Thought of the Day

Be the fulfillment
Instead of looking for the answer outside yourself, be the answer you seek. Instead of striving to attain fulfillment, be the fulfillment of your most impassioned stirrings.

The problems you face are yours precisely because you have what it takes to successfully address them. The situations you encounter provide fertile ground upon which you more fully become the best you can be.

The joys and the pains, the achievements and the disappointments, the frustrations and the victories all serve to move you forward. You are destined and well equipped to successfully navigate through each fascinating and valuable turn of events in your world.

You've already come a long way, and that depth of experience continues to serve you well. As the challenges come, as the opportunities appear, your ability to make a difference grows ever stronger and more valuable.

Greet each day with the satisfaction and confidence of knowing that you can adjust and adapt and build and create and thrive. Use the unique energy that is your very own in the service of meaningful and positive purpose.

Work to be the living fulfillment of the best you can imagine. Feel the dream and make it real.

Thought of the Day

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
--Eleanor Roosevelt

In this moment, we are the best we can be. Today, we can work at loving the best in ourselves and not fearing the worst. We are truly wonderful and growing people with gifts and qualities that make us who we are. No one can make us feel inferior without our consent.

Now, we are in charge of our lives and growth. We can choose to let go of old negative thinking. We can choose to think positive, loving thoughts about ourselves. We never need to be victims again to other people. We have options today. We can choose to grow in a positive way. We can choose to have loving, affirming people in our lives.

Today I will stick with the winners.

Thought of the Day

We do not have to get caught in the middle of other people's issues.
-- Melody Beattie

Learning to respect boundaries, our own and other people's, eliminates much of the stress that hinders relationships. Accepting the behavior and the opinions of our friends as legitimate for them allows our relationships to teach us tolerance and patience and love. Our journey on this planet is not about "fixing" or controlling others, but about loving them wholly, just as we want to be loved.

We need other people. Our humanity is enhanced by our mutual experiences. But we also need to let others learn from their mistakes and their own experiences, rather than to help them avoid what they need for their growth. We hate to see our friends in pain. Our compassion is triggered when trouble trips them. But their journey must be inviolate. We'll only prolong their struggle by intervening where we aren't needed.

It's hard to back away when a friend is in trouble. But telling a friend you love and support him or her may give them the strength they need.

Thought of the Day

No human creature can give orders to love.
--George Sand

If we're trying to get others to love us, all we're really doing is trying to be in control. Trying to control others can be a powerful drug. Remember, we can't control others. We can't make others love us. That Power has control, not us.

So, what do we need to do? Turn things over to Him and just be ourselves. Sure, it can scare us to just be ourselves. The truth is, not everyone will love us. But if we're honest about who we are, others will respect us. We'll like ourselves better. And we'll have a better chance of loving others and being loved.

Prayer for the Day
I pray to have my need for control lifted from me. I pray to be rid of self-will.

Action for the Day
Today, I'll list five ways my self-will - my need to control - has gotten me in trouble.

Thought of the Day

I'm apart of a group, who I consider my second family quite frankly. They provide a lot of great information along with tons of laughter. One thing I receive every day from a member of the group, is the thought of day. So I will share today's thought with you.

To believe in something not yet proved and to underwrite it with our lives; it is the only way we can leave the future open.--Lillian Smith

Today stands before us, ready for our involvement. And it will offer us opportunities for personal growth and occasions to help another make progress on her path to the future. Challenges are to be expected. They further our purpose. They foster our maturity.

How different it is, for many of us, to look forward to today with secure anticipation, to trust in what the future holds! We can still remember, all too vividly perhaps, the darker periods in our lives, periods that seemed to hold no promise; a time when we dreaded the future, fearing it would only compound those awful times.

The fear and the dread are not gone completely. They hover about us, on occasion. They no longer need to darken all of a day, however. We can recognize their presence as parts of our whole, not all of it. How free we are, today! Our choices are many.

I can step toward today with assurance, reaching out to others along the way, trusting that my accumulated steps add stability to my future.