Category: Recovery

Categories
Recovery

Support Systems in Recovery

What is a support network?

The Yoruba proverb “It takes a village to raise a child” can be applied to recovery and childrearing. It takes a whole community of people to help each of us get and stay sober!

The good news is that growing a living, breathing forest of healthy relationships is one of healing connection, relational repairs, and restoration of our sense of belonging.

One of the most powerful remedies to the deep alienation and loneliness of addiction, a support network brings resilience, capacity, and joy into our embodied sense of the world we inhabit.

What is a healthy recovery support system?

A healthy recovery support system is abundant, flexible, and strong. There are different types of relationships inside a support system, ranging from close family members like spouses or siblings to addiction professionals who are part of your treatment team. The largest portion of a healthy recovery support network will be made up of sober peers, mentors, sponsors, and friends – others who are walking the recovery path, too.

You can think of your support system as radiating out from you like the strands of a spider web or a bird’s nest built to hold you safe and cushioned. The threads and fibers of the web or nest are the relationships you form and secure with people. Some people will be bonded to you in a close relationship – these people are close to the center where you are. Others will be a bit further away from you, less intimate, but still part of how you are held safe. A good support system has many secure, flexible fibers, creating an overall bouncy resilience that can withstand some wear and tear.

What is the importance of social support in recovery?

Social support is the most protective factor in recovery. Individuals who complete treatment and follow it up by continuously nurturing and leaning into their support system are significantly more likely to succeed as compared with people who complete treatment but return to living in relative isolation.

That’s why every good treatment program will insist upon the importance not only of using the tools learned in rehab or IOP but also in continuing to show up for the process of embedded relating with other positive people.

If you’re wondering why this is the case, consider that neuroscience confirms what addiction professionals and people who recover successfully have observed for many decades: It is vital for our emotional, mental, and even physiological well-being that we connect and co-regulate with other healthy humans every day.

Dr. Stephen Porges, the psychologist who studied and formulated the Polyvagal Theory, writes and speaks about the overwhelming evidence that we humans are animals made for social engagement. When trauma, addiction, or mental illness shuts off our access to basic communing with other human beings, we suffer and deteriorate dramatically.

Addiction inhibits our ability to form social bonds and to lovingly nourish and protect the ones we have. Once we get into recovery, we are given the gift of the chance to regrow our relatedness, recovering not only from addiction but also from isolation.

How recovery groups work?

Recovery groups are free, peer-led, self-organized communities that gather regularly for healing co-support meetings.

Recovery groups are where you can find other people who have “experience, strength, and hope” to share about what their addiction was like, how they got better, and how they live in the joy of the solution now.

Because it is part of the recovery process to help others, through sponsorship and service work, recovery groups include many people who are further along down the road than we are, who have been through the challenges we are facing now.

These more experienced people can offer guidance, listen to our truth without getting triggered into judgment or fear, and provide basic comfort and connection.

Most of all, recovery groups are a place to share emotions and struggles anonymously, in a nonjudgmental environment, among others who understand from their own experience what it’s like to struggle with addiction.

Recovery groups that are based on the original 12-step or AA model follow certain patterns and principles which might be called “best practices for healing together with others”, in which anonymity, safety, freedom, and inclusion are emphasized.

Other kinds of recovery groups are facilitated support groups and therapy groups (these usually require a fee, but not always).

What addiction support system services are available?

When you complete a treatment program, you will ideally be connected to what’s called an Aftercare Program, such as the one we offer at Villa Kali Ma for all of our program participants.

In Aftercare Programs, there are opportunities to touch base with your treatment team periodically, as well as chances to hang out with other sober peers.

Depending on the program you participated in, there may be ongoing individual therapy, relapse prevention groups, events, and celebrations, which you can attend as you bridge into your new life.

How is a healthy recovery support system built?

Building a healthy support web or nest is like weaving a basket – we do it twig by twig, strand by strand, slowly securing connections and braiding them in.

The first circle of relationships will probably be made up of our treatment team, professionals upon whom we allowed ourselves to first rely as we began to rebuild a sober life. Hopefully, these relationships helped us feel, at the body and heart level, what it’s like to have someone in our corner. Our therapist, a facilitator we felt especially safe and connected to, or another person on staff at the therapy center might be an important twig in our nest. Other people in our inner circle might (but also might not!) include family members, old friends, or our spouse. We all have different family and relationship histories, so whatever is true for you, try not to judge it.

After leaving treatment, we will ideally lean into the recovery community where we live by attending frequent 12-step meetings, going out for coffee with new sober friends, and forming a close relationship with a sponsor.

Every time we sit in a circle of other recovering people, and every time we linger a few minutes afterwards to help put away the chairs or connect with someone whose share resonated with us, we will be adding twigs to our nest. The more twigs we can add, the more protection and guidance we have through our early recovery experiences.

As we expand our network of recovery relationships, we may extend into friendships with people who aren’t addicts themselves but who can be part of our support nest for other reasons. They might be work friends, someone we meet in a yoga class, or a positive family member with whom we find ourselves able to be safely close.

All in all, we can think of support network-building as an ongoing, living, and breathing process that will happen slowly but surely by continuing to take small steps of connection and relating.

What are the steps to building a solid support system during addiction recovery?

A support network is best grown with patience and understanding. Each tiny connection will lead to more connections, and each time we take the risk of connecting with another, we grow our capacity for it. Here are some thoughts for getting started.

Step 1: Go to Meetings Every Day

In the very beginning, just consistently showing up is key. Sooner or later, we’ll discover glimmers of closeness and familiarity, noticing people we like or resonate with. This will all lead us gradually into more socially engaging behavior. We will find ourselves looking around more, maybe even smiling, making our first forays into connection.


Step 2: Introduce Yourself in Meetings

It can be tempting, even when we’re going to meetings, to stay quiet. That’s fine for a short while, but it’s good to let people hear our voices and to learn our names, too. We might not be ready to share, but we can always introduce ourselves.

It’s good to say to the room that we’re new and that we’d like to get connected to the community. Whenever we speak a need out loud in a meeting, the chances are higher that someone comes to us with an offer to connect or an idea for what we could do to get integrated.


Step 3: Share Your Story

When you’re ready, share a piece of your recovery story in meetings. Connection is built through small disclosures of who we are on the inside, and there’s nothing more intimacy-building than honestly disclosing what we think, feel, and experience.

When we allow others to glimpse the tender, imperfect pain and beauty inside us, people can resonate with us. We might even inspire or comfort them. When people resonate with us, they often reach out to tell us so or to begin the relating process with us.


Step 4: Go to Sober Social Gatherings

People in recovery rooms often go out to dinner or for another meal together after meetings, and newcomers are always welcome. If you linger after a meeting, chances are that you will get invited.

There are also often sober barbecues and other seasonal events, which are chances to socialize and connect. Socializing in recovery is very different than any other kind of socializing because no one requires you to put on a false front. You can be very raw and real when you hang out with sober people, and no one will be ruffled by it.

We just need to be around people. This will stimulate and grow our ability to connect and relate, and even if we don’t fully realize the effect it has on us while it’s happening, just seeing other smiling faces and hearing people talk and engage socially is enormously regulating.


Step 5: Ask Someone Out on a Friend Date

It is very likely that if you ask someone sober for a while to get coffee, they will say an enthusiastic yes. People with a few years of recovery under their belt highly value any chance to be “of service”.

This means they will be more than happy to listen to you, help you get connected to other sober people, tell you about meetings you might like, and give you all kinds of tips for getting through challenging situations. Sitting with you, hearing you, and accepting you just as you are right now, without placing any coercion, will be a positive experience for them. Try it and see for yourself!


