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Miracles In Progress 12 Step Recovery Forums -> Alcoholics Anonymous -> Alcoholics Anonymous -> After staying sober just for today, what is you next desire, Happiness or Peace of Mind?
Post Info TOPIC: After staying sober just for today, what is you next desire, Happiness or Peace of Mind?
Just Toni


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After staying sober just for today, what is you next desire, Happiness or Peace of Mind?
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Hi All,

Was reading the Post below about how to achieve Happiness, and whenever I see the word Happiness, I almost always think inside, I choose Peace of Mind over Happiness.

Have spent many years in this Program, and doing all the Stepwork involved to give me a better chance at staying sober, and of course honoring all the Traditions as well  and in sitting in those meetings and particapated as well,
always reaching out to any new person with my own ES & H.

And from doing this for almost everyday in the first 7 years then went down to 5 every week, and then at about the 12th or 14 year, sort of came to an understanding of finally feeling that I had witnessed over these years so much of GOD's Love for all of us....

.....then just by happenstance I was given this tapes, 7 of them called "The"Obstacles to Peace" originally coming from an offshoot of the Course in Miracles that was very popular in California, in the 90s, and also the Attitudinal Healing Center headed by Gerald Jampolski,  anyway, I studied these tapes, for over a year, the speaker in these tapes is a man, Kenneth Wapnick and from what I understand, is still gathering groups of people, with standing room only status, when he speak anywhere on many different subjects now, but now more on the East Coast.

All of these tapes and are all in line with the AA Program, and how we spend our lives seeking God always, and attempting to overcome any obstacles that we need to purge to get there, as in a truly communal way to our Beloved Step 11

I am just opening this up to a your thoughts, and if you wanted to share them.

(please write to me also if you feel this Post is not following a tradition....I am open minded)

#Oopsy, forgot to ask the question, that was the primary reason for Posting this, DUH....have any of you heard of these tapes, and if so, what was your impressing...I only know of one person in the Program that uses them, so maybe not a post I should have posted....oh well.....


Hope you all have a wonderful peaceful and happy too, day.

Toni




-- Edited by Just Toni on Thursday 6th of May 2010 06:07:45 PM

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AGO


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Larry_H


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 For me they are absolutely tied and linked together.   I have found in my life that I can't have peace of mind without happiness in my life.   Conversely without happiness I have no peace of mind.

I used to look outwardly for happiness and peace of mind.  I was looking in the wrong place. It has to come from within.

Larry,
----------------
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. 



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Jerry F


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Aloha Toni...Happiness is an "inside" job for me an attitudinal choice and happiness
for me is being in agreement with what HP provides me and grateful for it.  Happiness
is different than elation, the jumping up and down excitement of something good.
Peace of mind is one of my program goals and has been for a long long time and it
is a partner and condition of sanity.  Peace of mind for me is not being disturbed
mentally and balanced in my thinking.   I have another sought after condition that
is also in the mix and that is Serenity, a spiritual condition of stillness and completeness
with everything around me.  In serenity I have no wants or needs...I have everything
provided in my relationship with my HP.

(((((hugs))))) smile

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Just Toni


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Hi All,

Am in complete agreement, there work as one, cannot have one without the other, and also, hands down, it is an inside Job!

I was just wondering if anyone had heard of and ever listened to these tapes. thats all.   I have found that when I get one out, once in a while, I will listen and it will help me get centered into a very peaceful place in my mind, so fast, by the subject matter.....

These items surely fall outside the AA arena for sure, just like that Book by Gerald Jampolski' lifelong companion, Diane Cicceraroi, not sure of the spelling but her Book is title, Love is the Answer, and the premise of the Book, is that she has taught herself to seek only Peace, with a constant daily montra of Peace of Mind is my Only Goal.
Just a little PS to this, Gerald Jampolski started all his wonderful work after he gave up drinking alcoholically and became a part of Alcoholics Anonymous....sort of interesting.....

Toodles all,

Toni





-- Edited by Just Toni on Thursday 6th of May 2010 06:53:31 PM

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Larry_H


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Just Toni wrote:

Hi All,

Am in complete agreement, there work as one, cannot have one without the other, and also, hands down, it is an inside Job!

