The Third Step Prayer
God, I offer myself to Thee — to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!
I don’t want to take anything for granted… including regretting the time I have left on this earth.
I have accomplished some pretty amazing feats in my recovery including finding the real me that was locked up in a floating casket on the River of Denial.
I was a Zombie, moving but not living. Trapped in a place where I couldn’t look at who I was, who I had become and where I was going.
Thank God for God, and thank God I finally, in the depths of despair cried out to a God I did not understand, believe in, and was pretty pissed off at, for my life.
My life changed, about 10 minutes after uttering, what I now know was my cry of desperation: “God help me I cannot live like this anymore!” That’s when the phone rang and the only person in the world that I knew in recovery called and said… “P. are you o.k.? Just a minute ago I had a feeling that something was wrong with you” My first miracle…
There have been so many over the years, but to make a long story short, I have been given a second chance at life. I have been given the gift of a loving God, loving husband, children, two amazing grandchildren, siblings that recently re-united after almost 45 years (another story), and a fellowship and sisterhood that are beyond my wildest dreams.
I get to help women who are newer in recovery by teaching them how to work the 12 steps, and how to incorporate them into their lives. I get to love them until they learn to love themselves, like I was taught almost 30 years ago.
Back in 1983 I woke up in Cardiff by the Sea, Leucadia, Carlsbad, Encinitas, Oceanside and Del Mar, CA. All beach towns along the North County coastal line between San Diego and Los Angeles.
The Pacific Ocean was my first Higher Power… for years, that evolved to the Fellowship that helped love me back to life, and then easily transitioned to this loving God that lives within me, dissolving all of my fears and who taught me to love and let go of my ego.
This love of life included taking photographs to help me remember the sunrises and sunsets over that magnificent Pacific Ocean… and when we moved to the desert back in 1994 the mountains and the Palm trees caught my eye. Clouds are my rock stars! They take the sun, shadows and light and dance with them high above me.
So today for my exercise perhaps I will check out the mountains nearby. The best time is sunrise and sunset, because the shadows they cast bring out the life in them.
It depends on the light, if that doesn’t work, I will surprise myself and just let it flow… and whatever it is, I am stepping out of my comfort zone again today. Baby steps…
Many thanks to http://chosenvoice.wordpress.com/ for nominating me for “The one lovely blog award”.
Being a newbie to blogging, I feel honored to have been mentioned and have so much to learn. I can follow directions/suggestions… so, I will copy-paste the rules:
Seven unknown facts about me:
1. I found my God in 1983… on the shores of the Pacific Ocean.
2. My life changed for the better because of the 12 Steps.
3. I was the highest ranking female bodyguard to become certified in the early 1980′s at the Academy, but I chose not to pursue the career because I couldn’t kill anyone to save my client.
4. I am a Filipino/American who is 1/4 Polish 
.
5. In high school I was nominated “Miss Polly Posture” by the school faculty.
6. It was my husband who first coined my life quote of being “Happy, Healthy and In Love.
7. I have only been blogging on WordPress for 4 and 1/2 weeks.
Nominations for a few of the people I admire… and this was tough, but just a start:
1. http://wanderingpebbles.com/
2. http://gravatar.com/7ca53103f016680375e235cf30984734
3. http://gravatar.com/7237a2986cd0283717e6f6a3209dbc15
4. http://gravatar.com/a6ef7eb3d6189d54c1280122137c142b
5. http://gravatar.com/e19309017ebdcf5d10e11d07431726a1
6. http://gravatar.com/c66dfd1b1a87349a922f708256a8a788
7.http://jennamulephotography.com/
8.http://passport.laurenoliviaco.com/
11. http://cancerkillingrecipe.wordpress.com/
13. http://strausslouw.wordpress.com/
14 http://writersearningmoneyonline.com/
For years, actually decades I have learned to trust that still small voice within. I know it is my God whispering in my ear. I don’t need God to shout at me very often, whispering is enough. But that was not the way it was for the first almost four decades of my life. My addictions to just about everything that would allow my to “numb” my feelings had a hold of my spirit and would not let go! My God was suffering from a case of laryngitis from screaming at me… in vain! The road from there to here has been a long and winding road… lots of hills and valleys that I had trudged, with love and support from my life coaches. I became willing to learn, take direction, work HARD and swallow my pride and ego. Reflection comes easy to those of us who don’t need to deny our pasts, for it is the grace that we get to pass on… So reflect I will… And for now the little voice is purrrrrring…. contented, happy, joyous and free! as I “remember to breathe…” I am breathing in and out the life of God and remembering God Is My Only Source.
