Following are prayers and affirmations shared one ACA Member developed for dealing with Laundry List Behaviors. Do you have a favorite affirmation or prayer you use and would like to share with others? At the bottom of list you may add your affirmation in the comments section anonymously. It will be approved and added to the string in the comment section. Allow up to 24 hours for approval by the moderator.

• Inner Critique: I am doing the best I can with the awareness I have today. (Or) I did the best I could with the awareness I had then. I have a new awareness today and in six months I will have a different awareness and I will be doing the best I can with that awareness.

• Self Criticism: When I judge or criticize others, I am rehearsing/practicing to judge and criticize myself.

• Judging others:  They are doing the best they can with the awareness they have today too.

• Mind Racing: I do this because it feels comfortable/ it’s something I grew up with. It also gives me a shame hit.  The other payoff is, it takes me out of the present so I don’t have to deal with my feelings or present issues. God please take this behavior from me. It hurts too much and I don’t want to do it anymore.

• Control:  The only person I have control over is myself. I truly have no control over others. The only thing I can do is to model my new behavior for others.

• When I attempt to control my adult children’s actions or take care of them, I am not allowing them to grow and move on with their adult life. I am being selfish.

• Codependency: Am I doing it to truly help someone, or is there a payoff for me and my ego.

• Expectations are a resentment waiting to happen. I can have no expectations of another person except to act as themselves. And if I don’t express/verbalize my needs I can’t expect others to read my mind or meet my needs.

• Reacting: When I react to others, I give my power over to them. I want to keep my power. God please give me the awareness not to react to others, nor to read their minds.

• Fixing Others in Recovery: Everyone has to travel their own path, and I can’t tell them how to do it. When I focus on others, I avoid working on my own recovery.

• Feeling stuck in Recovery: 1. Am I attending enough meetings? 2. Am I reading the ACA text and other literature? 3. Am I actively working the steps? 4. Am I talking to my higher power and asking for awareness? 5. Am I reaching out for help (picking up the 1,000 pound telephone)?

• Finding Humility: Try praying on your knees to God or your higher power every day for 30 days to remind yourself to be humble and who really is powerless. God you are strong and I am weak. Please help me, or lend me some of your strength.

• Awareness: God Please take a special Interest in my recovery. Give me awareness on my issue, willingness to see where you guide me and the courage to act on it. Please be by my side reminding me I am not alone or abandoned as you are with me.

• Am I a Victim or a Volunteer? Am I a victim or a volunteer when the world seems to be closing in on me?  Am I playing out the victim role from my childhood or is some one really victimizing me. God, Please take my victimization script and remind me I have a choice and I can be happy if I am in the present and not feeling sorry for myself.

• I am a fallible human being with worth and dignity.
• I can have compassion for other people without acting on it. 
• Others’ behavior does not affect my value – I am a precious child of god.
• I am right where I am supposed to be on my personal path of recovery.

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