I was just wondering if anyone had heard of and ever listened to these tapes. thats all.   I have found that when I get one out, once in a while, I will listen and it will help me get centered into a very peaceful place in my mind, so fast, by the subject matter.....

These items surely fall outside the AA arena for sure, just like that Book by Gerald Jampolski' lifelong companion, Diane Cicceraroi, not sure of the spelling but her Book is title, Love is the Answer, and the premise of the Book, is that she has taught herself to seek only Peace, with a constant daily montra of Peace of Mind is my Only Goal.
Just a little PS to this, Gerald Jampolski started all his wonderful work after he gave up drinking alcoholically and became a part of Alcoholics Anonymous....sort of interesting.....

Toodles all,

Toni





-- Edited by Just Toni on Thursday 6th of May 2010 06:53:31 PM


Toni,

I did not understand the question at first sorry.

To answer you I have never heard these tapes.

Larry,

 



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AGO


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I go for peace of mind, in case my video wasn't clear, I have ups and downs in my life, but both are dangerous unless coupled with peace of mind

I have shed far more tears over prayers that were granted then unanswered prayers, I have proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, I don't know what is best for me, so it's best if I just go for peace of mind as happiness and the loss thereof has proven to be dangerous to my emotional sobriety.

I am not saying I don't like happiness, I am saying it is dangerous to me without serenity or peace of mind, more dangerous then so called failure, when I have the ingrediants for happiness if I am not careful I sabotage it unkowingly, and am only able to see that in hindsight.

Happiness without peace of mind is what I sought in the bottle, and is the pursuit of every emotionally undeveloped alcoholic to our destruction in many cases.

Success is as dangerous as failure.
Hope is as hollow as fear.

What does it mean that success is a dangerous as failure?
Whether you go up the ladder or down it,
you position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground,
you will always keep your balance.

What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear?
Hope and fear are both phantoms
that arise from thinking of the self.
When we don't see the self as self,
what do we have to fear?

See the world as your self.
Have faith in the way things are.
Love the world as your self;
then you can care for all things.

Another translation:

Success is as dangerous as failure,
and we are often our own worst enemy.

What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure?
He who is superior is also someone's subordinate.
Receiving favor and loosing it both cause alarm.
That is what is meant by success is as dangerous as failure.
What does it mean that we are often our own worst enemy?
The reason I have an enemy is because I have "self".
If I no longer had a "self", I would no longer have an enemy.

Love the whole world as if it were your self;
then you will truly care for all things.



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camitch


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To me happiness is a feeling like anger, hate, and love.  I dont think it something to achieve, it is a feeling you have when you have peace of mind. 



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Larry_H


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camitch wrote:

 

To me happiness is a feeling like anger, hate, and love.  I dont think it something to achieve, it is a feeling you have when you have peace of mind. 


Happiness for me today is a choice.  Plain and simple I can choose to be happy today
no matter what is happening around me.   I never knew before coming to AA that I had a choice.   I thought it depended on people, places and things.  

I let the people around me decide if I was happy or not.  I of course could not be happy if I was in the wrong place and how on earth could I be happy if I did not have the things I wanted.

I know today that all of the statements in bold letters above is pure Hog Wash
Plain and simple pure hog wash.   My peace of mind or my happiness today has nothing what so ever to do with external forces.  

It is a choice.   Bless my sponsor for getting this concept through my thick skull.
Today I can have a Great!!! Day!!  simply be cause I have decided that is what it is.

THis may sound far out but it is the absolute truth.

Larry,
----------------
Everything you now do is something you have chosen to do. Some people don't want to believe that. But if you're over age twenty-one, your life is what you're making of it. To change your life, you need to change your priorities.

 



-- Edited by Larry_H on Thursday 6th of May 2010 07:36:28 PM

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AGO


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Larry, you're right, and you made me realize i need to change this sentence to read

Happiness without peace of mind is what I sought in the bottle, and is the pursuit of every emotionally undeveloped alcoholic to our destruction in many cases when our happiness was dependent on "outside" things, such as people, places, things, circumstances and drink .

My point is the selfish pursuit of "outside things" to make us happy is at the root of our core defects, thus to be observed carefully, and is worthless and dangerous even without peace of mind.

