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Neuroscience of Spirituality

Written by enlightened solutions on November 9, 2017. Posted in Addiction, Alternative Therapy. Leave a Comment

To many who start the recovery process and lifestyle, the news that it involves a spiritual awakening is bad news. There is an assumption that the beloved relationship with science and facts must be forsaken for the healing of self-destructive addiction. For these people, the neuroscience of spirituality is wonderful news!

The neuroscience of spirituality, also named Spiritual Intelligence (SI), is a powerful framework for the recovering person’s process of awakening. SI is the journey of deepening consciousness or awareness of self. This transcendence is rooted in the science of the brain. 3 types of spiritual intelligence can be defined:

Emotional intelligence (EI) which lives on the right side of the brain
Intellectual intelligence (IQ) which lives on the left side of the brain and
Spiritual intelligence (SQ) which is a layer of matter circling the right and left sides of the brain

This is exciting news as people are usually identified as either “right-brained” indicating a more creative person or “left-brained” indicating a more logical or scientific-minded person.

Recovery is the journey of ceasing physical addiction, changing daily life behaviors and the evolving consciousness that stems from the integration of those changes. While this journey of raised consciousness has been accepted in recovery circles for decades, the neuroscience of spirituality is now scientific evidence that this is occurring.

The primary theory validating this experience is called Integrated Information Theory (IIT). IIT is the explanation that our brain takes information inputs from the external world via all three intelligence pathways and brings them together in one holistic experience. The inputs are received and integrated. It is the interpretation of these streams of information as one unified experience that generates consciousness.

Since the information being gathered is a mix of objective, clearly defined information and subjective, undefined information that is cooked into one integrated spiritual experience, the outputs generated by varied people with unique life experiences will vary greatly. It is this reason that the wisdom of AA’s original teaching, A God of His Own Understanding, continues to save lives today. The effectiveness of allowing each person have their own conception of a higher power is validated by this scientific theory.

If you are struggling with addiction, alcoholism, and/or mental health, know that there is hope. There is a solution. Harmoniously fusing together the best elements of clinical care, holistic healing, and 12-step philosophy, Enlightened Solutions has created a program of total transformation for men and women seeking recovery. Call 833-801-5483 today for information on our partial care programs in New Jersey.

Self-Love is the Solution

Written by enlightened solutions on November 8, 2017. Posted in Addiction, Mental Health. Leave a Comment

Self-love is the solution true happiness. There are many ways one can express themselves through self-love. Self-love is expressed in a variety of ways that each have their own special impact on how life can be interpreted. The act of being mindful of one’s surroundings places an appreciation for what is really going on around with the body and soul. Addicts struggle with this while in the disease and that’s a realization discovered once all substances exit the body. Listening to the body is will encourage the addict to take proper care of its vital needs. This includes nourishing the body with essential nutrients. Getting enough exercise keeps the body moving throughout the years. Stimulating the mind by activities such reading will keep it functioning like a well-oiled machine.

The concept of self-love is both selfish and selfless. Genuinely caring about other’s needs and having compassion, is regarded to be a factor of staying sane. It is not ideal to be selfish in a way that is narcissistic. For example, being of service will actually help with self-esteem. On the inside, an average person’s heart will feel full. While in the disease of addiction, the addict has let his/her mind take over control. The mind’s powerful voice disregards others, for its own selfish needs. This turns out to be miserable because the addict’s mind can never reach satisfaction. In our world today having compassion for others serves the addict in a ways that keeps sobriety intact. Therefore, learning about how to help out the surrounding community is an act of self-love in itself.

Projecting negative thoughts onto oneself is never a good idea. Addicts in the disease have the tendency to have depressing thoughts while lacking hope for the future. After the addict has safely quit drinking or using, there must be some kind of change in thought pattern. Degrading or putting oneself down, can lead to a sad, lonely life. God did not put us on earth to fail. Addicts should take sobriety and run with it in all directions. The addict should begin to say nice words about themselves such as affirmations or prayers. Manifesting wonderful futures as well as praying for the good of others is self-love that most find it hard to see while in and out of the disease. It’s okay to start small with a gratitude list, some volunteer work, or starting to rid the body of all toxins. Self-love is crucial to living life to the fullest, All recovering addicts must embrace this sooner than later. Share the love!

