Janet E. Stuart
Footnotes for Life
AUGUST 28
For nearly thirty years I had little contact with my family until, one day, the phone rang. My dad was dying. I harbored no illusions of making up for a lifetime lost, but hoped to make the most of what little time we had left. One afternoon after talking around the edges, I told him that I was sorry for all the time we had missed. He smiled, reached for my hands, closed his eyes and spoke softly. Listening to him, I laid my head in his lap and cried for the little girl he had left so many years ago. That day, he became my father again, and I, his daughter. The sunlight faded as we held each other, perhaps not for a lifetime, but at the very least, for a childhood.
Theresa Peluso
The longer you carry a grudge the heavier it gets.
Unknown
Footnotes for Life
AUGUST 29
When my sister, who suffered from both addiction andmental illness wasmurdered, I turned tomy Higher Power and asked that simple question: Why? I felt the enormity of the vacuum of silence. I no longer felt any connection to the resilient part of who I thought I was. I wanted to be with those who knew the misery I was experiencing, so I accepted a position helping abused, hurt children. What I discovered was hope. Despite everything that life had dished out to them, these kids refused to throw in their cards. They kept striving. They kept dreaming. They kept living. I needed to remember to do that and I have. Together we have healed.
Patricia O’Gorman
The way to happiness is to lose yourself in a cause greater than yourself.
Unknown
Footnotes for Life
AUGUST 30
Iwas the model teenager trying desperately to gain my stepfather’s approval and love, but I never seemed to succeed. With high school nearing an end, I recognized that nothing I could do would change his behavior. For his birthday, I found a meaningful card that represented all the hopes of my heart. I wasn’t sure what would happen, but I took the risk of being vulnerable. A few days later I found a caring note from him, the first correspondence I could recall written in his hand to me. The more time I spent on seeking growth in forgiveness and in my own character, rather than trying to fix or improve others, the more things turned around for us.
Erin Hagman
Do not look back in anger, or forward in fear, but around in awareness.
James Thurber
Footnotes for Life
AUGUST 31
Icut–any part of my body covered by clothes, although my wrists were my body part of choice. The slashes became my words, the only way I knew to express myself, a way of denying my sexual abuse. I cut not to feel. Cutting left me in a dull trance, entirely calm, numb and empty. Even in a society where so much has lost its shock value, cutting remains scandalous. It’s been three years since I last cut. Because of those who helped me peel away my layers of defenses to understand what was at the root of my fears and pain, because of them, I am finally alive.
ElizabethWalton
The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only hold a man’s foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.
Thomas Henry Huxley
Footnotes for Life
SEPTEMBER 1
Many small steps make a journey. When stuck in a dispirited state of mind, take one step to move yourself forward. Get out of bed. Walk your dog. Smile at a stranger.
No matter how insignificant that step may seem, your action will create a course of hope on which to proceed. As momentum soars, so will your spirit.
Vicki Graf
When there is no wind, row.
Chinese Proverb
Footnotes for Life
SEPTEMBER 2
Awoman lives with an abusive husband. She hates her life. She is angry and unhappy. She remains with the abuser another day.
A teenager is grossly overweight and is teased by classmates. He hates his life. He is angry and unhappy. He overeats another day.
A man drinks, gets into fights and ends up in jail often. He hates his life. He is angry and unhappy. He drinks another day.
Today we must learn from our mistakes of the past and go down a different path or we will surely end up in the same place as yesterday.
Kay Conner Pliszka
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein
Footnotes for Life
SEPTEMBER 3
We enjoy living at the edge of town. One night while sitting in the living room we heard sounds on our front porch. My husband turned on the porch light and there stood seven little sheep all in a row, staring as if to say, “Will you please help us?” Emmitt opened the gate to the backyard and safely enclosed those cute little balls of wool until he could find the owner. Emmitt, unknowingly, became their shepherd for a while. The sheep followed him around wherever he went, displaying their trust and dependence. Without a shepherd, sheep are in danger. Without the Good Shepherd, so am I.
Joan Clayton
It is only destined by your attitude where you will end up in life. Don't let yourself get lost in the crowd.