Step 6: Get Lots of Recovery Phone Numbers and Call One Every Day

Most meetings circulate a phone list or otherwise share contact information. Some members will put their phone number down as a way of indicating that they are available to take a recovery call or even be a sponsor or temporary sponsor.

These phone numbers are gold. A quick supportive call helps you get your head screwed on straight again. You don’t need to be feeling bad to do it – on the contrary, if you make a habit of calling one recovery person a day no matter how you feel that day, you will entrain and align to the life-protecting connectivity you need to stay sober and keep on the path to joy.

What are the types of support networks in addiction recovery?

In addiction recovery, you can differentiate your support network into different categories.

Your treatment support network is made up of professionals, therapists, and facilitators. These are people to whom you can go for their expertise in the field of recovery, trauma recovery, and/or psychology. These supports are likely to be aware of many further resources that can help you. They are good people to ask for help or to consult about a specific problem you’re facing.

You may book treatment sessions with such people or just touch base from time to time regarding how your recovery is going. An Aftercare Program is designed to keep you feeling linked with this network.

Your recovery community support network is made up of sober peers, friends, sponsors, and acquaintances from your recovery community, such as people you befriend in AA. These are people who will take your call when you’re triggered and tempted to use, who will invite you over to a sober Christmas party (and it will be fun!), or who can help you remember the wisdom of the principles of recovery.

This will eventually be the most robust, supple, and extensive part of your recovery network, a place where you can experience joy, friendship, loyalty, playfulness, inclusion, and belonging at very deep levels.

Finally, your positive friends, family, and loved ones are also part of your personal support network. The people who love you, who have known you since you were a child, who were there for you when you were ill, and who are still with you now that you are well, are also a part of your support network.

These decades-old, thick-and-thin relationships can be challenging sometimes, but they also have special qualities that no other type of relationship can ever have. If this area feels hard for you, consider that the longer we are sober, the more likely it is that these relationships get the chance of healing and repair we have always longed for. But also, some relationships are too damaging to us to keep close, and that’s ok too.

What are tips for managing your personal support network?

Support networks need some tending. In the beginning, it is normal and natural that we are needy and that we lean on our support network, taking much more than we give. That might be the case for many years, and that is ok!

Over time, though, and on days when we feel that we are resourced and balanced, it is good to think about giving back to our support network.

Taking care of our support network isn’t as altruistic as it sounds – giving back also grows our web, making it even stronger, which means it can give us even more support! A healthy support network exchanges energy, sometimes giving, taking in, much like breathing.

To give back to your treatment support network, you can participate in Aftercare Groups actively. You can volunteer, for example, to come speak and share your story at your treatment center. This helps you realize how far you have come, as well as serve as inspiration for others!

To nourish your recovery support network, you can reach out to meeting newcomers, put your name on the phone list, or sit next to new people at sober events, just being a friendly face where one is needed. When you’re ready, you can sponsor. Speaking at a meeting is also a way to give back to your recovery community.

To nourish your personal support network, you can help friends and family know that their efforts, persistence, and loyalty mean something to you. Acknowledge them when you can. Practice patience with their lack of understanding, and try to see the ways that they are giving you their love.

Villa Kali Ma builds recovery support systems

At Villa Kali Ma, we know that community is the beating heart of a living, breathing recovery. All humans need connection, relatedness, and belonging – wounded women most of all!

Through our many programs that help women recover from addiction, trauma, and mental illness, we help women restore their capacity for authentic, deep relating. We do this by addressing what got hurt, shut down, and broken in them – in their bodies and nervous systems, and their hearts.

All of our programs lead towards this purpose: helping women feel good enough on the inside again, that they can reconnect back into the web of life – heart to heart, face to face, and spirit to spirit.

Categories
Recovery

The Importance of Honesty in Recovery

The practice of honesty has a revered, important place in the journey of recovery from addiction.

To heal any illness, we must learn how to notice and name what is currently true for us without judgment and gloss. This is especially so for addiction, mental health, and trauma recovery.

Isn’t that interesting? In this post, we here at Villa Kali Ma take a closer look at the ways coming clean supports staying clean.

How We Learned to Lie: the Habit of Hiding?

We weren’t always such complicated people. Human beings come into the world in a state of honesty. A baby’s first mode is total transparency, openly radiating every passing feeling, sensation, and desire.

During the growing-up process, we learn that some truths get frowns and scowls, and others get smiles and hugs. Entraining to our caregivers for survival purposes, we learn to hide, hold back, and fudge the facts some of the time.

Dishonesty as a Trauma Symptom

The idea of honesty often has a heavy moral overlay. Just thinking about the times we have lied, we may go into a reaction of guilt or shame.

However, dishonesty may also be looked at more matter-of-factly, as a sign of what was once necessary for us to get to where we are now.

The bigger the “bad reaction” to our authentic being, back when we were small and dependent on people for our lives, the more we may have developed lying as a survival strategy.

For example, if our attachment figures responded to our truth with shaming, anger, punishment, or abandonment, it’s very likely that we developed many different mechanisms for hiding the reality of what we feel, think, and experience.

Fast-forwarding to the years in which we were active in addiction, dishonesty very likely became a commonplace, daily habit. Lying to others helps us hide the truth of our addicted state, as well as our true feelings, thoughts, motivations, and actions. Lying to ourselves helps us to continue to use addiction as a coping tool without getting flooded with deep shame and desperation about our powerless condition.

Is it a coincidence that both lying and addiction are connected to trauma? What do you think?

Honesty in Recovery: Understanding That Dishonesty is a Common Relapse Trigger

When we get into recovery circles, we learn that to reverse the addiction’s pattern of misery and enslavement, the most powerful tool is the plain truth. All we have to do, on any given day, is tell the truth.

The truth about what? In the beginning, all we need to do is tell the truth about our addiction. In AA parlance, we learn to “tell on the addict within”.

We say, “The addict told me my use wasn’t as bad as the guy who spoke at the meeting, so maybe I don’t need to be in AA.” Or, “My addiction wants me to go to my cousin’s wedding, I think it’s hoping I’ll have a slip there”. We use this name-it-to-tame-it language, with its slight note of distancing, to differentiate from the addiction, which enhances our ability to see it and to understand that it isn’t who we are.

When we notice that we have moved back into patterns of dishonesty, we are moving in the wrong direction – towards relapse.

Dishonesty Will Make You Feel Trapped

Honesty is the protective talisman, the white magic of recovery. Honesty affects the nervous system and the body, creating the sensation of coherence, which means that everything within us can feel connected and unified as one whole.

Our physiological sensations, our emotions, and our thoughts can come into balance through practices of honesty – noticing and transparently naming what we notice. The feeling that goes along with honesty is liberation: the truth sets us free.

Every time we tell the truth, we slowly unravel more and more of the web of lies, the false persona, the person we have pretended to be. In sharing what we notice about our internal process as transparently as we can – naming thoughts, feelings, sensations, behaviors – we activate the prefrontal cortex.

The pre-frontal cortex is the seat of the so-called noticing mind, the wise part of us that is accessed in mindfulness-based therapies. In truth-telling, we move into compassionate, calm curiosity, out of reaction and judgment.

Over time, we may get very good at sensing all of it without becoming overtaken by any intense feelings, negative thoughts, or scary body sensations.

