Latest / Sober Readings / Healing Heart And Mind
Transcript
- Scott Hayes: Good morning and welcome to Sober Readings. Today is the first of May, 2026. Let's begin today with the Serenity Prayer. God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Today's first reading is from Daily Reflections, May 1, Healing Heart and Mind. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs. That's from the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions, page 55. That also happens to be step six. Since it is true that God comes to me through people, I can see that by keeping people at a distance, I also keep God at a distance. God is nearer to me than I think and I can experience him by loving people and allowing people to love me. But I can get neither love nor be loved if I allow my secrets to get in the way. It's the side of myself that I refuse to look at that rules me. I must be willing to look at the dark side in order to heal my mind and heart, because that is the road to freedom. I must walk into darkness to find the light, and walk into fear to find peace. By revealing my secrets and thereby ridding myself of guilt, I can actually change my thinking. By altering my thinking, I can change myself. My thoughts create my future. What I will be tomorrow is determined by what I think today. Today's reading from 24 Hours. May 1, AA Thought for the Day. The AA program is one of charity because the real meaning of the word charity is to care enough about other people to really want to help them. To get the full benefit of the program, we must try to help other alcoholics. We may try to help somebody and think we have failed, but the seed we have planted may bear fruit sometime. We never know the results even a word of ours might have. But the main thing is to have charity for others, a real desire to help them. whether we succeed or not. So ask yourself, do I have real charity? meditation for the day. All material things, the universe, the world, even our bodies, may be eternal thought expressed in time and space. The more the physicists and astronomers reduce matter, the more it becomes a mathematical formula which is thought. In the final analysis, matter is thought. When eternal thought expresses itself within the framework of space and time, it becomes matter. Our thoughts within the box of space and time cannot know anything first hand except material things. But we can deduce that outside the box of space and time is eternal thought, which we can call God. Today's prayer for the day. I pray that I may be a true expression of eternal thought. I pray that God's thoughts may work through my thoughts. And for today's final reading, We're going to a book called Why Forgive by Johann Christoph Arnold. And I'm going to read the foreword in this book. 30 years ago, while on duty as a plain-clothes police officer in New York City, I was shot multiple times. I'm not going to tell you the details here. You'll have to read this book if you want the whole story. But I will tell you this. I spent the next year and half in a hospital bed. And for most of that period, my situation was touch and go. I came very close to dying. And when I'd pull out of those patches, I wasn't always sure I even wanted to live. Unfortunately, I received a great deal of love from family, friends, and supporters, which helped pull me through those difficult days. And six months after I was shot, something gave me a new focus and strengthened my will to live. My wife, Patty Ann, gave birth to our first child. Shortly after Connor was born, we had a press conference. I still could not talk because of my gunshot wounds, so Patty Ann spoke for both of us. She told everyone how grateful I was to be alive and how proud I was to be a member of the NYPD. She said that as a police officer, I had always wanted to help others and that being paralyzed hadn't changed that desire. Then she announced that I had forgiven the young man who tried to murder me. Everyone seemed astounded. And ever since that day, I've had people ask me, why? Why did you forgive him? They say, I can't even get along with my sister. or their brother or mother or dad, and they haven't really done anything to hurt me. They're just mean. So how on earth could you do such a thing? Again, I'm not going to get into the details here except to say that I needed healing, badly, and found out that the only way forward was with love. And I learned that one of the most beautiful expressions of love is forgiving. I know that will sound illogical or impossible to some. Others will find it downright ridiculous. But I'm talking as one who has lived through this. How should you forgive and why? I can't tell you. It's probably the hardest thing you'll ever attempt to do. But I can tell you what I've seen and experienced personally. Once you are able to let go of wrongs that have been done to you, it changes everything. It will change your relationships, your attitudes, your emotional makeup, your whole approach to living. It will give you a better life. Plus, You'll find that when you forgive, you're always a winner. You don't lose a thing. Because it's not a sign of weakness to love somebody who hurts you. It's a sign of strength. And that foreword was written by Stephen D. MacDonald. So again, this is from a book called Why Forgive from Johann Christoph Arnold. And I have read this book and I highly suggest reading it. Especially if you're someone going through the 12 steps and if you have an issue with forgiving someone that has hurt you. or especially forgiving yourself for things that you've done in your past. And for me, that's where this book really helped me out because I have things in my past that I really have a hard time forgiving myself for. Yet, this book really changed my perspective on that. So I highly recommend it. And so that's it for today's episode of Sober Readings. If you enjoyed the show, please do me a huge favor and hit that like button. Share this episode with someone you think might need it or like to hear it. And drop a comment. and let me know what you thought. ⁓ Also, if you'd like to be a guest reader on Sober Readings, just send me an email at soberreadingswithscott at gmail.com and I can certainly make that happen for you. If you'd like to drop a dollar in today's virtual donation basket, just go to soberreadings.com and click the donate button. So again, thank you so much for listening. Stay sober, keep reading, and I'll catch you in the next episode. Until then, take care of yourselves and each other, and remember, just for today, don't drink. Go to a meeting and keep coming back. Have a great day. And as my friend Larry says, best day ever.