01/25/2026
A New thought One Day at a Time – Jan 24
Day 24
From powerless to empowered . . . that’s the intention . . .
In order to go from one place to some other place, you must start where you are.
So, I have to ask you . . . do you know where you are?
Let’s go back to an earlier question . . . what have you been able to admit to yourself?
Have you seen how your life had become unmanageable?
Can you see where it might be unmanageable now?
What does it look like? And how do you know?
In order to go from one place to the better place, you must get in the habit of noticing how you feel! So . . . How ya feelin? I mean really . . . and deeply. How do you feel?
No matter if you are newly sober or been clean a while. Or maybe you don’t identify yourself as addicted. . . if you want to move from where you are to a more empowered place. A more empowered version of you . . . you must develop the habit of noticing how you feel!
Most of us who wound up in a life of using substances or activities were doing so in order not to feel how we feel. To dissociate. After practicing dissociation for so long, it’s going to be a bit of a chore to reverse that habit and tune back in.
Babies need no coaching in this. In knowing how they feel.
They know EXACTLY how they feel in any given moment. . . they live nowhere else BUT in the present moment! As a result, this information is readily available to them. You and I might not be able to know exactly what they’re unhappy about . . . but we sure as heck know when they are unhappy! Everyone in the room or on the entire PLANE knows when they are unhappy!
Then as we get older, we learn to mask how we feel. Depending on how much disfunction we grow up with, we get very good at not only masking how we feel, but we also get well versed in the fine art of avoiding the thought that we’re feeling anything at all!
This is a big problem if we want to take back our power . . . to become empowered.
The path to empowerment and leaving our old life of victim to the hither and yon winds of our helplessness, is to be able to know what it is that we are experiencing. . . for reals.
The truth . . . ya see there’s no power and there is no progress unless there is honesty. And there can be no honesty without being able to know what our personal truth is.
And we can never know our truth unless we can know what we are feeling.
It’s sort of an archaeological dig.
Ya know where the archaeologists have to be so gentle . . . and use those special soft brushes to dust away the years of dirt piled on top of the precious thing that will be displayed in the museum later? Yeah. It’s like that.
So, we must start where we are . . . get as clear as possible on how we’re feeling. See what those feelings are telling us. And then use that information to determine what the next right thing for us is.
Whew! That’s a lot ain’t it?
So just like that archologist, we must be patient and gentle with our precious selves.
Get it back to simple.
Taking a deep breath . . . ahhhhhha . . . that’s better.
Now what was I feeling?
Oh. . . that.
The reason we look at where life had become unmanageable is to be able to get back to center.
To be able to get a grip on what’s really afoot and what we’re feeling about it all.
Practicing the process of noticing how we feel is the foundation of becoming reacquainted with our personal power.
Affirmation – Today I take the time to be on my most important archaeological dig. I use gentle but sure breath strokes to unearth my true feelings in any given moment. I do this with complete trust that the real me is underneath and these digs will be revealing my power back to me. And yes! I’m gonna have fun doin it too!
Whoooooooo Boy!
This is FUN!