“Choices are made in brief seconds and paid for in the time that remains.“
O.k., o.k., I chose blog, but that doesn’t make me a bad person… it just readjusts my schedule a wee bit!
I am responsible for my choices today, can’t blame you, them, my family, my pet, it is all mine.
Once I realized that my life became much simpler.
Chuck C. used to say:
“Uncover, discover and discard”
I had to do some serious writing to uncover the patterns that kept me trapped in a miserable life,
I got to discover who I was underneath the tangled web of deceit I had woven with my lies and denial…
And when these defects of character rose to the surface, with the help of my sponsor and mentor, I got to discard them, one at a time, over the years like smelly socks that I hid in the back of my closet.
Every once and a while I dig one back out of the trash… like procrastination… and embrace it until the stench makes me wretch and I throw it away again.
My choices are my choices today, and I accept the consequences, and move on.
It feels good not to be stuck in the “sea of denial”. I was drowning in that sea for over 37 years. Glub! Glub!
I think I can pay my bills now… my head just got a bit clearer.
I am smilin on the inside… and it feels good!!!!
I
If it looks like I am the only person on the dance floor it is an illusion, there is one young girl who has the same bug I do. We danced and twirled to the dj a few weeks ago as other adults stood in the shadows, at the door and at their tables wondering who this grown senior citizen was gettin down like there was no tomorrow.
I don’t give a hoot…
I finally realize that I am able to dance as if no one is watching.
If you don’t know how many steps it took to get in my shoes, feeling unafraid… it took decades!
If you do know how many steps it took, you are either a really healthy person or you are in a 12 step program like me and have done lots of work on yourself.
Either way… we are truly blessed to be free.
Gotta go, hear my favorite song!!!!
to accept the things I cannot change…
the courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Thy will not mine be done!
Grant me the serenity
And here I go…
I am living my life according to the grand scheme designed by a magnificent being that I choose to call God.
I tried doing it my way and it didn’t work… I like His way much better!
Anyone else feel the same way?
That God knows His business????
I would love to hear…
Yep! That’s right, it is out of my hands now… and has been for almost three decades.
Give it to God, or whatever power you believe in…
I keep pedaling and I let my Higher Power steer…
I do the footwork and leave the results up to Him/It/She/the Universe/Great Spirit.
I get to experience the “power” flowing through me and it is good!!!
And for this, I am grateful!
That you should have all of me, good and bad. Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I might help of Thy power, Thy love and Thy way of life. May I do Thy will always. Amen
I was a “chocloholic” and didn’t know about addiction at that stage in my little life.
But I guess when you get old enough to steal coins from mom’s purse and sneak off to the store for a nickel Hershey bar, that was huge at that time… that isn’t considered normal by most folks.
Come to find out I wasn’t the only one of my friends that have needed to get that “fix”!
I have sworn off of sugar for the fourth time, this time it’s been over a year, but when my friends eat that special birthday cake at our six am sunrise celebrators meeting almost every day I am fine… until the chocolate comes around.
This is where my Serenity Prayer comes in handy…
This too shall pass, this too shall pass…
“There is more hunger for love and
appreciation in this world than for bread.”