Enlightened Solutions encourages patients to practice self-love in all areas of life. Our wellness and nutrition groups enhance patient’s life skills in always staying in the solution. Call 833-801-5483 today for information on our partial care programs in New Jersey.

Trauma Blocks the Flow of the Present

Written by enlightened solutions on November 7, 2017. Posted in Addiction, Mental Health. Leave a Comment

Trauma is an effect of an experience that overwhelms an individual’s emotional system from processing and releasing the experience itself. Beyond this, in the healing community there is a vast range of definitions for both trauma itself and what substantiates formal diagnosis of lasting trauma. The trauma-informed approach is to base this diagnosis on the subjective definitions of the person experiencing trauma.

Lasting trauma is commonly thought to be the result of severe experiences, such as rape, natural disaster, or combat service, to name only a few. Yet, many people experience the ongoing effects of trauma from less severe experiences. For the creation of healthy communities, it is valuable to acknowledge all of these experiences as traumatic. Any person experiencing untreated self-defined trauma is imprisoned in the past, even if the experience is not externally justified to have lasting effects.

Trauma has the effect dividing a person’s life between the present moment and this past traumatic experience. The two primary ways that the interference of trauma expresses are triggers and filters. Triggers are cued by present-day experiences, sometimes seemingly unrelated, to relive the originating event. This time-traveling by the sufferer will split the attention available for the present moment as these traumatic memories, mental, emotional or body, continue running in the background of daily life.

Filters caused by trauma bring a false theme into a person’s interpretation of life. For example, a person with untreated trauma resulting from sexual violence may experience most men as potential perpetrators. Or the person with untreated combat trauma may orient in relationships from a combative position. These filters alter engagement with life by passing through a falsifying lens, affecting their perception of themselves and all of life that surrounds them. The effects also take form in external life as they influence life with actions stemming from these filters.

Being on a pathway to living our purpose requires that we live fully in the present. Trauma significantly limits our ability to do this. It is critical that if someone is suffering from trauma originating from any event, perceived or actual, receives the treatment necessary to fully bring them back into the present. To do anything less would be a great societal harm as this person’s unique gift in living will not be actualized.

Ways to Stay Grounded

Written by enlightened solutions on November 6, 2017. Posted in Mental Health, Recovery. Leave a Comment

In today’s fast-paced world, we aren’t allowed to take our sweet time. There are coffee shops on every corner and the conception that the more productivity the more successful. This may be true to a certain extent. However, it’s always important to stop and smell the roses. The goal is to work towards staying grounded. This is a good practice when a person is overwhelmed with life’s stressors.

Upon waking, take some at least five minutes for meditation. Sitting with God, asking for guidance will show to be a game changer. It’s recommended to take time for yoga or some kind of exercise that helps clear the mind. Going for a run outside or a hike is especially valuable for being amongst mother nature.

Another way to stay grounded is to eat well. That absolutely does not mean counting calories or any crazy fad diets. People forget that food helps in the healing process. The nutrients found in whole organic, non-processed foods help aid in keeping the body going throughout the day. Being mindful with food is a way of listening to the body, how it feels, and what it needs most. What it doesn’t need is processed, high sugar diets slowing it down. This might be hard at first, but eating for the nutrients will change anyone’s relationship with food for the better.

A major issue swallowing up this and new generations to come is the connectivity to electronic devices. This is unfortunate, given that one should strive to connect with themselves, and the earth. The earth does so much and works so hard to be able to sustain life. When there is respect for the planet, a person will feel more at peace with their actions. Appreciating the earth and mother nature is a key component in becoming less self-absorbed.

