Why I Pray In The Shower

I was fifteen years old when I first fell in love with a boxer named Muhammad Ali. I know using the term falling in love when concerning another man may sound strange, but I assure you I wasn’t the only one who loved and adored the man who was The Heavyweight Champion of the World back then. I wrote in my book why Ali was my idol as a teenager, but what I didn’t write about was the self-love that he possessed. It wasn’t the insecurity fueled kind that’s evident in many people today, but the type of self love that happens through spiritual and personal growth. It took me several years in my sobriety before I learned what true self-love felt like and I wish I could help everyone achieve it. It’s been over 35 years since I began my love affair with the man who was called “The Greatest” by himself and others, and although he may not be what he once was physically, I know because of his beliefs that he still loves who he is today. I’m certainly not the same person I was physically at fifteen or for that matter even a few years ago, but I too love who I am today. I have found that the secret to loving ourselves is to always strive for spiritual and personal growth and that when we learn to love ourselves enough to be happy with who we are, we will begin to love ourselves unconditionally. When we love ourselves unconditionally it holds the promise of some day being able to love others the same way and makes having the self-love I’m talking about truly the greatest love of all.

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Tags: believing in ourselves, Darryl Duke, muhammad ali, personal growth, self love, self worth, spiritual growth, the greatest love of all, why i pray in the shower

Despite all the things in my sobriety that has helped me believe in myself, a creator I call God, and that everything’s going to be all right even when it’s not, I have been feeling somewhat fearful and sad the past few weeks. It began when I started battling some worry I felt about my book not gaining the attention I had hoped for and grew by letting the negative effects of the news media bring me down. I also started realizing just how hard it is for someone like me that no one ever heard of, to gain even a little notoriety. Now I’m not saying I want to be the Dalai Lama or a male Oprah, nor am I saying I want to be another one of the many self help gurus out there.  I simply want the chance to achieve a level of celebrity if you will, that will allow me to reach the millions of people that I know I can help with my book and my beliefs in life. To add to the emotions I’m feeling, I see people on the Internet and TV who have received varying degrees of celebrity and reached millions of people by acting out in some crazy and often nasty ways, who don’t even seem to care about helping others. I don’t mean to judge anyone here and want people to do what makes them happy in life, but I can’t deny the frustration and anger I sometimes feel when I see or hear about the negative and meaningless things people do. These things can’t be helpful to anyone and has more of an effect on our well being than we think. I do believe there are lots of you out there who agree with me and I promise I haven’t lost hope in achieving what I want to do in life, but it’s been a tougher road for me than I originally thought it was going to be. I just need to continue doing the things that got me this far on the path I actually began when I decided to get sober and stay that way. Have Faith, and use the tools of prayer, people, and hope to help me. I also know that as long as I stay true to myself and my beliefs, and not let the effects our world can have on all of us at times bring me down and fill me with hopelessness, I’ll be all right even when things aren’t.  Several years ago a young woman in AA gave me a CD and told me one of the songs on it made her think of me when she heard it. It’s actually a song about the Oklahoma city bombing sung by Garth Brooks, but it meant a lot to me at the time and still does today. I hope you like it.

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Tags: creating our path, Darryl Duke, faith, Happiness, helping others, overcoming doubts and fears, why i pray in the shower

Some people believe we’re put on a path at birth that leads to our destiny, and while I believe we are here for a reason, I also believe I’ve had a lot to do with creating my own path in life, especially in my sobriety. There have been several books written about us being able to create our lives the way we want them to be through our thoughts and beliefs, and I’ve read many of them. Although all these types of books told me how to create happiness in my life, most of them equated this happiness with getting everything I wanted, like lots of money, a bigger home, and other materialistic things. One book in particular that I read was published in 1932, long before any of these other books were around and perhaps even their authors, and it’s one of my favorites. It’s called Sermon on the Mount by Emmet Fox. It doesn’t talk about creating happiness through monetary and materialistic gains, but explains what the key to success in life is and how to obtain it. For me success in life came about by continually striving for spiritual and personal growth, but I will say I was fortunate to find this book at a time when I didn’t have a whole lot of faith in a God or myself. Even today there are times when I let doubts creep in about my future and my ability to create it the way I want it to be and fill me with fears, but it doesn’t take long to overcome them and believe everything will be all right. This is because I’ve found that the key to success in life isn’t just creating more wealth and material things to make me happy, but creating the type of happiness that these things can’t bring, which is happiness with myself.  Happiness, that for me, came about by continually trying to be a better person than I was before and believing in more than just this world.  I wrote in my book how on the days when my belief in a creator and myself are strong, I feel an inner joy that’s different from any other happiness I experience, and I call this joy, true happiness.

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Tags: creating our path, personal growth, sobreity, spiritual growth, Spirituality, why i pray in the shower

I recently began rethinking my belief about us all being one as it was becoming more evident to me that some of us like myself for example can actually be quite different and others even unique, but after doing a little research I still stand by my belief.  For me it’s as simple as first knowing that every one of us is made up of the same matter and every one of us has genes. And second, that the reason we’re different or unique is because of the many different varieties and combinations of genes we have, with some not even discovered yet!  Now if I’ve confused you it wasn’t my intention and I’ll admit this “we’re all one” thing can be hard to understand and except.  But if we have faith that there is some kind of God that created life and the Universe for a reason, then it makes sense that there’s a reason why we’re all made of the same matter and all have genes. Something else that makes me believe we are all one and also requires faith in a creator is our ability to change who we are.  Although it’s estimated that 50 percent of our genes are passed down from generation to generation and some can affect our health and even happiness, we don’t have to be a product of those genes.  I slowly changed who I was by first changing my thought processes and found that thinking differently and more positively in life helped me become a happier person. I also believe that thinking more positive and taking care of ourselves through diet and exercise can help us avoid many of the health problems that our parents or grandparents had. I really do believe we’re all one, and although some people purposely try to be different and unique like some of the “celebrities” we see for example,  I believe we’re all special and all a part of the same creator I call God.

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Tags: addiction, alcoholism, genes, god, Happiness, heredity, recovery, science, the happiness gene, uniqueness