We may be able to say things like, “I notice there are some thoughts in my head, a part of me that’s saying she hates what I have done to my family. She’s being hard on me, creating feelings of guilt. I notice my chest is collapsing around my heart as she’s saying these things. I think this collapsing is coming from another part, who’s pretty young – it feels like the part that used to get yelled at, and she would feel so trapped and scared and bad.”

We do this to help protect ourselves. If we were to go back into patterns of dishonesty, for whatever our reasons, we would start to rebuild the thick web of lies and feel trapped in it all over again.

Dishonesty Destroys Relationships

Dishonesty shatters the most basic level of trust, which is necessary for a bond to exist between two people. Lies, even those meant to spare people’s feelings or control their reactions, compromise the chance of intimacy. Intimacy is only possible when two people are being their real selves. Any relationship based on a faked self won’t touch on real love, connection, nurturance, or growth.

At the same time, we might not know how to stop lying to ourselves or others.

We may struggle to stop withholding important information about our thoughts and feelings, fearing what will happen to our inner sensations and feelings if we do.

If we associate truthfulness with past overwhelming experiences of judgment, shame, and rejection, it puts us between a rock and a hard place. We have to tell the truth about what we’re thinking, feeling, and doing to recover, and doing so will make us feel better, but we may also believe deep down that if we tell the truth, we’ll experience the feelings we’ve been trying to avoid. We may expect to be flooded with shame, guilt, fear, rage, or other difficult sensations.

The answer to this conundrum lies in the choice of person to whom we tell our truths. In the beginning, recipients of our honesty must be people who are reasonably able to hear it.

It is very likely true that in the past, the people we depended on responded to our truth in ways that hurt us, scared us, made us angry or want to run away, maybe all at once.

With a therapist or a recovery friend, however, we are in a position to have a different experience of telling the truth. Though it takes some getting used to, the practice of telling the truth grows our feelings of resonance and relatedness.

Honesty brings us closer, into a zone where our needs for compassion and witnessing can be met by another human. We find we are strengthened by truth and learn to rely on it as a clarifying, healing factor.

Over time, we will learn how exactly we can be fully authentic without hurting or triggering others so much. We will eventually learn to do this even in our closest relationships, where it is most likely all that we encounter our deepest, oldest pain, coded in memories of vulnerability gone wrong.

How to Maintain Honesty in Recovery?

The secret to authenticity in the face of risk lies in sharing neutral observations gathered through mindful noticing, without interpretation or assigning blame. It also helps to tell the truth only when we’re feeling calm and safe and to use that same, slightly distancing kind of name-it-to-tame-it language.

We can say, “I noticed that when you said ‘you’re late’ to me, I began to feel agitated and a bit angry. I think there’s some triggering going on, some sensations and memories that belong to my past more than they do to this moment. Let me take a moment to regulate myself and look into what this reaction in me is about, and then I’ll return to finish this conversation, OK?”

It takes practice to learn, but this kind of truth telling is easier for another person to hear without being triggered. Emotional, blaming, or judgmental language that sometimes comes out of our mouths when temporarily hijacked by a trauma-based part of us, on the other hand, all but guarantees that we trigger the other person!

Sometimes, even calm, regulated truth telling triggers other people – that’s part of life. In such moments, it will be our ability to compassionately witness our truth, internalized from our years of practice telling the truth in recovery circles and/or with therapists, that will help us hold strong and yet stay open in the face of a loved one’s triggered state of being.

What to do if we realize we have lied or we are tempted to lie? Tell the truth as soon as you can. Even if the truth is embarrassing, makes us look bad (often only to our perfectionistic inner critics), or causes another person to have a reaction which is hard for us, the truth is necessary for recovery. If we start lying again, we’ll end up using again.

Tell the truth, then choose not to beat yourself up about whatever the truth is, nor about the fact that you slipped back into lying. You can comfort yourself by remembering that lying is a feature of addiction and is connected to survival strategies from your past. You can remember the wider culture and how it teaches all of us to hide.

You aren’t the only one. It is hard for all of us to stop falsifying. We may still feel that we need our white lies now, for a million reasons – because it is more socially comfortable, to avoid conflicts, or because we fear judgment from people whose rejection of us would be felt as very painful.

If you react, tell the truth about that reaction, too. “I notice some shame creeping in as I’m telling you this.”

Whatever you do, tell the truth about what you’re experiencing, sensing, thinking, feeling, and what your behaviors are to a safe recovery person, and you’ll be back in the right flow for recovery.

Villa Kali Ma can help women with honesty in recovery

At Villa Kali Ma, we aim to help each woman who comes through our doors to recover enough of her spunk, spirit, and capacity for calm, joy, and courage that she can tell the truth about who she is.

Our holistic clinical programs show women how to un-snag from fallen branches, move around boulders, and unblock the way. We know that once a woman is back on her true journey, magnificent things will happen in her life. Yes, life will challenge her, but she will be flowing and growing again. In this, we trust completely.  And that’s the truth!

Categories
Recovery

How to Combat Isolation in Recovery

There are times when to be alone is just what the doctor ordered. To sit in a well of presence in the simplicity of solitude is necessary at times, to replenish the spirit and body. This kind of aloneness is luminous and full, allowing us to connect more deeply and enjoyably to all of life.

On the other hand, there’s a kind of aloneness that comes from being walled off in a bad way, inside the confines of the injured self. When we go into solitude not to be more lovingly with ourselves, but rather out of pain, shame, or fear, or because we are listening to the lies of the inner addict who hopes to take possession of us again, then we are going into shadowlands. From this kind of isolation, we can’t connect with anybody or anything, not even ourselves.

How does this kind of isolation come over us, and what can we do about it? Read on for Villa Kali Ma’s take on how to overcome isolation, through a positive path of recovery.

How is isolation defined?

When we’re isolating, we stop communicating with others. We don’t reach out, and frequently, don’t respond to the outreach of others. We skip meetings, don’t return calls, don’t answer the door, and duck away when we see someone we know at the grocery store.

As a general rule, recovering people need daily contact with recovery people. Ideally, we open and close each day with a re-dedication to the recovery path. Sharing our feelings, telling on the addict, and doing step work with a sponsor are all necessities of sustaining the gift of sobriety, and these all require another live recovery person on the line or with us in the room. It takes a lot of action on our part, especially in the early days, to put ourselves in the right conditions and circumstances for the many blessings, miracles, and gifts of recovery to take root in us.

Isolation in recovery is a sign that the inner addict is on the prowl, hoping to pull us back into a relationship with it, in which its dark voice is the only thing we hear any more. Therefore part of recovery usually involves taking action steps to counteract the urge to avoid other recovery people. If you are isolating, we suggest you get into the presence of recovery people again, right away.

Tips on how to combat isolation in recovery

To overcome the urge to isolate in recovery, it’s helpful to take an “act now, ask questions later” approach, and just do the recommended recovery behaviors, whether we feel like it or not.

In the beginning, and during any other wobbly phase, we need to just take the actions that recovery elders suggest, without thinking about it too hard. We act as if, we fake it ’til we make it, we one day at a time it, because we’re in no condition to be deciding based on our thoughts and feelings.

So rather than consulting our mood, energy levels, thoughts, and feelings, asking “Do I feel like going to a meeting?”, we need to just get our shoes on and go. Get there early, set up chairs, and override the ego.

The reason is, it’s far better just to follow the plan, for a good long while, while we are being gradually restored to sanity because if we go off the plan, it’s almost certainly for the wrong reasons.

Take heart that at some point later on in the path, we will have more trust in ourselves again, and that the flame of the addict will be small compared to the roaring fire of our real, positive, loving self. But until that time, we are best off just following the recovery recipe.

