today it still thrives and is kept alive by some wonderful, like-minded people who help in ways that they don't even know by attending, sharing, and bringing newcomers into the meeting.
This is now my Home Group in AA, and it seems like it may be for some of the others, too. For all of this, I am grateful, and it just keeps on getting better.
I say that EVERYTHING I have today, I owe to the program of AA. See how easy it is to grow a gratitude list, starting with the most basic? If you, too, want to feel the joy, don't just think about it, JUST DO IT.
This, by no means, doesn't say that we are happy about the misfortune of another, and we do not celebrate when we get a disease or injury.
What it does mean is that we are always happy that we now can make the proper decisions about things that used to baffle us rather than fumbling around and maybe messing up someone else.
We are joyous because we are doing the right thing consistently now and are not under the influence of alcohol.
And this is all because we are free from the craving and use of alcohol and drugs.
If it doesn't work, come back and tell us about it, and we will discuss it. When it DOES work, please come back and tell and show EVERYBODY about it. The choice is yours. Please choose wisely! Thank you, God!
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Please join us at our AA Zoom meeting. It is every Monday through Friday, 3:00 PM EST, including holidays. The Meeting ID is 6035280704. Password 399778.
