More Language of Letting Go: 366 New Daily Meditations by Melody Beattie (comprehension books .TXT) 📗

know that I do not have to allow their issues to control my life, my day, or myfeelings. Help me know it's okay to have all my feelings about family members, without guilt or shame.

July 16

Insisting on the Best

We deserve the best life and love have to offer, but we are each faced with the challenge of learning to identify what that means in our life. We must each come to grips with our own understanding of what we believe we deserve, what we want, and whether we are receiving it.

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There is only one place to start, and that is right where we are, in our current circumstances. The place we begin is with us.

What hurts? What makes us angry? What are we whining and complaining about? Are we discounting how much a particular behavior is hurting us? Are we making excuses for the other person, telling ourselves we're ''too demanding''?

Are we reluctant, for a variety of reasons, especially fear, to tackle the issues in our relationships that may be hurting us? Do we know what's hurting us and do we know that we have a right to stop our pain, if we want to do that?

We can begin the journey from deprived to deserving. We can start it today. We can also be patient and gentle with ourselves, as we travel in important increments from believing we deserve second best, to knowing in our hearts that we deserve the best, and taking responsibility for that.

Today, I will pay attention to how I allow people to treat me, and how I feel about that. I will also watch how I treat others. I will not overreact by takingtheir issues too personally and too seriously; I will not underreact by denying that certain behaviors are inappropriate and not acceptable to me.

July 17

Love, in Words and Actions

Many of us have confused notions about what it means to be loved and cared about.

Many of us were loved and cared for by people who had discrepancies between what they said and did.

We may have had a mother or father who said, "I love you" to us, and then abandoned or neglected us, giving us confused ideas about love. Thus that pattern feels like love the only love we knew.

Some of us may have been cared for by people who pro

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vided for our needs and said they loved us, but simultaneously abused or mistreated us. That, then, becomes our idea of love.

Some of us may have lived in emotionally sterile environments, where people said they loved us, but no feelings or nurturing were available. That may have become our idea of love.

We may learn to love others or ourselves the way we have been loved, or we may let others love us the way we have been loved, whether or not that feels good. It's time to let our needs be met in ways that actually work. Unhealthy love may meet some surface needs, but not our need to be loved.

We can come to expect congruency in behavior from others. We can diminish the impact of words alone and insist that behavior and words match.

We can find the courage, when appropriate, to confront discrepancies in words and actions—not to shame, blame, or find fault, but to help us stay in touch with reality and with our needs.

We can give and receive love where behavior matches one's words. We deserve to receive and give the best that love has to offer.

Today, I will be open to giving and receiving the healthiest love possible. I will watch for discrepancies between words and behaviors that confuse me andmake me feel crazy. When that happens, I will understand that I am not crazy; I am in the midst of a discrepancy.

July 18

Time to Get Angry

It's about time you got angry—yes, that angry.

Anger can be such a potent, frightening emotion. It can also be a feeling that guides us to important decisions, sometimes decisions difficult to make. It can signal other people's problems, our problems, or simply problems we need to address.

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We deny our anger for a variety of reasons. We don't give ourselves permission to allow it to come into our awareness—at first. Understand that it does not go away;

it sits in layers under the surface, waiting for us to become ready, safe, and strong enough to deal with it.

What we may do instead of facing our anger and what it is telling us about selfcare, is feel hurt, victimized, trapped, guilty, and uncertain about how to take care of ourselves. We may withdraw, deny, make excuses, and hide our heads in the sand—for a while.

We may punish, get even, whine, and wonder.

We may repeatedly forgive the other person for behaviors that hurt us. We may be afraid that someone will go away if we deal with our anger toward him or her. We may be afraid we will need to go away, if we deal with our anger.

We may simply be afraid of our anger and the potency of it. We may not know we have a right, even a responsibility—to ourselves—to allow ourselves to feel and learn from our anger.

God, help my hidden or repressed angry feelings to surface. Help me have the courage to face them. Help me understand how I need to take care of myselfwith the people I feel anger toward. Help me stop telling myself something is wrong with me when people victimize me and I feel angry about thevictimization. I can trust my feelings to signal problems that need my attention.

July 19

Proving It to Ourselves

I spent a year trying to prove to my husband how much his drinking was hurting me. When I began to recover, I realized I was the one who needed to realize how much his drinkingwas hurting me.

—Anonymous

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I spent months trying to prove to a man I was dating how responsible and healthy I was. Then I realized what I was doing. He didn't