- Mother Teresa
One definition of love is a feeling of warm, personal attachment.
The ability to love and be loved came in a package that was carefully wrapped in the tissue of fear, apprehension, self doubt, loathing at times, mis-trust, and shame. Many layers, I might add.
As I was guided in the unwrapping of this precious gift, by sponsors and wise women friends, I came to covet the feeling of love… secretly, as I admired it in others. They seemed able to love one another easily… without conditions. They seemed able to accept love as if they had practiced the art since birth!!!
What was their secret?
How come I never accepted my gift of love as I was growing up? Why did I question the motives of those who may have tried to give me their gift?
It took years for me to understand that it was an inside job. I kept waiting for the right person to have the key to my loneliness.
Little did I know I was the gatekeeper to my own soul…
Thank God for God, and the angels He placed in my life. Thank God for their patience with me, and the words they spoke so gently…
“Patricia, just let us love you until you can learn to love yourself”
I have the ability to speak those words to women who are struggling with the same fears I had when I entered the rooms of my 12 step program, a very damaged woman.
Paying it forward is a priceless gift.
Whatever you are, be a good one.Abraham Lincoln (1809 – 1865)
I have learned that if I can be the best that I can be in all that I do… with enthusiasm, trust and joy. Or, I can doubt myself, deny myself the experience and pout!
Today I choose to give it all I have.
I spent too many years sitting on the fence of ambivalence, wishing and hoping for my “luck” to change, get better breaks, or win the lottery.
V I C T I M is not a pretty word, when I place it in front of my name. I lived as one for much of my life, and didn’t realize it until I found the answers I had been seeking. Not in the lower places I had been looking but in the rooms of a 12 step program that had been in existence for many years.
I was not looking for a recovery program because I didn’t think I had a substance abuse problem. I thought it was “THEM”!!!! Oh boy, was I ever shocked to find out I had a disease that had escalated over almost 20 years to the point that I didn’t care if I lived or died.
One day at a time, one meeting at a time, one step at a time, one inventory at a time, one prayer at a time… I was healed from a seemless hopeless state of mind and body. I began to find myself, I found God and I found you!
So almost 30 years later I feel comfortable in my own skin and strive to be the best I can be one moment at a time… and I like this way of living so much better!
I didn’t become Happy, Healthy and In Love overnight… I want to share my journey with you. I want to share my dreams with you, my photos as I see life today, and together we can share our hopes… I look forward to hearing from you as well.
Won’t you join me?
You must be the change you want to see in the world.
Mahatma Gandhi
I can’t look to the outside world for my happiness and peace. I have learned it is an inside job. My life finds me “Happy, Healthy and in Love”… as a direct result of doing what it takes to change the parts in me I can no longer embrace.
Those feelings of guilt, shame, indifference, unworthiness, inability to love or be loved and fears of many colors had to be brought to the light, uncovered, discovered and discarded.
Not an easy job for one who balanced on the fence of indifference for over half of my life.
Almost 30 years of working on the me I have come to love has been worth it.
If I want change, I make changes… I don’t wait for you to change to suit me… refreshing!!!
Thank you Dani M. for your topic at our Sunrise Celebrators meeting this morning… I contemplated how my motto almost 30 years ago was: “Don’t feel, no matter what!”…
Numbing myself with booze or drugs was my M.O., and my instincts were not of being a spiritual seeker, but DOOM! Oh God, thank you for the awakening that came on the wings of an angel.
I am so grateful for Bill W. and Dr. Bob, the founders of A.A. and the wisdom and divine intervention that led to the writing of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. I am most grateful to my God who stood by waiting for me to utter those magical 10 little words:
God help me, I can’t live like this any more!
So, 29 years later, and multiple completions of the 12 steps,with the guidance of some amazing sponsorship, fearless and fearless moral inventories about ME, prayer, meditation, communication, reaching out to others and being of service, I don’t drink… no matter what!!!
Thank you God!