In that spirit, here are some practical steps to take if you are isolating:

  1. Daily Meetings. Commit to daily meetings for a predetermined period of time. 30, 60, or 90-day meeting commitments are always powerful for breaking isolation.
  2. Get a Sponsor and work the Steps. If you don’t have one yet or don’t have one right now, share in meetings that you are looking for a sponsor. Working the steps will break the ice barrier that isolation has formed, and get you back into flowing emotion and aliveness.
  3. Recovery friend-dates. Go for coffee with recovery people. Do it whether you feel resonance with this person or not. The purpose isn’t so much to make best friends, but to counteract the urge to isolate. Remember, being around any other authentic recovery person will weaken your addiction and strengthen your true self.
  4. Use the meeting phone numbers list. Every meeting, put your name on the list to receive calls and make sure you get numbers. At least once a week, call someone from recovery circles, to connect and talk. Leave voice messages if they don’t pick up, and respond to any messages you receive, always.
  5. Schedule professional help. Schedule appointments with a therapist, counselor, or healing professional and talk about your isolating.

What is the connection between isolation and addiction?

Addiction thrives on isolation. While in the grips of addiction, we were almost completely separated psychologically from others, living in a fake world created for us by our disordered minds.

Authentic connection with another human being is the inner addict’s worst nightmare. The addict within will do everything it can to keep us away from genuine, truthful, loving presence in a human body. The addict within prefers isolation, or if others must be involved at all, the presence of other addicted, disconnected people.

That’s because the illness of addiction is connected to the artificial, programmed mental self, whose goal is disconnection. Addiction thrives inside the prison of our ego defenses. The fort we built for ourselves, originally as a trauma response, then reinforced through a lifetime of dissociating from our feelings and true perceptions of unity, is also the house of the negative ego, and therefore the house of the addict.

In the absence of addiction, we can, if we pay attention, sense the false mask of the conditioned self and not be completely identified with it. We can still feel the deeper murmurings of the living self and heart. But when addiction takes hold, we become the mask, and the true Self is fully eclipsed until we get into recovery.

Once we are in recovery, therefore, it is wise to recall that isolation, even if it seems easy, or comforting, like getting back into a small cozy space, is an invitation back to the locked ward of addiction.

Why do women isolate in recovery?

Isolation in recovery refers to the urge to seclude oneself to avoid other recovery people. Why do women do this, if it’s so clearly the path back to misery?

If we are observing ourselves keenly, we may detect that what we resist in recovery people is actually the awareness that they have. Recovery people have opened eyes that see and recognize the machinations of shadow material operating within us.

In addition to the addict trying to operate undetected, our own shame, guilt, and remorse can make the light of recognition feel like a flashlight shining into our eyes. When the pain is too much, a part of us may try to wriggle away from being seen. We may not catch it, though, due to rationalization, in which the mind makes up stories that cover up the real reasons we are isolating.

Here are some ways the urge to isolate may show up:

-A feeling of strong irritation with everything about recovery and the recovery community

-The thought that people in the recovery community judge us or look down on us

-A feeling of not belonging, being different, and misunderstood by the recovery community

-Thinking that we are being excluded, we aren’t liked, or that there’s an in-group

-Thoughts that emphasize the ways we differ from the recovery people around us, versus focus on the shared reason we are together

-Getting overly offended by something someone said to us in a meeting, and using that as an excuse to distance ourselves

-Starting to think we’re all better and know better than the people in the recovery community

-We think we can’t share our darkness or the other way around – we can’t share our light, in this group

Whatever combination of ego-defenses, inferiority, self-doubt, pain, and weaponized victimhood has most haunted us in our lives, will return again, suggesting we get away from those recovery circles.

Part of the reason this can happen is because we are extra raw in early recovery, and in truth, it can be a lot. It’s scary and different to recover, and we are learning many new skills. We feel shaky and uncertain inside.

That is all ok, and it is normal to feel that way, but we must look out to keep leaning into that vulnerable, quaky space, rather than running away. What helps lessen the urge to run is relentless honesty: as we keep sharing as authentically as we can about the truth of our experiences, we will find the need to escape lessens on its own.

Why women were made for connection

All human beings are wired for connection. We are social animals, and we feel best in families, groups, and communities of safe others. Everything about our nervous systems and our survival strategies reveals the fact that we are designed to live our lives in relative harmony and collaboration with other humans.

As women, we are especially wired for emotional connection, as evidenced in our biology. Hormonally speaking, we are set up to be oriented towards nurturance, bonding, and caring for others, as well as receiving care. Emotionally and relationally we are more prone to value close relationships. Women are, broadly speaking, more attuned to the subtleties of connection and disconnection, and to the needs of those we consider to be part of our sphere of influence.

For all these reasons, it is especially important that women in recovery learn to counteract the toxic urge to isolate: isolation may hurt us even more than it does men.

Recovery is the antidote to isolation

Isolation and addiction go together, and the pain of one is supposedly treated by the numbing of the other. Because the addict wants to grow in influence inside us, it steers us into greater and greater isolation, so that it has even more reason to expand its territory within us.

On the flip side, recovery from addiction cures isolation. This is a beautiful secondary outcome, which we may not have fully considered before getting into recovery, but it is true.

As we slowly heal over the many scars of addiction, we find that in place of the old negative self, who has been our prison guard our whole lives, we have now a loving kind inner guardian. This inner guardian, whom we gradually realize, with astonishment, is our own self, who we actually were meant to be all this time, connects to the goodness and love in another, not to the negative false self in another.

Whereas in the past we connected phantom false self to phantom false self, mask to mask, and disordered mind to disordered mind, if we connected at all, we now find that we connect heart to heart, realness to realness.

If this sounds like something you want, please know that you deserve it, no less and no more than any other being in this world. It is actually our natural birthright and the way life was meant to be!

Recovery will lead you to this place of deep, quenching connection, not only with other people but to that within you, which is worth connecting with. Your healing self-connection proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, to yourself, at last, why others connecting to you is a good thing, and you will be freed of the feeling that there is something bad about you.

Villa Kali Ma can help women combat isolation in recovery

All of life exists in a back-and-forth rhythm of union and separating. We come together, then we come apart. Into the sweet bliss of oneness, then away into the sweet fierce joys of individuality.

The difference between healthy solitude, in which we have the possibility of deep intimacy with ourselves and with subtle energetic presences which can only be contacted from within our own heart space, and the poisons of isolation, is all the difference in the world.

Isolating means that we retreat into our own pathology, not so that we can be alone with ourselves and connect more deeply, but rather so that we can be alone with the addict inside, and disconnect more deeply.

Here at Villa Kali Ma, we have a deep understanding of the subtleties, as well as the simple truths, of how isolation divides us from that which would heal us, and how recovery does the opposite. If you are looking to reunite yourself with the goodness that is, we promise, lying in wait so patiently inside you, consider one of our many programs for healing women. Our expertise is exactly this: how exactly women can and do recover, from the nightmares of addiction, mental illness, and traumatization.

Categories
Recovery

September is National Recovery Month

What is National Recovery Month?

Every September, people living in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction are celebrated through National Recovery Month.

The month-long national observance helps educate Americans about addiction while honoring the hard work, dedication, and emotional courage represented by the choice to recover. Every day, brave, amazing people rebuild their lives after the many ravages of addiction.

National Recovery Month also shares a message of hope, that through programs like 12 Step, as well as through substance abuse treatment programs, miracles and change happen all the time. Every day, millions of people around the globe regain authorship over their own lives and find the path to experience freedom and joy in life again, through sobriety.

What does National Recovery Month celebrate?

