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Tag: Mindfulness

Different Kinds of Energy Healing

There are many types of healing modalities that you can engage to influence the energetic field that contains your life.  The idea that every person has a circle of energy that surround them beyond the solid matter of their body is crucial to deeply understanding the potential impact of holistic modalities.  Embedded in this concept is the acknowledgement that individuals can influence the lives of each other simply by how they are being in life.  This is found in the spaces where our energetic fields overlap with each other.  If you regard this concept as true, you likely agree that practicing energy hygiene, or the cleansing of the energetic field, on a regular basis is just as important as tending to the physical and emotional aspects.  There are many different modalities and practices to engage daily maintenance of your energetic or auric field:

  • Chakras: the chakras are 7 energy centers along the centerline of the body from the root at the pelvis to just above the crown of the head.  Each chakra has unique properties and they can be enhanced or muted engaging a variety of practices.  Some practices include: chakra holds – place hands at different chakras in specific combinations; gems can be engaged to influence chakras in different ways.
  • Sound and Light: these carriers of energy can be engaged to influence the state of the field. Both move through wavelengths and these can be harnessed to shift the quality of the energetic field.  
  • Visualizations: By engaging a visualization that soothes the emotional state, the quality of the energetic field can be transmuted.
  • Movement: as with sound, the energetic field can be transmuted simply by engaging any kind of movement.  The vibration will create movement in the energetic field and transform its current state.  
  • Aromatherapy: this involves taking the oil of a plant and diffusing its properties into your field.  The qualities of the plant become integrated into an individual’s energetic field and transmute the state of it.  
  • Earthing: this can be many things that involve engaging the natural world to alchemize the state of your energetic field.  Common examples are feet on the ground or in the sea for a brief period of time.  

 

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.

The Spiritual Malady of Addiction

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.  

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.

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

Addictions are a coping mechanism for stress and trauma and the originating causes of addiction may vary greatly.  It might be an old trauma that needs healing or it can simply be the daily stresses of a complex life in a challenging world.  In these examples, one cause, trauma, can be healed.  However, the impact of the daily stresses of life can be reduced by healthy coping mechanisms.  This reduction increases the probability of continuous sobriety.  

Addicts are thought to be both mentally and bodily different from non-addicts.  The differences of the body must be accepted as a permanent condition. The mind enables the individual to overcome addiction.  It can also be harnessed as a powerful tool for coping with stresses.   Unharnessed, the mind zooms in on the source of stress.  It imagines the future involving the stress with the worst possible outcomes or spends tremendous focus imagining actions to avoid it.  Well-intended by the mind, all of this attention has the effect of amplifying the source of the stress.  

This highlights that the imagination of the mind often paints a worse picture than the reality of the experience.  You can engage mindfulness to quiet the mind about life stresses.  Mindfulness works because it does not ask the mind to stop imagining but gives it other focuses for its dreaming.  The following are some exercises to explore:

  • Engaging the senses: bring more of your attention to your senses by engaging touch, taste, sound, sight or smell.  For example, if you worry about what will happen at work, look more deeply at the environment as you walk there.  The deeper looking will consume some of the energy of worrying.  
  • Gratitude list: make a list of all that is good in your life.  This can be done generally, or in relationship to a specific stressor.  For example, if you are stressed about seeing your ex at a party, make a gratitude list of all the gifts of the relationship, of the break-up and other anticipated benefits of attending the party..  
  • Meditation: if repetitive thoughts are occurring during your practice, allow yourself to simply be with the thoughts without sinking deeply into them.  Explore how you can lightly be with thoughts without being consumed by them.  

 

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.

Three Methods to Stay Grounded

Alcoholics in early recovery are given many suggestions to get through the difficult times ahead. Each day is a struggle but there are ways to make what might seem like a complicated process, a simple one. Staying grounded is a tool to become one with a higher power. It’s through clearing the chakras that the stem connecting people to mother earth, can be fully applied. Sitting in daily meditation, letting the feeling of peace and serenity become natural, will soon allow for the breath to flow at a calming pace. There are different ways to meditate and it’s okay to start off with hesitation. It’s important to remember not to let some other belief about meditation, allow for judgement. It’s a learning process, and whenever the mind goes off into another direction, just simply bring it back to the breath. Sometimes counting in and out, or saying a mantra will regulate the breath and stay on focus. It takes practice, and there’s no need for perfection.

