Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021
Today’s Gift from Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is:
Love doesn’t mean always doing for other people
It’s normal for us to desire the love and acceptance of the important people in our lives. We might have begun doing favors for friends as a way of securing their affection. We didn’t realize that we were establishing a habit that served no one. It taught us that we were loved only if we had done something for that love. And it enabled other people to shirk responsibilities that were clearly their own.
The program is teaching us about love. We are coming to believe that we are loved just as we are by our Higher Power. A “performance” is never necessary. We are learning that merely listening to others in need is a lovable act. Sharing with them our own experience, as others have done for us, is an act of love. We are seeing that assuming responsibility for all the details of our own lives is empowering us, and it is instilling self-love too. In the past very little of what we thought was love was really love. And for years our lives stayed much the same. Now the changes are frequent and sometimes profound. We’re discovering more happiness than we ever thought possible.
I will make sure I’m not trying to buy love today through my actions. I know now what real love is.
Hazelden Foundation
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