National Recovery Month aims to notice and acknowledge the progress, milestones, and important gains achieved by those on the path of recovery.

For too long, addiction has been shrouded in shame, judgment, moralizing, and codependent confusion on the part of loved ones. At the same time, the deep and beautifully transformational path of recovering from addiction has mostly been misunderstood completely.

Millions of Americans are in recovery. Their stories are important, as examples and as inspiration for us all.

We can all learn from the wisdom, strength, and encouragement of those who have gone before us. For each human being still in the clutches of the heartaches of addiction, as well as for their loved ones, it’s important to hold the door of hope open and to remember that nothing is impossible in this life when we genuinely do desire to change.

All of this, and more, is honored with National Recovery Month.

What is the permanent tagline of this month?

National Recovery Month uses the tagline “Every Person. Every Family. Every Community” to encapsulate the heart of its message for Americans. This tagline shines a light on the importance of family members and communities as part of the cure for addiction. Recovery is a personal, familial, and community matter, and everyone can help.

What is the goal of National Recovery Month?

National Recovery Month’s primary goal is to spread awareness to Americans that there is a solution for substance addiction.

Secondarily, Recovery Month shares information about the most up-to-date evidence-based practices that have the highest effectiveness rates for treating addiction clinically.

Likewise, the campaign educates about the potential dangers of substance use, as well as about how substance abuse and mental health disorders negatively interact as co-occurring disorders.

National Recovery Month also aims to disperse information about the effectiveness of treatment services and to encourage people to seek treatment. National Recovery Month also honors addiction professionals.

What positive message does National Recovery Month spread?

National Recovery Month shares the positive message that recovery is possible and worth the effort.

Recovery is a precious gift, tough and meaningful beyond imagining. Recovery turns us into what we have always wanted to be in our deeper selves, making us more heartfelt, wise, and real. Living in the world as it is, activating our potential, while feeling what it is to be a human being.

Every day, through 12-step programs and addiction treatment programs, people are able to transform the whole basis of their lives and begin again.

Recovery is hard work, and the realities that each person must face on their path can feel overwhelming at times. However, there is also a heartwarming abundance of people available to help, starting with other recoverers, and extending to treatment staff and informed family and friends. Resources exist to help us as we do what sometimes feels like the impossible, but which is asked of us nevertheless, to give our whole life over to a benevolent change process.

National Recovery Month helps spread the truth-telling voice of the recovery community to the ears that need to hear its hopeful and fortifying message.

What are some objectives of National Recovery Month?

National Recovery Month aims to change the perception in the public mind about people recovering from addiction, raise awareness about addiction and treatment, and help those affected.

People who were once in the clutches of addiction can be reclaimed and redeemed to live lives of connection and health in every sense of the word – mentally, emotionally, and socially. People who have been written off by society can become potent, positive contributors, the lifeblood of aware, loving communities.

National Recovery Month has the objective of improving understanding of substances and substance use disorders. Additionally, it works to lower barriers to entering treatment and getting needed help.

National Recovery Month campaigns to promote the benefits of early intervention in substance use disorders, receiving substance abuse treatment, and getting help for mental health alongside addiction.

National Recovery Month also hopes to provide visibility for the recovery community and share recovery stories to counteract impressions of hopelessness and despair. Stories help reduce stigma about addiction and can help people’s self-recognition process when they find their own experiences reflected in another’s share.

National Recovery Month also takes on board the necessity to help loved ones, friends, work colleagues, and healing professionals cope with the feelings and pain that accompany loving or working with people who have addiction.

With a greater understanding of addiction and how it works, much pain can be depersonalized, leading to greater effectiveness at emotional support and less burnout for affected parties.

What are 5 ways to get involved this month?

There are many ways to support National Recovery Month. Here are some ideas from us over at Villa Kali Ma.

1. Educate Yourself

There are many resources on the internet about recovery and addiction, including blogs (like ours!) as well as websites dedicated to sharing information, facts, and stories related to addiction. One way to support recovery around the nation is to familiarize ourselves with the landscape that recovering people inhabit.


2. Go to an Open AA Meeting

Although most AA meetings are closed to non-addicts, there are always some meetings, tagged as Open Meetings, which welcome supportive members from the community who would like to learn more about the realities of recovery. Inside the walls of such meetings, you will have the chance to hear first-hand stories of the miseries of addiction as well as the deep joys of recovery. Through this act, you can become an informed, sensitive person when it comes to the addiction topic. You will know much more about what helps and what doesn’t when someone needs to recover.


3. Host a Sober Party

For many, it is out of the ordinary to host events without alcohol or drugs. That simple creative restriction can spur invention and lead you to organize different, fun, heart-connecting activities you wouldn’t have thought of before.
If you have a friend in sobriety, throwing them a sober party can be a personally meaningful act of love. Even if you just want to try it out as an energetic support for the healing of addiction nationally, you will learn much from the experience of interacting and playing with other humans in a festive setting, without relying on substances.


4. Go Without Something for a Month

If we really want to delve into what is asked of people in recovery, we can look into the quaky discomfort that arises in us when we don’t have our go-to comforts.
Most of us have some greater or lesser addictions, not only to substances but also to movies, TV, the internet, food, sex, drama, or cell phones. This National Recovery Month, pick one habit you have and try to go without it for the whole month of September.
If it isn’t easy, be nice to yourself about it and understand, with empathy, through that challenging feeling, what it is that sober people face when they first begin to change their lives so deeply.


5. Interview Someone in Recovery and Do a Creative Project about Them

If you have someone in your life you can interview about their recovery, conduct a considerate, respectful interview made up of questions you would feel all right answering in their shoes. Using the answers as inspiration, make an anonymous artwork, poem, song, or collage expressing the emotional content of that interview.

What treatment programs do we offer at Villa Kali Ma to support women with addiction and mental health issues?

At Villa Kali Ma, we offer several tracks for women who are looking to recover from addiction, mental illness, trauma, or all three.

We have inpatient services at our residential facilities, as well as outpatient treatment, here in the San Diego area.

We offer a medically supervised detox program, an innovative residential trauma treatment program, a residential addiction treatment program, and intensive outpatient and partial hospitalization programs.

You can read more about how we work to heal mind, body, and spirit through an integrative, holistic approach united with our cutting-edge, evidence-based clinical program.

Villa Kali Ma Supports National Recovery Month

At Villa Kali Ma, we know how important it is to get the message out that recovery from addiction is possible. We know from our own experiences how hopeless and despairing one can feel when in the throes of a substance disorder, and we know perfectly well the shame, self-hatred, and self-destruction that addiction makes any person feel.

We also know the joy, the beauty, and the life-changing restoration of dignity and freedom that comes through the path of recovery. We celebrate National Recovery Month wholeheartedly this September, for ourselves, for those of our sisters we helped recover, and for all those to come.

Categories
Recovery

The Importance of Positive Recovery Words: Recovery Words Matter

What are positive recovery words?

Positive recovery words are affirmations about ourselves and our recovery. Affirmations are formulated as present-tense statements, worded as if they are true already and taking place in the now moment. Affirmations use phrasing like “I am” and “I have”, (rather than “I will” or “I want to….”).

An example of a very famous affirmation is “Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.” An example of an affirmation geared toward women in recovery is “I am a good person and I deserve my happy, sober life of joy and connection”.

Do positive affirmations work?

Positive affirmations can be very effective at changing a person’s life because of the chain of connections between thought, feeling, and behavior. The same therapeutic principle is used in cognitive behavioral therapy, one of the evidence-based practices that works well with addiction and many other kinds of mental illness.