The intuition is always there, willing to help guide whenever it is listened to. Intuitive thoughts cannot be heard if the mind is running the show. Being aware of the bodies chakras and find the root of any problem will help clear the vessel connecting God, the body, and the earth. Taking care of our bodies shows it the respect it deserves. This is a form of self-love which is linked to living a healthy, well-rounded life on earth. Human beings must attempt to become grounded if there will be any hope to cope with life’s daily struggles with grace and dignity.

Enlightened Solutions encourages patients to grow from their trauma and come out stronger on the other end with peace and serenity. Staying free of drugs and alcohol can give addicts a new look at life’s surrounding beauty. Call us in New Jersey today: 833-801-5483.

Seeing Depression as a Deep Emotional Awakening

Written by enlightened solutions on November 2, 2017. Posted in Addiction, Addiction Recovery. Leave a Comment

The way that depression is experienced is influenced by the way that it is defined. For many, depression is considered a static state. Depression is on or depression is off. Sometimes this may be true, but often, depression is more like a dimmer light switch. Depression is slowly turned on and is slowly turned back off. The way that we related to it when it is slightly on is different than the relating that happens when it is at full throttle.

When depression knocks on the door of life, it is time to adjust the way that we are living. It can begin as a slight numbness. In fact, if one is not living in a daily relationship with their emotional world, depression may stealthily slip in unnoticed. If depression is notice at an early stage, actions may be taken to enliven the spirit. If the early beckoning goes unnoticed, depression will begin to call our names louder, like a mother from the 80s calling a child home to the porch from a neighborhood bike ride. Depression will make sure that you have heard its call. Until responded to, it will continue deepen its hold until you are listening.

Being hunted by depression is painful and exhausting – the running and hiding, only to inevitably surrender. Depression simply wants to offer you an opportunity to evolve in life. In the same way that depression can slowly set in, it is often a slow process to find relief from depression. It involves taking daily actions that allow the healing process to begin. It is the daily consistency of these actions that moves you back out of depression. The consistent, daily practices needed to produce freedom from depression cultivates one of depression’s greatest gifts, patience. With the expansion of patience, you become a person who perseveres. As patience, perseverance and daily mindfulness through practices are integrated in you, you have a heightened awareness the next time the fog of numbness rolls in. Although you have momentarily lost your sense of sight in this fog, you trust the strength of your other senses to guide you through it as you take immediate action.

Another potential outcome that a journey with depression fosters is the determination to live more attuned to your daily emotional state. It can begin by simply pausing several times a day and asking the internal self: what do I feel? What do I need? These questions will amend the conditions that beckon depression.

Restructuring Anger as an Energetic Experience

Written by enlightened solutions on October 31, 2017. Posted in Addiction, Addiction Recovery, Mental Health. Leave a Comment

Anger, a natural human experience, is an emotion that invites mindfulness from addicts in recovery. They must be very careful to not get stuck there, even though anger is a natural response to some life experiences. A dynamic understanding of emotional responses can aid you in processing anger. Emotions are an energetic charge and even though they are cognitively processed, there is still an energy present that is not dissolved cognitively.

Anger is typically a response to having security threatened. This is also true of animals in the natural world. When becoming aware of being hunted, animals will typically engage fight or flight responses free from mental analysis. There is an energy coursing through the body and it instinctively evokes these responses.

In recovery and in the social world of humans, it is not appropriate to respond to life with flight or fight responses. However, they still have the instinct to do so. To return to a neutral state, it is necessary to move the emotions through the parasympathetic nervous system. The following are some simple tools to move the energy that is generated. Be aware of those around you when engaging these practices as this energy releasement may activate fear or anger in others.

In the car, simply scream as loud as possible.
Go for a sprint around the block – running as fast as possible for a short distance.
Find some junk mail or other paper that is no longer of use and intensely rip it into pieces.
Release the energy from the gut by using lion’s pose as intensely as possible.
Create a stack of pillows and pummel them with fists while screaming.

As you release fight or flight responses, be aware that these practices may not fully resolve the emotion with one attempt at energy practices, especially in the case of anger stored from the past. However, they may create a state that centered enough so that a deeper reflection process can be impactful.

