You cannot prevent the birds of sadness from passing over your head, but you can prevent their making their nest in your head.   —Chinese proverb Life is full of feelings.

We can be happy, sad, mad, scared. These feelings can come and go quickly. Or we may hang on to them. As recovering addicts, we used to hang on to feelings that made us feel bad. We let them make “nests” in our hair. We used our feelings as excuse to act out. Now we’re learning to hang on to our good feelings. We can let go of anger, hurt, and fear. We can shoo away the birds of sadness and welcome the birds of happiness.

Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me become a “bird watcher.” Help me learn from my feelings. And help me let go of the bad one so I can be happy.

Action For the Day: If I need to get rid of the sadness or anger that I’m hanging on to, I’ll get help from my sponsor, a counselor, or a clergy person.

Photo by Yuyang Liu on Unsplash