Some may feel like crying is a form of weakness. This cannot be further from the truth. It’s imperative that feelings that have been stuffed down, be let out. Many alcoholics will suppress  pain by shoving down and numbing themselves with alcohol and drugs. There might be years and years of pain stored up, and this includes post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As a coping mechanism, alcoholics will ignore this fact with the abuse of substances. If the alcoholic doesn’t know any other ways to cope, it’s what they will turn to anytime something painful comes up. Letting the emotion flow out is a way of releasing this pain. Common therapy methods to deal with PTSD are Prolonged Exposure (PE), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). These can help the alcoholic reach down and discover the trauma, its cause, and work towards moving forward. Otherwise, the alcoholic will not be able to grow. In early recovery, the alcohol might be out of the picture, but the healing process has just began.  

The last suggestion is to get on a routine. A schedule will help the alcoholic to stay on a steady path to recovery. The alcoholic might become overly confident with excess energy or exhibit displays of exhaustion.  Having 12-step meetings to attend, work, and other activities, will make it hard for the alcoholic to isolate or over do it. For example, if the alcoholic is also a workaholic, there should be time in the daily schedule for a walk out in nature, yoga, or a five minute meditation. Early recovery is about building a sturdy foundation that lays the groundwork for successfully living sober. Each alcohol has a different journey and no two programs will be exactly the same. It’s about embracing a new healthy lifestyle, that doesn’t include abusing substances or picking up other bad habits. It’s easy to give up one vice for another, and that is why the alcoholic must follow the suggestions of those who have knowledge in this topic of healing. If an alcoholic listens to these recommendations, it’s possible to change their lives indefinitely.

 

Enlightened Solutions will help you gain the tools to become more grounded in a fast pace world. Our holistic approach will enlighten lives and encourage patients to find their inner peace. Our partial program let’s you take a look into what’s at the root of the problem and move forward in life. For more information call: 833-801-LIVE

Does Mindfulness Work For Reducing Anxiety?

Anxiety has little to do with being in the present moment other than spending that present moment worrying about the future. Getting caught up in anxious thoughts feels like getting lost in an uncontrollable stream of worry, concern, and fear over things which might not even be real. Millions of people live with anxiety and co-occurring disorders like addiction or alcoholism but do not receive treatment. Each day, they live under the rule of their anxiety, which takes a toll physically, mentally, and spiritually.

Recently, Brigham Young University conducted a study on anxiety and the effect of mindfulness in reducing anxiety. Mindfulness helps those with anxiety accomplish three important states. First, it helps them focus on the present moment. Second, it returns them to their breath. Third, it helps them get in touch with their true emotions. “People who are not aware of ‘moment-to-moment experience’ many times void difficult emotions,” the article explains, “This behavior leads to negative thoughts.” It can also lead to a heightened heart rate, rapid thinking mind, and muscle tension.

20 minutes of mindfulness a day can effectively reduce the symptoms of anxiety before, during, and after an anxiety attack or an episode of anxious thinking. Mindfulness practices tend to include focus on the breath. Practicing breathing exercises for anxiety helps increase mindfulness and reduce activity in the brain. Deep and controlled breaths are like a reset button for the brain, especially during anxiety. When we think of being anxious, worried, or afraid, we might notice our heart rate increasing. Anxiety typically does not come with long, deep breaths, but short rapid ones. The cross-signals of the rapid heart rate and short breathing actually trigger the brain’s anxiety further and vice versa.

Breathing For Anxiety

Start by identifying five things in each of your senses while trying to slow down your breath. After you have slowed your mind down with focus, turn your focus to your breath. Try breathing in through your nose for five full seconds, holding it for five full seconds, then letting it out for five full seconds. Repeat this breathing process. You will find that your body is systematically relaxing and your brain is starting to slow down. Soon, your anxious moment will be over and you will be in a clam state of mind.

