Meditation Replaces Self-Medication
"Meditation" used to be a scary word to me. I envisioned some bald-headed man sitting cross-legged on the floor chanting, "Ohmmm. Ohmmmm."Another lessoned learned in sobriety from A.A., counselors, and The Big Book is that I was meditating all along. I just didn't know it.
To me, a quiet walk in the woods was calming. Years go, when I lived in Idaho, the highlight of my existence was going to the mountains to camp and hike. When I couldn't go to the mountains, I found contentment walking with my dog beyond my backyard to the sage-covered hillsides any time of year. The ravine there was the greatest quiet I ever didn't hear.
Sometimes I thought about my higher power of the time and I even prayed. Some of those prayers were for myself, but at least I was praying. And unknowingly, I was meditating.
These days I meditate in the quiet of my house, at A.A, before a meeting starts, and when I'm in the car. As Mark said at A.A. today, prayer is asking; meditation is listening. I like that.
Or, as today's A.A. Daily Reflection cites from Twelve Steps and 12 Traditions (page 101), "(Meditation) has no boundaries, either of width or height. Aided by such instruction and examples as we can find, it is essentially an individual adventure, something which each of us works out in his own way."
Sometimes I thought about my higher power of the time and I even prayed. Some of those prayers were for myself, but at least I was praying. And unknowingly, I was meditating.
These days I meditate in the quiet of my house, at A.A, before a meeting starts, and when I'm in the car. As Mark said at A.A. today, prayer is asking; meditation is listening. I like that.
Or, as today's A.A. Daily Reflection cites from Twelve Steps and 12 Traditions (page 101), "(Meditation) has no boundaries, either of width or height. Aided by such instruction and examples as we can find, it is essentially an individual adventure, something which each of us works out in his own way."
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