Positive affirmations work because of the ways that specific thoughts, interpretations of the given facts, and underlying conceptual frameworks shape our experience. Positive affirmations help us take charge of our mindsets so that we have more conscious choices regarding which thoughts we allow to linger in our minds. Working with positive affirmations gives us a greater measure of control over how we feel, which gives us hope, possibility, and power.

Having choices when it comes to thoughts and feelings leads to more self-control. Most negative, destructive behavior arises from a desperate attempt to escape our painful thoughts and feelings. If we don’t feel so bad inside, or know we can shift thoughts and feelings without acting out, we have no reason to behave badly.

What is the power of positivity?

Authentic positivity has a regulating effect on the body, causing it to settle into a pleasantly alert, but relaxed state which is most beneficial for physical and mental ease. When under the influence of a generally positive mindset, we do not suffer psychologically, except as a passing response to a specific, short-term event.

Furthermore, when we are able to access our natural positivity, we are in the state of mind that is most effective, creative, connected, and intelligent. We are able to act effectively in the world and connect and relate to others through the heart, from the top of our intelligence.

Negativity, on the other hand, has dis-regulating effects on the body, creating physically uncomfortable states, which are felt by us as painful emotions. Negative thoughts have deteriorating effects on physiology, and cause us to operate from a more shut-down, less relational, less creative, and less intelligent state of being.

What are positive recovery words for those in addiction?

People with addiction who have made a commitment to recover benefit from using affirmations that specifically address the pain and suffering associated with addiction.

Positive recovery words for addiction speak to the challenges related to restoring the ability to behave in sane, constructive ways, and how to heal from the shame associated with addiction.

Alcoholics Anonymous, the original 12-step program that has helped millions (and counting!) of women to recover, offers many sayings that can be used as affirmations in recovery.

“Progress, not perfection” and “Just for today” are examples of helpful wordings that can give focus to the path of recovery.

Here are some examples of positive recovery words:

I value myself and I love myself unconditionally.

Every day, love finds a way to help me.

I let go in perfect trust.

As I reach towards goodness, goodness reaches towards me.

What are three affirmations that you could use? Write three sentences that speak directly to your heart, and that say what you need to hear today.

Why are recovery affirmations important in recovery?

No one becomes an addict on purpose. Instead, we wake up one day to realize we have been sucked into a black hole, a condition that mercilessly erodes our self-esteem and faith in ourselves.

When we get into recovery, we face the challenge of changing the habit of daily use of substances. But stopping the use of the substance is only part of the journey.

The real, deeper work is an inside job, in which we must renovate the entire structure of our personality so that we can exist in a state of basic positivity again.

To do this, we need to do a lot of repair on our thoughts, not only to weed out thoughts that serve addiction but also to address the underlying pain that brought us to addiction in the first place.

Recovery affirmations are essential for consciously reprogramming ourselves to think better thoughts. We can no longer afford to harbor thoughts that sabotage and cut us down. We need thoughts that create happy bodies and good feeling states, which allow us to live a human life of creativity, connection, intelligence, and purpose.

What are self-care activities to pair with positive affirmations?

Positive affirmations work best when paired with self-care actions, such as regular exercise, good diet, creative practices, involvement in a supportive community, and emotional release tools like journaling.

Positive affirmations set things right in the mind, while physical exercise, yoga, diet, outdoor time, massage, and sleep set things right in the body. Connection with positive people and therapeutic support set things right emotionally.

How do you choose the right recovery affirmation?

Positive affirmations can be used towards any goal, to boost certain kinds of feelings and to reduce others. In order for this to be true, we have to work with statements that feel uplifting and which resonate with us as reasonably true, or within reach. It won’t work to repeat a statement that we do not believe could ever become true, such as “I can fly!”, but we can stretch ourselves with words that feel like they’re in the realm of possibility, such as “I love myself and I celebrate my courage to choose to recover”.

Some people prefer to write their own affirmations, to find wording that feels really true personally. Others may find peace and comfort in tried and true statements used by many women before us.

We know we are using the right positive recovery words for us personally when we can feel that the words have a positive effect on us when we say them. We’ll feel gently soothed, energized, enlivened, calmed, or centered when we say the statements out loud. The right words will feel right.

Why do words matter in addiction recovery?

Words have harmed us in the past, and words can heal us now. The power of words can not be overstated.

In addiction recovery, the words we say out loud about ourselves and our recovery, as well as the words we say only to ourselves in our minds, make all the difference to our success or failure.

In recovery, a big piece of getting better is simply sharing the truth of what’s really going on inside our heads, because as they say in AA, “secrets keep us sick”. We can avoid a relapse by saying out loud that a voice in our head is telling us to skip our evening meeting, for example.

When it comes to the words we consciously choose, those words have the most power and impact. No matter where we’re at on any given day, we can course-correct with a few good recovery words.

How can we use addiction recovery words instead of words that create stigma?

A big part of addiction recovery is realizing that we are not identical with the addict self, that no matter how much control the Addict Self takes over our lives, still it’s not us and we are not it.

The addiction is its own thing, and it’s not a good thing, and the more we see it and call it out, the more we restore our own innocence. We must take responsibility for ourselves, but it’s impossible to do that before seeing that we have fallen prey to something that isn’t our true self.

Although society at large still tends to apply stigma rather than compassion to suffering, that is a reflection of the amount of fear and ignorance that is still at play. The truth is that there is no shame, no value difference, nor any judgment on anyone who falls into the trap of addiction, except in the minds of the ignorant, arrogant, or fearful.

And shame is a killer, so we have to find ways to de-stigmatize ourselves and our sisters with addiction and other kinds of suffering, too. Part of using recovery words is changing perception as we go along. The small shift from “I want to” to “the addict within is telling me to” for example, makes all the difference in the world.

What is stigma?

The word stigma refers to a socially constructed idea of disgrace associated with someone or something. Stigma is a social phenomenon that creates a lot of pain and usually clouds the issue with fear-based misunderstandings, including a fear of contamination by association.

Stigma implies that a person or thing is bad, wrong, or shameful in some way, and often suggests the person is to blame, deserves punishment and exclusion, and needs to be shunned and shut out.

We can see by looking at our society that stigma is applied to painfully marginalize many social subgroups.

Where does stigma come from?

Stigma is socially created, and heavily influenced by religion, culture, social and political concepts, media, and other pillars of society.

Stigma originates from the problematic, anti-human belief that some human beings do not deserve love, inclusion, belonging, and kindness, due to their circumstances, who they are, or their choices.

Stigma is almost always unfairly assigned, in the “punching down” style of picking on people with less power, and tends to flow towards those who have been most hurt already. Stigma is connected to cultural narcissism, ideas of superiority, and devaluation of others who are not deemed socially useful or valuable.

Over the centuries, what specifically is stigmatized has shifted and changed, but it is always about creating a vulnerable and marginalized group that is punished socially.

In our current age, stigma is largely attached to poverty and lower socioeconomic status, including homelessness. It is still applied in great measure to women, people of color, and people with mental illness, addiction, and trauma.

How does stigma affect women with SUD?

Addiction is widely misunderstood and heavily stigmatized. The most basic stigma is the idea that the addicted woman is to blame for “choosing” to be an addict, or that she is amoral, or weak. In truth, all addiction masks terrible pain. Under any pattern of addictive behavior lies a giant well of shame. Self-hatred for not being capable of behaving better, and for not succeeding at life in all the ways we’re told are necessary to deserve love and respect. The problem begins largely in these artificial conditions of belonging.