Eating Disorders are a Disconnect Between Mind and Body

Written by enlightened solutions on October 30, 2017. Posted in Addiction, Healthy Living, Mental Health. Leave a Comment

Sadly, so many people in Western culture suffer with imbalances in their relationship to food and their bodies. These imbalances can manifest in a variety of ways which diagnosed as overeating, anorexia and bulimia to name a few. While the names and expression of these imbalances may vary, at the core, these people are suffering from a disconnect between the mind and the body. Food and the way that it nourishes our physical life can be a profoundly mystical experience. When a disorder has presented, the sufferer has lost the beautiful cycle of food sustaining the physical body so that a life is being lived for its spiritual purpose.

Often, these imbalances are often paired with dysfunction in the way that people connect commune with others while consuming food. Our ancestors experienced deeply reliant community in relationship with food whether they were of hunting and gathering or agricultural times. The food connection was not limited to the consuming of food, but included a necessary shared lifestyle to make food possible for all. Over the generations, we have lost this communion with others around the life-cycle of our food. This cultural change is present in eating disorders, whether expressed as co-addiction, the shared addictive consumption of food, binge eating in isolation or eating in community only to purge in secrecy later. Consider how each of these manifestations may be altered by having a lifestyle of communion around food if secrecy from others related to food was not possible in our lifestyle.

It is in the separation and secrecy from others that our mind is given the space to get trapped in a obsessive-compulsive loop. In separation from a tribe, the irrationality of our addicted mind can seem rational. Our desire to escape from powerful feelings overrides our ability to make a healthy choice. The recovery journey offers the opportunity to reconnect to others by vulnerably sharing where our minds is taking us with food. This becomes a wonderful bridge to invest in beautifully connected relationships by revealing where the addicted mind wants to go and receiving the support to make different choices to heal the mind and body. Communion with food and others can be possible today.

Nature for Recovery

Written by enlightened solutions on October 27, 2017. Posted in Addiction Recovery, Alternative Therapy. Leave a Comment

One might find that being out in nature is that of being with God. Those who struggle with addiction or mental disorders live a life full of fear. When there is fear, there is no faith and this faith can be disguised in many different ways. While in the disease nothing matters as much as staying numb to the world outside. Alcohol and drugs will hinder the addict’s ability to see true beauty in mother nature. While in early recovery it’s essential to spend time outside. There are multiple reasons besides the fresh air. It’s a natural remedy for mild depression as well. Addict who had been isolating will find that they begin to feel more energized and optimistic about the future. The addict who embraces the outdoors will find a sense of calm and ease that only life outside can give forth. Being outside always gives way for activity and that alone will promote a new healthy lifestyle.

Gardening is a way to connect with mother earth. Treatment centers encourage patients to become responsible for the plant’s outcome. Learning to take care of and respect another living thing is a step in the right direction towards the addicts growth process. Taking proper care of a garden also gets the addict out of their head. The mind will keep running if you let it, and if you give it that choice it will. Gardening can be therapeutic and meditative. Focusing on something other than the self is the same concept as an addict helping another addict. Self-absorption is what drives addiction. Caring for a garden can give the addict the opportunity to be nurturing and this brings out emotions from deep inside that must come out to move forward in life.

Besides all of the wonderful therapeutic advantages of being outside, it’s a simple, easy way to relax. Nature helps release happy hormones, which means we’re reminded what’s good for ourselves just by taking a hike. Staying in the day is sometimes difficult for addicts to comprehend, but once again, being outside will help with this as well. Addicts need to keep in mind that there is no time like the present, and it’s unnecessary to stress about the future. An addict shouldn’t plan to be sober a year from now, just for the next day, maybe an hour, or minute. It’s a journey and addicts can easily forget what life has to offer while in the disease. Being outside truly brings the addict back to the basics. Life has its simple pleasures and that doesn’t include drinking or using.

Enlightened Solutions believes in grounding an addict’s chaotic lifestyle. Our holistic approach guides our patients to find peace through the simple pleasures in life. Call 833-801-5483 today for information on our partial care programs in New Jersey.

