Category: Therapy

There are many tools to help us in our recovery from addiction, and one of the most powerful ones we can access is that of connection. We very often feel disconnected from other people and from our higher power, making us feel even more alone. How can we develop a sense of connection, and how […]

Many of us have associations with therapy that are negative, based on our past experiences or on cultural stereotypes around therapy. We may have had an experience with a therapist that made us hesitant to try therapy again. We might have heard other people discount therapy as being useless and a waste of time and […]

Many of us living with addictions and mental health issues have a hard time letting go of our pasts. We carry the weight of our traumatic experiences. We struggle to forgive our mistakes. We dwell on our regrets. We cling to our shame and embarrassment. We tend to be emotionally self-destructive rather than self-protective, often […]

Many of us with addictions and mental health issues have a tendency to resist our pain rather than accept it. We have developed such a resistance over the years, often unconsciously, that we are giving our painful thoughts and emotions even more power over us. When we can learn to accept them, we are able […]

Many of us with addictions and mental health issues find ourselves in codependent relationships, and we often are emotionally dependent on the other people in our lives. We base our emotions and moods on other people’s and are emotionally susceptible to their changing feelings. As part of our recovery, we can choose to develop our […]

Many of us live in cities without much regular access to the natural world. This separation from nature is known to contribute to depression, anxiety and other mental health issues and is sometimes referred to as Nature Deficit Disorder. Spending time in nature, even in small amounts, can be wonderfully beneficial to our healing and […]

Coming to accept ourselves is a process, and it takes time, practice and patience. We’ve grown so accustomed to hating parts of ourselves, wishing certain things about us were different, feeling ashamed of certain things about ourselves. When we’re in recovery, we’re actively working to process our addictions and mental health issues, all of our […]

When we are most anxious, we tend to let our thoughts run out of control, often without realizing it. We believe that we don’t have control over our minds and that we are powerless over them. We create beliefs around this powerlessness which actually work against us, but we can work to consciously direct our […]

One of the worst things we can do for ourselves is suppress our emotions. When we don’t allow our emotions to flow in healthy ways, we create blockages within us that can cause us tremendous amounts of pain. Our emotions are a significant part of who we are, and when we don’t allow ourselves to […]

When we are struggling with our addictions and mental health issues, we very often aren’t tapped into our inner strength to guide us. We feel powerless in dealing with our challenges. Along our path to recovery, however, we find sources of strength that help us to believe in ourselves and our recovery, that remind us […]