Addiction does create heartache in loved ones and families and causes a lot of destruction. On the tricky path of addiction recovery, we women have to find a way to fully acknowledge the truth of what we have done while in the throes of the illness, and at the same time not give up on ourselves or let ourselves believe that that means we are beyond the reach of love and worthiness.

All in all, there is no benefit to propagating stigma related to substance addiction, as it only obscures the real issue at hand, including the role of trauma in leading to the addiction epidemic. For women in recovery, the element of social stigma is an added challenge to learn to overcome.

Villa Kali Ma supports positive recovery words for women

At Villa Kali Ma we pay close attention to the ways that words can help women recover. We support the use of positive recovery words, all day every day. Positive affirmations work by gradually, consciously re-wiring deep beliefs and practicing thoughts that create mental health. To find words that help you feel better and get better for good, consider coming to heal with us in one of our many programs for women!

Categories
Recovery

Finding Higher Octaves of Bad Energies

On the path to recovery, we learn to value every aspect of our lives, even the bad energies. In the words of Richard C. Schwartz, the inspirational, kind founder of Internal Family Systems Therapy, there are no bad parts.   

This can seem like a revelation, if we have the very common habit of turning against ourselves or other people. Haven’t we all been schooled to make divisions all the livelong day, between you and me, good and bad, wanted and unwanted?

When we say (through words or behavior), I like your generosity, I don’t like your anxiety, we cut a person in pieces. And of course we do this to ourselves, too. Keep being studious. Stop being jealous.   

Polarity at Play 

Of course, at the relative level, it is useful to choose, to clarify which way we want to go. There’s nothing wrong with preferences. This, not that, please. Recovery, not addiction. Health, not illness. Optimism, not pessimism. 

Polarities are part of our world. And it’s a wonderful, unavoidable part of human life to like and dislike, to resonate or not.  

In fact, polarities are always meaningless without the other end of the pole, as North has no meaning if there isn’t South to oppose it. How can we enjoy something, if we don’t know the feeling of non-enjoyment, too?

Polarities, rather than being true opposites, work together to enhance each other, as a deep dark velvet-black nighttime makes the rich blue sky of the daylight hours more beautiful, and vice versa.

Inherent Vice?

One of the most common pitfalls is when we misunderstand either end of a polarity as absolute, different in inherent value. 

This attribution of an inherent value difference creates shadow and self-division, and perpetuates enemy patterning throughout society. Our side is good. Their side is bad. 

Do we fall for appearances? Is the person we just crossed the street to avoid what they seem to be? Weren’t they once a soft innocent baby in their mother’s arms? Mightn’t we also be scattered, fractious, and filthy, but for the grace of God?

Original Forms

There’s a divinely balanced, reconnected original form of every energy that currently roams in the shadows, creating havoc and pain in our lives. 

When we are willing to look for a shadow’s original form, its higher octave, we can learn a lot and begin to soften our world back into a more human shape. 

We don’t have to throw babies out with the bathwater, as the curious saying goes. We can take a baby that seems like a bad baby, and love it, forgive it, connect with it, until it’s free at last to be good again. 

Shadow-Savvy

Yet we can’t be naive about shadow work. It takes a lot to love what’s fallen far from love, and we must understand our strengths and weaknesses, truly. We’re often not up to the challenge of transforming and transmuting the deepest of darknesses.

We have to understand our opponent and not think that we personally can restore it into goodness, if in actual fact, we cannot. There are psychological limits, like laws of spacetime, theoretically transcendable, but practically not.

Addiction, for example, is not easily vanquished. But we can still know as we stare it down, that this seven headed monster is a gross distortion of what is actually a positive life-force energy. 

Addiction is the fallen version of a part of a person that wants, in its deepest nature, to just have some relief from overwhelming pain. And that pain itself is a form of longing to be reconnected with all of life. 

Journaling: Higher Octaves

The following exercise is to take something that currently seems like a bad thing, and imagine what its higher octave could be. If each “bad” energy is a fallen angel now, what was it like before it fell, when it was happy and safe in connection with the All? 

Try it see where it leads you. 

Part 1: 

Identify troublesome energies. 

eg: 

anxiety

resentment

shame

Part 2: 

Identify or imagine a higher octave. Is there a good version of this same thing? 

The higher octave of anxiety is wisdom, caution, respect for life, valuing life, wanting to stay alive. 

The higher octave of resentment is boundaries, a feeling of no this isn’t right for me, I desire to be myself as I truly am, not be coerced into being something someone else wants but isn’t actually part of my true path.

The higher octave of shame is humility, the recognition that life is the source, not me, and in humility I can relax into reverence, love and innocent reliance on life. 

What else can you imagine the higher octave of?

Categories
Recovery

Falcon Perspective: Watching Thoughts

The Power of Working with Thought

On the variable, exciting terrain of the recovery journey, it is often helpful to address the role of thoughts in our addiction. 

As the AA term “stinkin’ thinkin’” acknowledges, thoughts are deeply involved in why we used substances in the first place and are connected to both relapse and recovery. Thoughts are also thoroughly enmeshed with the profound psychological and existential pain that, until healed, sets us up to desperately seek relief in something outside of ourselves. 

That’s why Villa Kali Ma practitioners help recovering women integrate tools, insight and wisdom from therapeutic modalities like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. These effective therapeutic approaches are resources for addressing the way that thoughts impact us for good and for ill as we make our way along our hero’s journey. 

Do You Agree with Your Thoughts?

We have millions of pain-creating thoughts on any given day. Most of them are not originally ours. 

The reason these thoughts are echoing around our psyche’s innermost caves, creating pain and misery for us and others, is not because we ourselves forged those thoughts from insight and experience, as fresh conclusions of our own. 

Rather, they are usually inherited or learned, absorbed from the environment and programmed by culture. We are not born with a lot of negativity. We have to be taught to think bad things about ourselves and our world. 

When we realize that we have some choice in the matter, of which of all those thoughts we choose to now endorse and approve of, which ones we agree to, things can change quite a bit for us. 

We might not be able to instantly clear our heads, but we can at least say “I see you, thought, but I do not actually agree with this line of thinking.” This little bit of disagreement makes all the difference in the world.

The Falcon’s Perspective

Imagine a beautiful, benevolent, protective falcon who is your spirit friend, perched on the highest branch of a very tall tree, comfortably looking down on you in your world. Take a few minutes to picture this handsome bird in all its splendor. 

Now try on your falcon friend’s perspective, imagining all that can be seen down below. See your current self down there on the ground, in whatever your present circumstances are. 

What do you notice? What is it like to see your world from above? 

Shifting Focus

Now practice shifting back and forth from the two perspectives – first yours, on the ground, in the midst of it all, now the falcon’s. 

Falcons have magnificent eyesight, made for detecting the tiniest of movements. They can see all the sorrows and joys of life with exquisite detail. Without being involved in the scene, they can wait patiently, wings folded, simply observing.

What if you could take your falcon friend’s view of your own daily troubles and struggles more often? Could you take a more neutral, balanced, precise, kind, accurate, and discerning higher view? What if you could wait unhurriedly, absorbing all the facts and information needed to fully understand and assess, before deciding on what it all means in the bigger picture of your life?

Seeing a Bigger Picture

Journal time! To try out the friendly falcon’s perspective a bit further right now, think of a situation in your life that you are having painful thoughts and feelings about. Perhaps this situation causes you some turmoil and tumult, or is making you feel down on yourself. 