For demonstrations of this watch "boy meets girl on AA campus" newcomer relationships

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Just Toni


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Werner Eirhart, the founder of EST,  remember him, personally I thought he was a complete dolt, Like the current City Bank folks....after only the bottom line....he changed anyone that would go though one of his seminars $200. to go sit and not get up for 24 hours straight,  and be told you were an a.. ho..s.!... felt sorry for the folks that paid for that one.

Then one day I saw only one thing he ever wrote that I agreed with wholeheartedly
Happiness.............................is ONLY a decision away....


AGO, surely you remember that guy, one of those trendy things that went on in the Bay area.

Toodlea all, time for din din.

toni



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jonijoni1


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Thanks for the reminder Toni, a WONDERFUL person once gave me the tapes out of the pure kindness of her heart, and I had planned to start listening to them soon. I needed to see this post because it reminds me to go and get them tomorrow from the house and b ring them here. (tee hee thanx)

I want peace right now. I really do. Peace to me, right now, means to be able to stop being a HUMAN DOING for a WHOLE F$%&ing DAY and just "be" for as long as I need to. Ther eis much to do though....sigh

This is what I am committed to doing at least for the rest of the night. Nothing but "being". And being here with you and all my friends here is a slice of Peace pie for me tonight. I might want the whole pie just for 24 hours, but it shall come....

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mikef


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Hey Toni! For me as I go back thru my day before I fall off to sleep and know I have done my best to understanding what God's will for me was this day and feel I used spiritual principles in all my affiars that brings me both peace and happiness.Its a lightness and an awareness that my continued growth each day in God's guidance is all I really need,the rest falls into place.Believe me ,its not all Shangrila,but compared to my days of devastation(365x25)I am truly joyous ,happy and free..Because I continually do a 10th step each day and have freed myself thru the spiritual principles of the steps I have a slate I can handle ,one of fallen nature and complete with defects and shortcomings but I am forgiven and know that they are areas for me to work on the rest of my life,I  start fresh each day,the only day I have....Thru years of my sons heroin addiction (now 24 in recovery) and my own battles and life on lifes terms I have learned to put on the "armour of God"and the peace and happiness seems to flow,pain will come but I know how God will at times give me "more than I can bear to remind me "I must rely on Him! I never heard the tapes,but they sound wonderful,I do listen to 'Buddhist Chants for relaxation and meditation(musical,not vocal)Good night,time to put the bod to rest,thank God for another day,take a look see How I did for the day and then LA-LA LAND..........smile

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bikerbill


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No, I haven't heard of these tapes.

Happiness or Peace of Mind?

For me Peace of Mind is a state of Being, something to strive for, something to Be - at Peace with myself and the world, something I sometimes achieve but often don't.

Happiness is a feeling - I feel happy, I feel sad, I feel angry, I feel hurt, I feel Free (tumtumtumtetumtum).

I enjoy feelings of happiness, I like to live in a state of peace. I have no feelings of happiness without a state of peace .

So - my next desire is for peace of mind.

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StPeteDean


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I'd go with Shalom, which is an incrdible blessing, including peace, completness, and welfare, which includes health and properity, not only for you but for your family. 

Shalom () (Sephardic Hebrew/Israeli Hebrew: Shalom; Ashkenazi Hebrew/Yiddish: Sholem or Shulem) is a Hebrew word meaning peace, completeness, and welfare

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Just Toni


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Hi Again,

Was just thinking of something Larry said, Make my computer say what I mean...LOL.

And after Posting this realized that the message or Post was really not what I meant to say, tried all the words, but it came out differently.

And when reading through, I felt Biker Bill came the closest to what I was attempted to ask you all.

Happiness is something I feel.....as an example, I got an adorable card from my Son in Prison, he had hand written some lovely words that said, Mom, I Love You!  with each letter looking like it was made from a patchwork quilt....

Yes, it Made me feel Very Happy, but did Peace of mind come with that feeling.....simply answer... no.

When I use my meditations, and really focus on clearing all my thoughts, always inviting God to be there next to me....do I come to a Place of Peace, absolutely, as Bill had said, a State of being.

When I am fighting major anxiety, and Praying non stop for relief, and that relief does come, Yes I am very close to a State of Being of Peace....

Ok, amendment or an attempt to get just a little closer to what I meant, as opposed to what I had typed.

Happy Saturday to all,

Toni

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