Anxiety can be a trigger for relapse on drugs and alcohol. Recovery starts with holistic treatment of dual diagnosis issues, targeting mind, body, and spirit for transformative change. Our integrative programs at Enlightened Solutions bring together the best of both worlds, helping our clients find freedom in recovery. For more information, call us today at 833-801-5483.

Could Mindfulness Help With Cravings?

We often talk about cravings in recovery like a monster under the bed- if you let them grab a hold of you, you’re a goner. Cravings are, but also are not, that serious. Cravings are a reaction of the brain. Chemical reactions, cravings occur for different reasons. For example, the brain might be processing some residual toxins, memories, and associations which lead to cravings. On the other hand, there might be a circumstantial event which triggers some kind of pain or discomfort in the brain, causing it to want to produce dopamine, a neurotransmitter for pleasure. Long Term substance abuse damages the brain’s ability to produce enough of its own dopamine, at least not to a level that creates the same effect as drugs and alcohol. Unfortunately, the brain becomes accustomed to such levels and when it cannot achieve them, especially in response to pain or a perceived threat, it produces cravings. Cravings happen because during addiction drugs and alcohol are the answer to everything. Thus, in order to cope with everything, the brain learns to rely on drugs and alcohol. Without mind altering substances, the brain experiences cravings.

Sometimes cravings are a passing experience. Other times, they are an indicator of spending too much thinking time in euphoric recall. Being mindful of your cravings can help you notice what is going on with them: where they are coming from, what triggered them, and what you need to do to calm them down.

According to Mindful, “Mindfulness could be the key to cutting the link between conditioned cues of desired objects and the craving that leads to addictive behavior.” The article emphasizes that just trying to cut off the thoughts where they are is a futile attempt. Instead, mindfulness helps you “build flexibility into how you relate to your own desirous thoughts…what you need is a heaping helping of mindful awareness of thinking– of observing your own thoughts without buying into them as absolute truth or trying to force them away.”

Running away from your thoughts and creating a negative association only perpetuates the problem. You conditioned your brain to reward satisfying cravings to cope with negativity of any kind. Giving into cravings for drugs and alcohol doesn’t work either. “What’s more helpful,” the article emphasizes, “is to build your capacity to serve as a witness to your own thoughts.” “Typically, when we think about something we crave, that thought feels very close, as if it’s inside us, part of who we are.” People often take their cravings as serious signs that they are

going to relapse. Mindfulness helps create distance between the mechanics of cravings and reality. As the article explains, “Mindfulness helps us see the thought as merely a moment of information.” Practicing mindfulness with your moments of cravings helps you gain the information you need to make an adjustment to your recovery program and move through the moment.

Cravings are a natural part of recovery. Learning how to live and cope with cravings is an essential part of treatment. Lifelong recovery is possible. Let the compassionate care at Enlightened Solutions show you the way. For information on our programs, call 833-801-5483.

There’s A Healthy Way To Process Your Anger

Anger gets a bad reputation. Much of how we identify with, understand, and process anger has to do with what we were taught about anger when we were younger. Watching our parents handle their own anger gave us some ideas about what anger means. For example, some people have parents who got angry about everything, including the weather. Other people had parents who never got angry and shunned the child for ever displaying anger. Anger is widely misunderstood, which is unfortunate because it is an essential reaction. Anger is born out of stress, rooted in two primary emotional experiences: fear and sadness. We developed anger as a reaction. Anger is survival. When we get angry, our adrenaline starts pumping and we release other stress hormones in order to get through what we are going through. Unfortunately, we can’t get through it unless we have a way of releasing our anger.

Anger can be released in healthy ways and anger can be released in unhealthy ways. Most often, anger comes out in a toxic, violent manner because that is what we have been shown about anger. However, anger can be processed in a more calm and rational way which acknowledges and validates the anger without letting it completely take over.

First, You Need To Reduce The Stress

Once those stress hormones start flowing, you cannot objectively assess your emotions until they have calmed down. Calming down during anger is not contradicting or condoning whatever it is you are angry about. Instead, it is giving you the space and opportunity to process your anger. Try a breathing technique, take a shower, or go for a walk.