Angela Duvall
Footnotes for Life
SEPTEMBER 4
Idon’t want to minimize the seriousness of money dysfunction, but I use humor as a tool to help me recover from it. Humor is a valuable part of our rediscovery. To be so deadly serious about getting well is a real bummer. We can have fun looking back at the things we did trying to balance our accounts. How many of us put money into a savings account and get so excited that we’re earning 5% interest, completely overlooking the fact that we owe $10,000 on credit cards at 19.2%? I did all that. Now, I have to laugh. I am serious about my recovery, but I don’t take it or myself too seriously.
Yvonne Kaye
Money doesn’t always bring happiness. People with $10 million are no happier than people with $9 million.
Hobart Brown
Footnotes for Life
SEPTEMBER 5
It’s important that when I experience problems, I remember that solutions are close at hand. Knowing this starts the flow of ideas needed to solve my problems. Changes do not just “happen.” Solutions involve drastic changes in thought and expectations. Solutions require action and when I have a positive attitude, I can tackle any issue. Today I know I am free. I can use my freedom to indulge in all kinds of negative beliefs, or I can use my freedom to discipline my mind and concentrate on finding answers to my difficulties. The decision is mine to choose my experiences.
Rokelle Lerner
Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given to you because you will not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Footnotes for Life
SEPTEMBER 6
Illness is a chance to teach the mind to remain independent of physical circumstances and thus to connect with our inner resources.
Experiencing these qualities is a powerful medicine.
Hope, enthusiasm and wisdom are to the mind as food is to the body.
Everyone needs daily sustenance.
Brahma Kumaris
World Spiritual University
The trick to problem solving is to get to the root of the problem before the rest of it shows up.
Brahma Kumaris
Footnotes for Life
SEPTEMBER 7
To feel fear is human, but we must never allow fear to halt our forward momentum in the healing way. Sometimes the thing we must do is frightening. It’s challenging, difficult, different from anything we’ve known before. But rather than give up and slide backward, we do well to gather our little shreds of courage and forge ahead–fear or no fear–remembering the presence, goodwill and help of our Higher Power. We must do the thing, though we do it trembling. I will not let the emotion of fear hinder my growth. I will trust that I am being led and keep moving forward.
> Rhonda Brunea
When I am afraid, I will trust in you.
Psalm 56:3, NIV
Footnotes for Life
SEPTEMBER 8
Today is a plowing day. I will dig deep within the soil of my heart and prepare the dirt for what is to come.
Even good seed cannot fulfill its purpose in hard, uncultivated ground, but when sown in dirt that has been worked, it will flourish and explode with fruit.
Don’t ask me about the harvest quite yet; I am still pushing the plow.
Barbara A. Croce
The real issue is not whether to grow, it is how to grow and for what purpose.
Unknown
Footnotes for Life
SEPTEMBER 9
Stop looking at things as endings, look at them as beginnings. Change is scary; the unknown is frightening but only because we can’t see what’s coming next. Take a step forward, one at a time, to build your courage. Soon you won’t hesitate. That one step may be full of fears but still you move forward. Open yourself to experiencing whatever it is life has for you at any given moment; a beautiful spring morning, thewonders of a gentle snowfall, the joyful sound of children playing in a schoolyard, the simple pleasure of just being able to draw another breath.
Aingeal Stone
The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.
Eden Ahbez
Footnotes for Life
SEPTEMBER 10
Admitting that I was an alcoholic was a difficult first step, but it was only a first step. The admission wasn’t enough. It felt flat. What was missing turned out to be acceptance.
Acceptance meant I had to move forward, tell others, ask for help, work on my sobriety.
Until I fully accepted and embraced this, I was emotionally paralyzed. Fear and shame held me captive. Acceptance has liberated me.
Deb Sellars Karpek
Life is what happens, after you make other plans.
Ralph Marston
Footnotes for Life
SEPTEMBER 11
Following a loss, how do you grow a new heart? You don’t. You work with the heart you have left. The missing parts can never be replaced. The bruised areas of the heart, however, have the ability to mend. It’s not an easy or quick process. The balm is patience, support, acceptance, understanding, love fromothers and fromoneself, aswell as the gift of time used wisely. Along the way, the sensitive, healing heart acquires wisdom and compassion for fellow travelers.
Not all broken hearts inherit these gifts. They only come with intention, inner strength, persistence, courage and openness to the grace of God.
Joyce Harvey
Be a life long or short, its completeness depends on what it was lived for.
