Watching yourself say the words not only activates even more areas of your brain, amplifying the power of the meditation even more but leaves an even deeper psychological impact, by letting you see yourself make those proclamations. By reciting the Just for Today prayer, you’re literally making a promise to yourself and when you look yourself in the eyes while making those pledges, they hold that much more weight.

You might hear it called the Just For Today Meditation or Just For Today Prayer, or see it simplified in writing as the JFT. But it all amounts to the same helpful concept. Still, many people enjoy and benefit from reading pre-arranged daily meditations, and there are plenty of places to find daily Just for Today prayers or other similar types of affirmations. Just for today I will have a quiet half hour all by myself and relax. During this half hour, sometime, I will try to get a better perspective of my life. In this way, when we’re reciting the Just for Today prayer, we’re literally building a positive thought pattern in our minds. The pathway is formed by the repetition of the act and fortified by associating those positive words with the positive feelings they bring us. It’s strengthened even more when those positive feelings help us create more positivity in the world by letting go of stress, loving ourselves a little more, and finding times and ways to help and love others. Our program is a set of principles," our White Booklet tells us. The more consistently we seek to improve our conscious appreciation of these principles, the more readily we will be able to apply them.

The ‘Just for Today’ reading has become a very important part of my personal programme of recovery. According to some sources it was written in the 1920’s before Alcoholics Anonymous was founded, however was adopted and approved for publication by AA in the 1970’s. Humility is a puzzling concept. We know a lot about humiliation, but humility is a new idea. It sounds suspiciously like groveling, bowing, and scraping. But that's not what humility is at all. True humility is, simply, acceptance of who we are.

All of us had expectations about life in recovery. Some of us thought recovery would suddenly make us employable or able to do anything in the world we wanted to do. Or maybe we imagined perfect ease in our interactions with others. When we stop and think, we realize that we expected recovery would make us perfect. We didn’t expect to continue making many mistakes. But we do. That’s not the addict side of us showing through; that’s being human. The fact that it’s just for today makes that list of goals seem that much more achievable. Anyone can do anything just for one day. Even if the list is long, the short time period it covers can work to alleviate any stress that might crop up if we start to think of these promises more like long-term, ongoing chores. As explained above, the just for today meditation takes on more mental might the more it’s used so many people find it helpful to incorporate a JFT prayer into their everyday routine. The reading is a great reminder for anyone in the programme that as people in recovery we need to keep things in the day. Within such a short reading, It contains simple messages of mindfulness, happiness, acceptance, purpose, perspective and the importance of living a life of spiritual principles. In Narcotics Anonymous we strive for recovery, not perfection. The only promise we are given is freedom from active addiction. Perfection is not an attainable state for human beings; it’s not a realistic goal. What we often seek in perfection is freedom from the discomfort of making mistakes. In return for that freedom from discomfort, we trade our curiosity, our flexibility, and the room to grow.

Just for today I will exercise my soul in three ways: I will do somebody a good turn, and not get found out; if anyone knows of it, it will not count. Just for today I will be agreeable. I will look as well as I can, dress becomingly, talk low, act courteously, criticize not one bit, not find fault with anything, and not try to improve or regulate anybody except myself. Our program is based on the idea that the application of simple principles can produce profound effects in our lives. One such principle is that, if we ask, our Higher Power will care for us. Because this principle is so basic, we may tend to ignore it. Unless we learn to consciously apply this spiritual truth, we may miss out on something as essential to our recovery as breathing is to life itself. Just for today I will try to strengthen my mind. I will study. I will learn something useful. I will not be a mental loafer. I will read something that requires effort, thought and concentration.

Requests for alternative formats of our book-length literature, if needed, can be sent to [email protected]. Booklets There are also plenty of apps designed to offer JFT-style meditations and other helpful tools for recovering addicts.When we know we’re going to pledge ourselves anew tomorrow, we can more honestly feel that it’s okay to not reach all of our goals today. The most important thing is trying our best, and pledging to try our best again tomorrow. Are There Other Options For Daily Meditation? On that note, repetition is another important physiological aspect of the Just For Today meditation. Numerous studies have found that repeating an action can not only form muscle memory within our body but actually rewire neurological pathways in our brains.