Addiction and mental illness can cause us to become completely disconnected from our inner selves, so much so that we lose sense of who we are. We lose our voice. Our voice is how we communicate our innermost thoughts and feelings with the world, with the people in our lives, and with ourselves. It’s how […]
Category: Recovery
Putting Energy into Our Intentions
If you’re struggling with thoughts of suicide, PLEASE call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Part of our recovery work is creating goals for ourselves and setting intentions. Sometimes we set those intentions without making sure we’re putting the necessary energy behind them in order to follow through with them. When this happens, our […]
Transforming How We Self-Identify
As recovering addicts, there are different ways in which we self-identify that hurt us, that hold us back, and that are defined by the limiting beliefs we believe about ourselves. We feel as though we’re not good enough. We feel unworthy and unlovable. We feel ashamed of all the things we’ve done wrong and the […]
Letting Our Recovery Be an Example for Others
Sometimes as we’re recovering, we feel ashamed and embarrassed about where we are in our journey. We feel down on ourselves. We feel disappointed that we haven’t made as much progress in our recovery as we would have liked. We feel like we’re so far from our goal of sobriety that we might as well […]
Finding the Lessons in Our Pain
One of the best things we can do for ourselves as we’re working to recover is transform the relationship we have with our pain, our difficult emotions, our addictions and mental health issues, and our tough life experiences. Our instinctive response to pain is to resist it. It hurts, so we try to avoid feeling […]
Why We Should Stop Trying to Constantly Fix Ourselves
The recovery process, like any personal development journey, is full of ups and downs, challenges and obstacles, successes and perceived failures. What we come to realize is that what feels like a failure, or a mistake, or a flaw, is actually an invitation to open ourselves up even more to the process of learning how […]
Forging a Connection with Our Higher Power
Many recovery programs stress the importance of developing a relationship with our higher power, knowing this power, connecting with it and recognizing its existence within us. They view a religious or spiritual practice as being an important part of the recovery process. Many of us don’t already feel connected to a higher power, and we […]
Suicide and How Alone We Feel
If you’re struggling with thoughts of suicide, PLEASE call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Too many of us have known or been connected to someone who took their own life, and the tragedy of it stays with us forever. Many of us want to find a way to address suicide within our families […]
Admitting to Our Mistakes
As we’re working to heal ourselves and recover from our addictions, an important part of the recovery process is developing our ability to admit our mistakes. For years, many of us were resistant to admitting when we felt we had done something wrong or hurt someone. Our pride, our fear of being criticized, and our […]
Respecting Our Boundaries in Recovery
One of the elements of the recovery process that we often find challenging is establishing boundaries for ourselves and ensuring that the people in our lives respect them. Setting and maintaining boundaries takes a level of self-respect and a strong sense of self-worth that many of us haven’t attained yet. We’re still struggling with feelings […]