David Starr Jordan
Footnotes for Life
SEPTEMBER 12
Almost every day I see a young girl running along our backcountry road. She is nothing but bone, her face classically anorexic: all cheekbones and large eyes sunk into dark sockets. I’ve watched her run for nine months now, seeing her grow thinner and more fragile every day. She is not like the other runners, all rounded muscle, strong, sweaty, solid. My girl is grim and solitary, a slash on the landscape. I wonder who her family is and know they cannot stop her self-punishment any more than I. She started running and stopped eating because she heard some wicked voice inside telling her she wasn’t right, she wasn’t thin enough. You will grow old if you’re lucky, and being thin is no guarantee against misery.
Nancy Burke
The body never lies.
Martha Graham
Footnotes for Life
SEPTEMBER 13
Inever met my grandfather, however I did know his son and I knew that my father had very bitter feelings toward his father. According to the stories I heard, my grandfather drank himself to death at the age of fifty-two. During a breakfast outing with my five-year-old son my father looked at me and said, “Your grandfather sure wasn’t much of a father.” After a pause he let out a sigh and said, “But I guess the man did the best he could.” Eight years into his own recovery and thirty-one years after the death of my grandfather, my dad had started to make peace with his father. Sometimes it takes a long time for things to heal.
Robert J.Ackerman
The greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest.
Henry Miller
Footnotes for Life
SEPTEMBER 14
Today I will ask for a miracle. I trust that nothing is more real in this universe than the love and the power of God. I understand that the medium of miracles and shifts in perception is prayer. I will clear my mind of all negativity and ask for what I really need. I will pray for a miracle. In the past I have not dared to ask for enough but today is different. With love in my heart I ask for a true shift in perception. I ask for help to see what I am not seeing, help to release the cloud of doubt and negativity that surrounds me, help to set my mind free of fear and anxiety.
Tian Dayton
The direction of the mind is more important than its progress.
Joseph Joubert
Footnotes for Life
SEPTEMBER 15
When I see the persistence exhibited by the tiny ant, as it builds its mound and drags along food it has found, I know the size of an obstacle has nothing to do with success. It is not the physical proportion of an impediment, but the diligence we possess that gets us what we desire and the reward we receive.
Betty King
He is a man of sense who does not grieve for what he has not, but rejoices in what he has.
Epictetus
Footnotes for Life
SEPTEMBER 16
Although it may feel like I am alone, I am not. There is a circle of love around me. My circle includes neighbors, relatives, coworkers or those who are also recovering. If I reach out to these people I will feel their presence and concern.
I don’t need to feel unworthy because I accept them with their imperfections and they do the same with me. My circle will help me recover if I ask.
Brenda Nixon
Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness.
James Thurber
Footnotes for Life
SEPTEMBER 17
Igive thanks for my life, knowing that all experiences have added to my growth and understanding. I see the promise of the future, anticipating only good. But today I center my attention on the present moment and look around my world. I see much in the way of good and much for which to give thanks. In all my activities I pause, I reflect, I give thanks. I look forward to happiness and opportunity and acknowledge the blessings surrounding me that are meant to be enjoyed now.
Rokelle Lerner
When asked if my cup is half full or half empty my only response is that I am thankful I have a cup.
Sam Lefkowitz
Footnotes for Life
SEPTEMBER 18
Some folks spend half their lives brooding about the past–chiding themselves for their mistakes and reliving in their minds, over and over again, what might have been. Others worry about the future–condemning their weaknesses and worrying that they will not be strong enough to overcome what may arise. But those of us in recovery strive to put the pain of our past and the fear of our future behind us. Rather, we find comfort and strength in the innocence of now, the present. With each new dawn we are reborn. And so we live . . . one day at a time.
Kay Conner Pliszka
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift: that’s why they call it the present.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Footnotes for Life
SEPTEMBER 19
Isee the full picture of recovery and my responsibility to let go and move on. Doing so is a tall order, requiring a kind of releasing that I still find difficult to do. My past will always be in the shadows of my memory to haunt me if I do not recognize it as a part of me. If I pretend it’s not import
ant, grit my teeth and force myself to numb the pain, I have missed the point of recovery. On the other hand, if I am unwilling to let go, I am not allowing myself to be fully healthy and alive. Part of recovery is a flowing through the stored pain and part is a decisive, forward-moving action.