Many of us living with addictions and mental health issues share patterns of self-destructiveness that drive our actions. For many of us, this can occur as self-sabotage. What does this look like, and why do we do it? Self-sabotage can take on many forms – interrupting our healing progress, choosing unhealthy relationships and behaviors, physical […]
Category: Resource Center
Seeing the Possibility in Confusion
In times of difficulty when we feel a great sense of confusion, sometimes our instinct is to see our confusion as a negative thing. We feel afraid of it. We think it is working against us. We reject it and want to run from it. Confusion can be very difficult. We can choose to see […]
What Happens When We Don’t Feel Heard and Understood?
One of our basic emotional instincts is the need to feel heard, understood and validated by the people around us. We crave safe community within which to be supported and accepted. When we don’t have this, it can greatly impact our mental and emotional health in limiting and destructive ways. Our fears can be really […]
Believing in Our Inner Power
Our addictions and mental health issues can cause us to lose faith in ourselves and to stop believing in ourselves. As we go through the difficult experiences in our lives, we often don’t believe we have the strength to get through them. We can feel hopeless and without direction. We give up on ourselves. We […]
How Can I Reframe Things More Positively?
One of our biggest challenges when it comes to addictions and mental health issues is our tendency to think the very worst – about the events and situations in our lives, about our relationships, about ourselves and our lives in general. We see things through a lens of negativity. This can lead not only to […]
Staying Calm in a Crisis
Living with addictions, depression and other mental health issues means we will inevitably experience difficult moments of crisis in our lives. How we respond to a crisis can determine how we will manage to get through it. We experience conflicts in our relationships, difficult matters related to our health and wellbeing, financial difficulties, and much […]
Where Do Our Limiting Beliefs Come From?
Many of us with addictions and mental health issues share in common a tendency to carry within us deeply disempowering limiting beliefs. While everyone’s beliefs are going to be unique to them, there are some limiting beliefs that many of us share – that we’re not good enough, that we are shameful, bad people undeserving […]
The Miracle of Getting Through Painful Times
Sometimes when we are feeling extremely depressed, struggling with our addictions and going through especially difficult times, we can forget how far we’ve come, how much we’ve survived, how much we’ve already gotten through. The truth is we have already endured and survived so much. We are strong. We are survivors. When we are in […]
What Happens When We Feel Rejected?
Rejection is a common theme for many of us. At some point in our lives we’ve felt rejected and then internalized that rejection. Many of us whose families separated or experienced any kind of loss developed deeply rooted fears of abandonment, especially if we were abandoned in one way or another, emotionally if not physically. […]
Stigmas Around Mental Health and Addiction
One of the biggest things preventing people from getting the help they need is the pervasiveness of the stigmas still surrounding mental health and addiction. These stigmas cause us to fear being judged and shunned, so we isolate ourselves and struggle with our challenges alone, in silence. What are some of these stigmas, and how […]