We might not usually think of compassion in terms of addiction and mental illness, but the more we learn to have compassion for ourselves and others, the more we can help ourselves during the very challenging recovery process. Our addictions are often coping mechanisms for our pain, the pain of our mental health issues, and […]
Category: Therapy
Determining Our Values
An important part of the recovery process is getting to know ourselves better and therefore getting clearer on our values. When we’re embroiled in our addictions, we tend to lose sight of who we are and what values are important to us. We forget what principles we want to lead our lives by. We’re so […]
Making the Most of Treatment
When we make the decision to get sober, many of us will seek professional help with our recovery program. For many of us, entering treatment is a scary and overwhelming undertaking. We might still be suffering from depression and other mental health issues. We might feel resistance to doing the work, partly because our addictions […]
Examining Our Fears in Therapy
As we’re working to recover from our addictions and mental health issues, examining our fears with a therapist can help us greatly in our healing. We are sometimes so clouded by our toxic thought patterns and so distracted by our life circumstances that we have a hard time looking at what is driving us in […]
How Do I Stop Comparing Myself to Other People?
Along with our addictions and mental health issues, we often develop emotional patterns that contribute to our unwellness. One of the most destructive and debilitating of these emotional patterns is our tendency to compare ourselves to other people. We compete with other people and feel easily threatened by them. As addicts, we compare ourselves to […]
Examining Our Life Patterns
When we look at our lives closely and examine our issues honestly, we start to see that we have life patterns that are repeating themselves almost as if on autopilot, by default, without our even being conscious of them. Our issues tend to be recurring and constitute repeating patterns that we often feel powerless to […]
The Practice of Building Self-Love
Growing in unconditional self-love is a practice that requires energy and commitment. We can’t expect affirmations to magically cure us of our self-hatred, or abstaining from our addictions to fix our relationship with self. The practice of building self-love is one we’ll have to dedicate ourselves to if we want to recover. Addictions and mental […]
What Sobriety Demands of Us
When we make the choice to get sober, we’re being tested and challenged in all kinds of ways, mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. The process of choosing sobriety will demand certain things of us. When we accept the challenge and rise to meet it, we discover gifts and skills we didn’t know we possessed. In […]
How Does Negativity Impact Our Healing?
How we respond to the world around us dictates our emotional energy and therefore how we cope with emotional challenges. Our healing depends on how well we can navigate the difficult circumstances and people we find ourselves forced to deal with. Negativity in particular can be extremely overwhelming and stressful, and when we succumb to […]
Recovery Coaching
Treatment centers are implementing an extremely helpful resource in their work with addicts – recovery coaches. Many treatment centers across the country employ, and were founded by, people who are in recovery themselves, who have successfully worked to heal from their addictions and who are uniquely qualified to be able to help other people do […]