Recovery Road

A pair of short meditations selected from mid-April entries in two of Hazelden Publishing's popular meditation series of books: The Promise of a New Day and Each Day a New Beginning. Today's Meditation Monday selections invite us to us to accept the seasons of changes in our lives and find growth beyond our comfort zones.

Bestselling Author Melody Beattie's The Grief Club blends healing wisdom and pragmatic guidance to help us face life's most difficult moments and do the work that allows us to move ahead. In this excerpt, Beattie describes the importance of claiming our own space for grief, and the challenge of detaching from feelings, behaviors, and people who aren't—and never will be—our responsibility.

A pair of short meditations selected from early April entries in two of Hazelden Publishing's popular meditation series of books: A Life of My Own and Easy Does It. Today's Meditation Monday selections invite us to listen to the wisdom and insight other people share with us.

When we were using, alcohol or another substance controlled us. It directed our thinking and acting, formed our goals and ran our lives. And that didn't go so well for us and for the people who care about us. We'll never be able to make peace with our addiction when it's active; we have to be fully committed to recovery. Half measures are not enough.

A Program for You: A Guide to the Big Book's Design for Living is written as a companion to the Big Book. It directly applies to those who are working the Twelve Steps. Understanding that some of us don't frame our recovery according to the Twelve Steps, we can still take lessons from this tried-and-true tradition and apply them to our own journey.

For those of us who are using the Big Book, the following excerpt is a reminder about the limits of self-will and the need to give one's life over to the direction of a Higher Power. Whether it happens in a miraculous moment or over a long process, the authors assure us that once a power greater than ourselves is directing our will and our life, our whole life is going to improve.

This excerpt is from the book A Program for You: A Guide to the Big Book's Design for Living. It has been edited for brevity.

Welcome to Meditation Monday. We're pausing each Monday for a few minutes of reflection and inspiration from the authors of the Hazelden Meditation series of books.

Meditations are daily reflections, prayers, slogans and phrases intended to offer inspiration and comfort, and—above all—hope to those of us in recovery.

The selections for this last Meditation Monday in March come from one of Hazelden's best-loved meditation authors, Dr. Karen Casey. Together, these meditations from Each Day a New Beginning and A Woman's Spirit invite us to focus on letting go of anger and replacing it with a more positive outlook.

Some of us in early recovery may have a challenging time with the spiritual part of it all. As human beings, we often want answers to all of our questions. We may not feel safe with uncertainty, and cling to any belief to eliminate that fear. We may demand answers about our addiction, life, and the universe that we may never receive. But with patience and practice, we will come to understand things more than we ever did before—especially when it comes to finding and trusting a higher power.

In her book Waiting: A Nonbeliever's Higher Power, Marya Hornbacher shares her own journey and offers a fresh approach to cultivating a spiritual life in recovery. Anyone who may feel disconnected from traditional ideas of a higher power can use this book to explore the concept of faith.

In this excerpt, Hornbacher writes about humility as an essential element of true spirituality. Awareness of our limitations can ground us in the present moment and bring us back to ourselves. Accepting that we do not know everything—and never will—can bring us peace of mind to freely grow in our spiritual journey.

This excerpt is from the book Waiting: A Nonbeliever's Higher Power by Marya Hornbacher. It has been edited for brevity.

Welcome to Meditation Monday. We're pausing each Monday for a few minutes of reflection and inspiration from the authors of the Hazelden Meditation series of books.

Meditations are daily reflections, prayers, slogans and phrases intended to offer inspiration and comfort, and—above all—hope to those of us in recovery.

The selections for this third Meditation Monday in March come from two of Hazelden's popular recovery resources: Today I will Do One Thing, by Tim Mc., and Day by Day, which was written anonymously. Together, these meditations invite us to embrace change and form new habits that will improve our lives in recovery.

Stress is part of everyone's life. Those of us new to recovery have let go of the substances and processes we once relied on to detach from our anxiety and calm our feelings of fear. Now we need some new—and hopefully healthier—ways to manage daily stress.

Relieve Stress: 20 quick Techniques, by Dr. Katrin Schubert, is an accessible guide to coping with stressful situations in recovery and daily life. In the book, Schubert shares easy and quick exercises that promote in-the-moment body awareness and emotional mindfulness.

The following excerpt includes two of Schubert's step-by-step breathing techniques. The first focuses on the soothing joy that comes with gratitude for each organ in our bodies. The second helps us relax by letting go of tension with every exhalation.

This excerpt has been edited for brevity.

Welcome to Meditation Monday. We're pausing each Monday for a few minutes of reflection and inspiration from the authors of the Hazelden Meditation series of books.

Meditations are daily reflections, prayers, slogans and phrases intended to offer inspiration and comfort, and—above all—hope to those of us in recovery.

The selections for this mid-March Meditation Monday come from two of Hazelden's best-loved recovery resources: A Day at a Time and Twenty-Four Hours a Day for Teens. Together, today's meditations invite us to prioritize our recovery and take each day as it comes.

The statement "Nobody's perfect" may sound cliché and overused, but it's true. We have made mistakes in our past, and we will continue to make mistakes as we move forward in life. We must learn to forgive ourselves and extend grace to others as well. Recovery involves learning along the way. When we remain teachable there's room for mistakes as well as forgiveness.

In their book What Went Right: Reframe Your Thinking for a Happier Now, Dr. Michael Wetter and Eileen Bailey offer advice about how to change the self-critical stories in our minds. We can reframe our thinking to gain self-confidence and a more fulfilling life in recovery. We do not have to carry any burdens from the way we lived before sobriety.

In this excerpt, we explore ways to forgive and accept our mistakes. We can use our past to forge a better path to long-term recovery. Wetter and Baily share real-life examples of how overthinking our mistakes can negatively affect our daily lives. This excerpt helps us realize that a wrong decision or misjudgment does not make us a bad person with a bad life. It only makes us human.

This excerpt is from the book What Went Right: Reframe Your Thinking for a Happier Now, by Dr. Michael Wetter and Eileen Bailey. It has been edited for brevity.