Category: Mental Health

I was anxiously lamenting all the little fires in my life to a friend over tea recently.

“There’s so much, and I don’t even know where to begin. How do you rebuild everything from nothing?” I cried out, having talked myself into a frenzy at the sheer magnitude of the pressures I faced.

She regarded me with a steady gaze, “Well, how do you eat an elephant?”

She paused.

“One bite a time.”

Her silly and slightly disturbing mental image filled my mind, and close on its heels was the heavyweight of realization. Nothing needs to be solved in one fell swoop. Tiny habits, not massive overhauls, are the first steps to sustainable change. Through goal setting with bite-sized chunks of life’s elephants, you can (and will!) overcome them.

Start now.

New Year’s Resolutions have this way of making us feel prepared. Outlines and action plans can give us an illusion of control over our success. But often, when we start them, we become paralyzed by the magnitude of change and quit. In fact, the enthusiastic hope-plan-doom cycle of a resolution contributes to failure almost 80% of the time.

Take charge of your time, boost your recovery and your future. There is no perfect moment coming that will unlock your success, but every step forward will benefit you. Make it a habit to start now, not in five minutes or five days, to reap big rewards.

Prioritize yourself.

Establishing a habit is a commitment. Most often, the hardest ones to keep are the “To me; Love, me” kind. The ones that benefit you and are led by your action. It can feel selfish and like an indulgence. But it is not. Making yourself a priority is the gift that keeps on giving.

Allow space for the things you want and need, then hold that space for them. Make this your first tiny habit, as it will be the key to ensuring you do not slip into harmful coping mechanisms when those wants and needs are ignored.

Small but mighty change.

When you feel untethered, handing over your power can be a struggle, but it’s not always necessary. Cliché as it sounds, sustainability must begin from the inside out. Many mini-mind shifts will produce powerful results without involving anyone but you.

The holistic healing staff at Villa Kali Ma suggest incorporating into your daily schedule little habits like mindful breathing, a short yoga flow, or reframing the words and emotions you use to express yourself. These can offer small shifts with a big influence. Other small but mighty changes you can make are:

• • Offer kindness to others when you are feeling low.
  • Google something interesting. Anything, really, but learning something new can productively engage your mind.
  • Start your day with a glass of water.
  • However, feels good to you. Just get your thoughts out on paper for a few minutes every day.

Think about it.

It seems so simple, but how often do you take the time to sit with an idea and flesh it out? Spend time with those ideas (even the worries). Take inventory of them, and process them accordingly. Intrusive thoughts can feel intense, even when they’re good ones. We are often told to stop the spirals in our heads.

What if sometimes the answer is thinking them through?
To pause and give them space.

Use a timer to give yourself a structured few minutes. Then pause and consider as many of those loose ends as you can. Spend time with the thought in its entirety, even if it’s uncomfortable. This tiny habit of giving yourself permission to pause and make space for your thoughts and feelings can have powerful results, and the cue is already ingrained when you feel that building push of an idea, pause.

Lean on experts.

Tiny Habits aficionado BJ Fogg has a reputation you can rely on- and you should. With more than two decades of research into a sustainable life change, Dr. Fogg supports small changes to make the most impact. Fogg suggests getting highly specific to optimize the prompt you’ll use to engage it.  Using the combined force of motivation, ability, and a prompt within a moment, you can establish a behavior. Boost your recovery by allowing it to motivate you.

Set your habits with intention and specificity, but don’t eat your elephant in one big gulp. Small bites, tiny habits, and consistent effort toward your end goal will move you steadily toward it. Allow expertise to strengthen your resolve and support the habits you put into motion right now. If you find you need some assistance to boost your recovery or begin your healing journey, Villa Kali Ma offers a holistic program that supports setting goals and teaches mindfulness practices.

Contact us today to learn more about sustainable recovery and the life change available to you when you are in a supportive environment like Villa Kali Ma.

The beginning of 2020 brought about the end of a decade – a time to reflect on the past and create hopes and dreams for the future. However, we quickly learned that this year was not likely to make good on the promise and hopes we set. Instead, 2020 taught us to stay flexible and adapt, and through enduring many trials, it reminded us of just how strong we are. As we near the end of 2020, we again set our sights on the year to come, closing the chapter on a year that has been fraught with many stressors, both planned and unplanned.

The Coronavirus Pandemic

As the virus drew national and international attention in its spread to all corners of the globe, our response to it has moved through many stages as our ability to cope has been tested.

The Unrest Begins

The first wave – the onset of the virus – created an environment full of fear and uncertainty about how our lives would be affected and for how long. From that fertile ground quickly rose seeds of dissent, anger, and frustration about how others handled themselves during this time and the extent of the precautions they were (or were not) taking.