The Gift of Sobriety

Written by enlightened solutions on October 25, 2017. Posted in Addiction Recovery, Recovery. Leave a Comment

When an alcoholic admits there is a problem, there may be an initial grieving period. Alcohol and drugs and had become a friends, confidants, and now must be taken away. As time goes on that same now recovering alcoholic might have a completely different outlook on the day they quit drinking. If an addict had reached a point of unbearable destruction in all areas in life, sobriety might be the only option. Becoming sober for the sake of a job or parents, children, boyfriends/girlfriends, and so on, doesn’t work the same as it does when the addict quits for themselves. If the alcoholic truly wants sobriety, they will be willing to do whatever it takes. Although this might seem like a daunting task, the rewards are immeasurable to anything else.

The slogan “we will love you until you love yourself” is meant for those who come into recovery with sadness and despair. Many addicts have found themselves with a variety of disorders that must now be addressed. Those with depression and anxiety will find themselves possibly growing out these as their sobriety strengthens. Those with disorders on the higher end of the spectrum will have to accept that sobriety means complying with a psychiatric diagnosis. Taking medication is just as important to staying sober, as it is to quit drinking and/or using. Often times the alcoholic will drink if they stop taking prescribed medication or if the addict decides to drink, they will likewise stop the medication. Dual-diagnosis is common and should always be taken seriously.

Once the treatment team, the alcoholics support, and the alcoholic are on the same page, the alcoholic’s journey can begin. The addict who shows complete cooperation and stays open-minded will benefit the most out of treatment. The addict that wants to live bad enough will put sobriety first. It must be well aware that the disease of addiction will kill anyone in its path. Choosing sobriety is choosing to live, choosing to be a mother or father, choosing to serve others in ways that would never happen if the addiction continued. Life is a gift, and life is beautiful. While in the disease, it’s easy to become pessimistic about all aspects of life and that is a miserable existence. The gift of sobriety is special, and those who see this, become grateful to be an addict in recovery. If there were no darkness there would no light.

Our clinical, holistic and 12 step approach at Enlightened Solutions gives addicts the opportunity to see their life in a new positive light. If you feel like you need to take your life back please don’t hesitate to call now: 833-801-5483.

The Spiritual Malady of Addiction

Written by enlightened solutions on October 24, 2017. Posted in Addiction, Addiction Recovery, Alternative Therapy. Leave a Comment

Many people who are in need of recovery resist it knowing that the solution is spiritual. The desire to avoid connection with the spiritual aspects of the self are embedded in the nature of addiction. The avoidance of spirituality keeps the addict in addiction long after the desire to return to whole and healthy living is sparked. It is in this essence of anticipation of the future, and what it is imagined to hold, that stops so many from living the purpose they were born to live.

First things first, if anticipation of the future and what holds spiritually is alive, lay it down. Addiction must be tended to on the physical realm, or at least, this is the primary focus initially. When anticipation of the future consumes potentially healthy actions of the addict, this is simply another way that the addiction is dominating the healthy self. The worried or rebellious anticipation of the future is a cue to bring the focus back to seeking physical abstinence and motivations for doing so.

Once physical abstinence is attained, the addict will cultivate a lifestyle of recovery through the insights revealed through the 12 Steps. The steps that particularly bring awareness to concrete examples of the spiritual malady of addiction are discovered in Steps 4 and 5. These steps outline the emotional patterns which have a tendency to the block the ‘sunlight of the spirit’. As the steps are taken, it may be seen that resentments function to create separation from the people that the addict loves and the whole of life. It is through emotions and thoughts about them that the addict creates isolation from their relationships. This isolation sets the stage for return to emotional escapism through addiction.

Addiction is often referred to as a disease of perception as addicts have a tendency to creating extraneous narrative around the experiences of their lives. Since this additional narrative often consist of perspectives that causes the addict to feel separate, this is where the spiritual malady lives. It is through the daily cleansing of perception through the process of the steps and the sharing with another addict that the addict is able to return to living as an integrated part of the whole of life.

Tag: addiction