Taking your falcon friend’s view, ask yourself the following questions:

What are all the factors are contributing to this situation being in my life right now?
What hidden explanations, or wider deeper contexts could be the case, and I wouldn’t know just because of my current vantage point?
What wonderful surprises could be revealed in due time?
What is the meaning am I giving to this situation?
Do I like that interpretation?
Is that meaning a fact or more like a feeling or opinion?
What is the benefit to me of looking at the situation that way?
How might others see the same situation?
Is there another way of framing this that I like better?
What would a happy-go-lucky person make of this same situation?
How important is this situation?
How important  or will it be a few months from now?
What about a year from now? Three years? Ten years?
Is there anything I could do or focus my energy on right now, that would feel like a positive shift away from this trouble zone? 

Categories
Recovery

Easy (not Ego) Does It

Ego is A Bit Extra

The AA slogan Easy Does It is one of my favorites. For those of us used to the forceful, bombastic energies of life under addiction, the entire concept of ease-centered daily little actions can be utterly foreign at first.  

In essence, Easy Does It reminds us that most of the time, less is more. When it comes to the application of personal willpower to some situation we’re facing, that is almost certainly the case. 

If we’re feeling all fired up with an urgent desire to act, it’s a good idea to stop and check with Higher Power, because urgency and intensity might be a sign that it’s not God’s action we’re considering, but perhaps our ego’s. 

That’s because it’s a signature energy of ego, especially with addiction powering up the engine, to overdo things. Ego is, as the young folks say, “a bit extra”.  

Have A Lighter Hand

In normal parlance, Easy Does It means have a light hand. Don’t push, don’t shoehorn. Don’t come at your recovery with mega intense energy. Try to be light, to relax. Approach with softness and ease. 

I had to be taught not to bang loudly and obnoxiously at my recovery, and to understand that recovery and psyche need sensitivity and lightness.

I was with my toddler nephew recently, trying to show him how to touch a guitar, since his go-to instinct was to pull at the strings, tweak the pegs and thump on it. I found myself saying “Easy, honey, easy, be soft, be gentle” and trying to show him what a feathery, light touch is. 

Some of us, like me, need to learn to how to touch our recovery like it’s a delicate, precious instrument which, if treated well, will help us make beauty in our lives.

Touch Your Recovery With a Feather

The late Chogyam Trungpa is credited with saying that when sitting in meditation, you should acknowledge your thoughts with the gentleness of a feather touching a bubble. This is a lovely image of the attitude to have towards recovery, too. 

Could we be that soft, that attuned, that patient and quiet as we orient ourselves towards healing? 

Easy Does It also tells us to focus on what feels easy enough that we can actually do it right now, versus getting all tied up in emotional knots about what’s momentarily unapproachable. 

Easy Accomplishes It

There are definitely times when we have to take courageous action, but on the other hand many of us have been trained to think that what works is pushing, insisting, powering through, overriding, and paddling upstream. Almost as though, if it doesn’t drain our vital forces, it’s not worth doing. 

In her book The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron writes about Easy Does It and says that it also means quite literally, that “Easy accomplishes it”. Easy gets it done. We would get much further by daily, small acts than coming with enormous strain and effort to get it all done in one fell swoop.

Learning Not to Strain

I was programmed to believe that if I’m not straining, it means I’m not doing it right. If I’m not pushing it beyond what’s natural and comfortable, then maybe I’m lazy, not putting the work in. 

For some people, it is very important to learn how to be active, to choose, and to do, and to initiate. There is a role for that in recovery too, as many slogans reflect. This slogan is about understanding that sometimes, not doing is far better than doing. 

Why? In the past, most of our action was hijacked by ego and addiction, so that our will and our behavior did not serve God, or even us, but rather the rapacious addiction. 

So in recovery, we learn to be ginger in our doing, allowing more room for God to show us,  in that stiller, quieter way that God tends to speak.

Easy Does It, not Ego Does It

This shift in attitude, that it is not my job to wrestle life down to the ground, and defeat it once and for all, but rather to float in its larger womby pools knowing I’ll be taken care of no matter what, was an important change for me personally and something to return to each day. 

Certainly I can say that my life offers me many opportunities to see, once again, if I needed a refresher, that the slogan is Easy Does It, not Ego Does It. 

 

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Recovery

Your Recovery or Your Derriere: Giving Up on Saving Face

Choose Wisely

There’s a lovely, straight-to-the-point AA saying: “You can’t save your [gluteus maximus] and your face simultaneously.” The saying uses another word for your gluteus maximus, a word that rhymes with grass, but to keep this classy-ish, I’ll say derriere. (Maybe that’s what they say in French AA meetings). 

Of course, there are many possible interpretations and layers of meaning to this slogan. But the gist is this: in any given moment, you can only serve one master, so… choose wisely. It’s like: “Everybody, this is a hold up: Your recovery or your derriere.”

What is your top priority – sobriety or your self-image? Your life itself, or what people think about you? In recovery, the plain truth is that we’re either looking out for the ego and trying to keep up appearances or prioritizing recovery. Stark, but true. 

Just the Facts, Ma’am

It’s important to remember every single day of our lives that those with the addiction pattern need to take the fact of their addiction very seriously, or else. We’re talking about life or death when we get down to it. 

We quickly forget that addiction is a parasite that kills the host sooner or later! How often did we have to prove to ourselves that our addiction always lies in wait, ready to kill us at the first chance if we don’t do the work? Do we need one more reminder, or have we shown ourselves what addiction is, who we become under its influences, beyond the shadow of a doubt?

If we feel embarrassed that we need recovery, let’s take a moment to think. How did we get into this embarrassing situation in which our bacon needs to be saved? Oh yeah, we got here because we lost all common sense and self-control and became powerless over the use of substances. Did we mean to? No. Did that happen? Yes.

We lost the ability to make reasonable decisions and behaviors in our own interest, to behave in sane and coherent ways. We became mad and foolish, someone you would shake your head in wonder at how far their behaviors veer off from their intentions. We became one of those people we didn’t think we’d ever be.

So we do need to focus on saving our derrieres first and foremost. Always and forever. That’s just the facts. 

Why Save Face?

And what is the urge to save face but to imagine that we are someone with greater morality, self-control, or abilities than what is currently the case? What does the ego give us but an imagined superiority, followed quickly by imagined inferiority, in ever-repeating cycles, ups and downs, booms and busts? Why do we try so hard to save it?

It seems to me that the desire to save face, even our false, inauthentic face, never dies completely, or maybe it lays in wait, just like our addiction, hoping we’ll return to it. 

I know, on a basic level, it is because we are all wounded in our basic human dignity. Many of us were made to feel less than others, and we’re scared to return to that place. We want to feel ok about ourselves. Admitting we have an addiction is rough on us and our idea of ourselves as being worthy. Recovery keeps reminding us, again and again, that we don’t have our stuff together. We must find ways to love ourselves even though we’re so imperfect, tragic, and heartbreaking. (In other words, we have to find Unconditional Love). 

Truth is Freedom

The desire to save face can turn a person away right at the first step, in which we are invited to admit that we’ve succumbed to the addiction pattern and need help. It could turn us from recovery again around the 4th, 5th and 9th steps, when we have to talk to people and tell them the cringeworthy truth of what we did. We might fear that our self-esteem will plummet if we admit the truth. 

But the truth, as they say, will set us free. The real effect of the twelve steps is self-compassion, self-liberation, and self-acceptance. We are loosed from the sugary attractions of fragile self-esteem based on inauthenticity and set free to explore our true nature’s real, glorious depths. 

This is kind of a red pill, blue pill situation. Recovery is the red pill. Ego is the blue pill. What do you choose? 

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