The messaging shifted very quickly, encouraging us to “look at the bright side” and seek opportunities for growth and advantages offered by this worldwide reset. Lurking underneath this mask of our “new normal,” however, there still existed plenty of distress: depression, hopelessness, anxiety, insomnia, and for some, traumatic stress, and suicidal thoughts.

On August 14th, 2020, a CDC study reported that 40% of US adults reported symptoms of depression, anxiety, or increased substance use, with 10.7% reporting having suicidal thoughts in the past 30 days. This represented a substantial increase from past studies.

Stress Continues

As the pandemic has worn on and we watch “the numbers” rise, our sense of helplessness has become difficult to counter in the face of the year’s many challenges. The losses we suffered began to stack up. Starting with a worldwide shift that called for us to stay at home, facing necessary adaptations to age-old traditions, economic unrest, educational changes, workplace reform, and disconnection from those around us, we have arrived at is a completely changed way of life.

This changed way of life has led to many new stressors: many Americans have lost their homes, jobs, and businesses, just as they have also lost their standard ways of coping with it. What is more, many young adults lost their identity as goals they had worked years towards achieving were lost to the pandemic. Even for those where the real casualties have been minimal, many of these factors’ cumulative stress creates profound effects.

The Vulnerable Among Us

While everyone is understandably affected by the virus, some communities remained disproportionately vulnerable to its effects, including Blacks, Hispanics, the elderly, people of lower socioeconomic status of all races, and health care workers.

For them, this is a crisis of physical health and takes a toll on their mental health. From these conditions, three months into the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement reignited and brought further unrest and unease to our already tenuous state.

Further on into the year, as we prepared for a 2020 presidential election, even basic public health strategies such as testing, quarantining, and wearing masks have become politicized. Civil political discussions moved to a hostile online environment, and we feel distant and unrecognizable to those with an opposing view.

Substance Misuse and Our Mental Health

The pandemic challenges exist in isolating us from others and the very solutions to deal with our stresses. In protecting our physical health, social distancing, and stay-at-home measures deeply affected our mental health. This is especially true for those with substance use disorders or those who are in recovery from them.

We have learned time and time again from speakers such as Johann Hari that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety; it is human connection. The strain of isolation takes a particular toll on us, whether our problematic relationship with substances began before or after the pandemic started.

Those who already were in active addiction – now isolated from their support services – have begun to use their pre-programmed coping skill to deal with the new stresses they face. Those who may not previously have had a problem have now found themselves reliant on alcohol or other drugs to make it through the day, to calm their anxieties, or to pass the time.

Hope in 2020 and Beyond

Although the challenges of this time are genuine, it is essential to realize that while the ways you may have traditionally received support are no longer available, the counseling and treatment world has adapted right along with the virus. We understand intimately the losses associated with this pandemic: the loss of life, of how we do things, and of when things were more comfortable.

However, those of us in the recovery community are also no stranger to learning to adapt and learning to carve out a new way of life for ourselves. We are familiar with making the difficult choice to avoid numbing, exploring our past, and walking the path that will lead us to experience happiness and fulfillment ultimately.

At Villa Kali Ma, we want to hold onto hope for you that things will get better, and with clinical expertise and holistic healing methods, we want to show you the way. Contact us today to learn more about our trauma-informed and sustainable treatment programs.

You can’t forgive without loving. And I do not mean sentimentality. I do not mean mush.
I mean having enough courage to stand up and say, ‘I forgive. I’m finished with it.’

— MAYA ANGELOU

In general, as a culture, we have become so good at striving for success and recognition, and at the same time so bad at dealing with missteps and mistakes, especially our own. We understand the concept that “everyone makes mistakes” and that theoretically, “it is not about the fact that we made a mistake, but how we recover from it.” However, this is an incredibly difficult belief to hold on to when facing our own shortcomings or failures.

Many people struggle with self-condemnation that stems from feeling as though they’ve either done something “wrong” and have guilt related to how they acted, or because they feel that they themselves are “wrong” or defective in some way which leads to a sense of shame. For those who develop a problematic relationship with alcohol or other substances, these experiences of guilt and shame are universal.

The ability to find forgiveness for self is in so many ways the key to the healing process. In life, as with the process of recovery, true freedom comes once you find it within yourself to let go— to offer yourself the cleansing relief that comes with moving on and like the quote above, having the courage to love yourself enough to be finished with it.

The Road to Self-Forgiveness

Learning how to accept ownership over mistakes, let go, move on, and forgive yourself is important for mental health and well-being, although often it is much easier said than done. Self-forgiveness requires empathy, compassion, kindness, and understanding, and ultimately, requires you to make the choice to be honest with yourself throughout the process.

1. Setting Aside Time to Process

One of the biggest traps that we fall into as humans is believing that if we are not actively thinking about something that it is not a problem for us. Rather than dealing with our emotions, we tend to disregard them, “stuff them down”, or avoid them entirely.

When you are trying to create a new life for yourself free from the influence of substances, nothing can quite stunt your progress as this tendency. We need time to sit with ourselves and to acknowledge and process all the emotions that arise in us. Allow yourself permission to recognize and accept the feelings that are triggered in you as you think about where your life has taken you so far.

2. Acknowledging What Happened

Facing the realities of what you have done in the past or what has happened is an important step towards self-forgiveness. It is often our initial temptation to make excuses or to try to rationalize or justify our actions in order to make them seem acceptable.

However, by taking responsibility and owning up to the fact that you have engaged in actions that have hurt others, you can begin to free yourself – and them – from some of the burdens. It is also helpful to adopt the narrative that “I did the best I could with the tools and knowledge I had at the time”. In this way, we can balance the forces of accountability and compassion and develop a realistic perspective of what happened.

3. Considering What You Have Learned From the Experience

It can be a helpful exercise to consider each mistake of the past as a learning experience that helps you to discover more about the person you want to be in the future. This is the primary function of guilt as an emotion.

When we feel guilty, this is a message from our subconscious mind letting us know that our actions are not in line with our beliefs and ultimately helps us to make a different choice in the future. Progress looks like moving away from shame-based beliefs about the self:

• • “I am a bad person” and moving towards a more hopeful narrative.
  • “I made a bad choice, but I have the power to make better choices in the future.”
  • Or even just “I’ve experienced an incredibly painful lesson in who I don’t want to be.”

4. Having a Conversation With Your Inner Critic

Moving towards self-forgiveness means developing an active practice of self-compassion. In addition to learning to be kind to ourselves, this means taking a closer look at the internal dialogues that we allow to take place in our minds. An actionable step you can take is to write out a conversation between you and your inner critic as a way to recognize the thoughts that are getting in the way of forgiveness. This can help you identify thought patterns that are sabotaging your ability to forgive yourself.

You may also need to examine the expectations and standards you hold for yourself. The expert on self-compassion, Kristin Neff recommends considering your situation as if your best friend were the one in crisis. What would you say? How would you comfort them? Ultimately, how is that conversation compared to the one you had earlier with your inner critic? Why is it so difficult to extend the same message of love and forgiveness to ourselves?

5. Making a Plan for Moving Forward

Making amends is an important part of forgiveness, even when the person you are forgiving is yourself. The best way to move past your guilt is to take action to make up for your mistakes. While we may never “earn” forgiveness or fully make up for it, apologizing or even being willing to have the conversation with others about their experience is an important step. This aspect of self-forgiveness is about responding to what happened in a way that you can be proud of, no matter whether others ultimately accept your apology.

6. Quit Playing the Tape

While in many ways, it is human nature to spend time and energy replaying our mistakes, at some point, it becomes no longer healthy for us to continue in that way. Falling into the trap of rumination, self-hatred, or even pity can be incredibly damaging to your recovery process.

When you catch yourself playing the “I’m broken” or “I’m a horrible human” tape, stop yourself and focus on one positive action step. Interrupting the thought pattern can help you replace the negative experience and even reduce stress and anxiety.

7. Focusing on Today and the Hope of Tomorrow

Self-forgiveness is incredibly important to the healing process as it allows you to let go of the anger, guilt, shame, sadness you may be holding on to and move on. Working through this process gives you a plan for the future, rather than allowing self-defeating thoughts to continue plaguing you.

As you learn to identify what you are feeling, tame your inner critic, and work towards a different outcome, you will begin to see how freeing forgiveness can be. The power of forgiveness is in being able to offer yourself that gift, to accept it, and to step into the hope that tomorrow will be different.

Healing at Villa Kali Ma

When it comes to processing through your past, this is the work of therapy—to learn to offer yourself forgiveness, to sit with your pain and emotion, and move through it. At Villa Kali Ma, we know the importance of the relationship you develop with yourself on the recovery journey, as well as the challenges of meeting your inner critic face-to-face.

In addition to working with you through the process of self-forgiveness, we teach you the skills of mindfulness, of how to stay present in your experience, and how to offer yourself self-compassion along the way. If you or an important woman in your life is struggling with addiction to alcohol or other substances, contact us today to learn more about our program and how we can help!

There are unique differences between women and men who seek out treatment for substance abuse. More than the obvious biological differences, there are social and environmental factors to consider as well. In treatment, we as women require a safe space where we can reconnect with ourselves and heal our connection to the divine feminine energy and power within us.

For many women, this becomes a very difficult task when men are present. Many treatment centers are based on models of substance abuse that have been created for men. In fact, most of the literature and research that has been conducted in the past has been based on males. It has not been until recently that women’s needs have been taken into account with regard to substance abuse treatment.

Many women seeking treatment have been hiding their pain and stuffing their emotions while continuing to be the primary caregiver in their families. In keeping up their family, job, and community roles and commitments while ignoring their own needs, they can fall deeper and deeper into substance use to cope. This can go on for decades as women deny their divine feminine and try to “man up” and keep up appearances, even when they are breaking inside.

These women’s needs would be best served in a program committed to honoring and recognizing the divine feminine power within each woman. They need to heal in an environment that helps each individual woman reconnect to the power of her most sacred self.  The journey of true recovery most often looks different for women than for men and thus, women need to be in a program that recognizes and provides for these differences.

Unique Challenges Women Face in Treatment and Recovery

From the start, women face different challenges than men that impact both why and how their substance abuse develops. In addition, women internalize different expectations from society and their community and are more likely to experience instances of sexual victimization and trauma than their male counterparts. This impacts what each gender needs to feel safe, heard, and eventually heal from the cycles of addiction.

Relationships

Relationships are a key factor explaining why women seek help for substance abuse. Many women may have initially fallen into substance abuse as a means to cope with an abusive relationship or due to drugs and alcohol being a key part of past relationships. However, many of these women choose to seek healing only once the goodwill in those relationships has run dry, and they find themselves out of options.

Others may desire to seek help in order to take steps in the opposite direction: so they can form healthier relationships in their lives and heal the attachment injuries that are stopping them from doing so. This process may also require addressing underlying love addictions or patterns of choosing toxic and abusive partners for themselves.

Pregnancy

Women are unique in their ability to give life. Although not all women have had this opportunity, it is still a key difference between men and women. Issues around pregnancy can be a motivating factor for some to seek treatment. For some women who have lost children due to substance abuse or other challenges in life, this can be a key element that is addressed in treatment. Connecting back to the womb, to the mother of all things can be part of any woman’s healing journey.

Parenting

Along the same lines, children can be a motivating factor for women to seek treatment but they can also be the reason they do not out of fear of losing them. Women often internalize more stigma and stereotypes than men when it comes to struggling with substance abuse and are often more fearful about being seen as “unfit” mothers. Mothers often carry with them a lot of shame and guilt for bringing their children with them along the road of addiction —something which can only be healed with self-forgiveness and love.

Co-Occurring Disorders

More women than men who seek substance abuse treatment suffer from multiple disorders. This means that in addition to their substance abuse, they may also be fighting the demons of:

• • Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
  • Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)
  • Bipolar disorder
  • Major depression
  • Borderline personality disorder (BPD)
  • Eating disorders

It is important that all disorders be addressed and treated at the same time. This can be incredibly difficult, and we need to help women recognize that they have the power,  strength, and resilience it takes to battle all these forces at once. More often than not, these disorders are linked in origin, in that many women have used substances to self-medicate, to help them cope with the underlying mental health challenges.

Thus, healing involves learning how to cope without the aid of familiar substances. It is important that women feel safe talking about their internal battles and this is best done with people they feel most safe with. Although men can also struggle with co-occurring disorders, it is not as common and most may not be able to relate in the same depth.

Trauma

Many women who seek substance abuse treatment have experienced physical and/or sexual abuse. The trauma that women experience is often different than men and needs to be addressed sensitively and safely so it can be healed. For many women, it can be the shame and pain from these traumatic experiences that fuel their desire to numb with substances. To get to the root of these traumatic experiences one has to be vulnerable and open, which can be difficult to do in the presence of the opposite sex. Many women may have experienced abuse at the hands of their previous male partners or family members.

If males are present in the treatment setting, women may feel too triggered or just not safe enough to open up and be vulnerable in a way that would allow them to process the trauma and receive the support and guidance they need. In order to face their trauma and heal it, there needs to be a supportive community of other women that can create a safe container free of judgment or potential for re-traumatization. Women supporting each other through the journey of healing creates an opportunity to see that we are not alone and our situation is not unique.

Many of us have experienced the same kinds of suffering and together we can learn new coping skills and experience a transformation from being victims of trauma to becoming empowered survivors of trauma. Seeking treatment for substance abuse can be a daunting experience and women should focus on their specific needs and prioritize the importance of a “safe container” in a therapeutic environment in order to ensure progress toward the goal of recovery. Women only treatment centers recognize the unique challenges women face in our society when it comes to substance abuse and other co-occurring issues.

Women-specific programming is essential in creating a therapeutic treatment approach that is tailored to address the unique needs of women and will provide them with the best care possible. In order to succeed, women need to connect back to their true authentic selves and be seen and validated in an environment that is empathetic to the specific challenges that women alone face.  This breaks down to one essential truth; women do have specific needs in substance abuse treatment and these needs are better met in a gender-specific environment.