Second, Understand Your Anger

You Have a right to be angry about whatever you are angry about, because you have a right to all of your emotional experiences. It’s important to identify what exactly it is you are angry about. Often, what seems like the perfect victim of your anger on the surface is not what is really going on underneath. Furthermore, you might be more angry about the fact that you’ve been caused to feel afraid or sad than what has actually happened.

Create Mindful Reality

Taking the time to identify the true source of your anger helps you separate rage from reality. We want anger to punish someone for our own pain. We often here that anger is the poison we drink, intending to hurt someone else. Being mindful of your emotions helps you to identify what is real from what is not real. From there you can move forward and heal.

Anger management is an important part of the recovery process. Enlightened Solutions has created a program that helps clients become integrated with their emotional, physical, and spiritual selves. For more information on our treatment programs for addiction and dual diagnosis issues, call 833-801-5483.

Spiritual Practices To Enhance Your Recovery Every Day

Spirituality is an important part of recovery. Religion and spirituality do not have to be the same. Instead, recovery offers you the opportunity to create your own spirituality and connection to yourself as well as the greater existence.

Immerse Yourself In Inspirational Words

Spirituality is best learned and practiced. You can choose a religious text, a self-help book, spiritual poetry, or whatever else inspires you. Try starting and ending your day with a few minutes of inspirational text. Having the messages, chewing over the meaning, and creating the energy the text provides will help you walk along a spiritual path for the day.

Put Your Thoughts To Action

Prayer, intentions, meditations, hopes, wishes, goals- whatever the term is you want to use to describe the power of positivity, use that throughout the day. The universe is full of fascinating energy between humans, their minds, and their thoughts. What we think creates energy and our energy has a great effect on the world around us. Spend some time each day putting your thoughts to action through prayer, meditation, journaling, or whatever method feels the most spiritually aligning to you.

Integrate More Mindfulness

You can call it walking with the Holy Spirit. You can call it being mindful. You can call it being enlightened. There is a spirituality to the practice of mindfulness when it specifically focuses on noticing the mystery and magnificence of life around you. Pay attention to the way the sun hits the grass, the air moves the flowers, and how the earth smells after it rains. It doesn’t have to be a “God” or any other kind of force that creates such detail. The act of noticing these things means taking the time to connect to the wonderment of being alive.

Be Kind

Kindness is not a character trait, it’s an intrinsic human condition. Great spiritual leaders define themselves by their dedication to kindness. Kindness moves in two directions: inward and outward. In order to be truly kind to others, you must also learn to be kind to yourself. Self-kindness, along with self-compassion is essential to recognizing the humility in being human, just like everyone else.

Share Your Experience, Strength, And Hope

Everyone needs a little extra hope when they are in treatment to recover from an addiction and a co-occurring disorder. When you start to integrate spiritual activities into your daily life, you have a lot to offer other people. You don’t have to preach, but you can humbly offer someone your experiences, encourage them with the strength you are finding, and offer them the hope which helps get you through the day.

Recovery starts with you, so start your recovery with us at Enlightened Solutions. Our partial care programs are rooted in twelve step philosophy, holistic healing, and proven clinical therapy methods. We have the solution. Call 833-801-5483 today for more information.

Being Busy: Modern Society’s Favorite Drug

In the spiritual commentary text The Tao Of Pooh, author Benjamin Hoff has Taoist conversations with one of the world’s most beloved philosophical thinkers: Winnie the Pooh. Among many other topics, one day, Benjamin and Pooh discuss business. Hoff describes the “Bisy Backson” (young human Christopher Robin’s childish note meant to say busy back soon) who is always busy doing something. Notably, he suggests, people who stay busy have favorite activities which require being active. There is always something to do. As a result, there is always little time. Busy people have to put great effort into focusing on saving time in order to have more time, so that they can make the most of that time. “The main problem with this great obsession for saving time is very simple: you can’t save time,” Hoff eloquently asserts. “You can only spend it wisely or foolishly.” A busy body, or, a “busy backson,” Hoff elaborates, “has practically no time at all, because he’s too busy wasting it by trying to save it.” “And,” he poignantly concludes, “by trying to save it, he ends up wasting the whole thing.”

Preoccupation

Mindful.org wrote an article asking, “Are You Addicted To Doing?”. The authors write that in truth, “action addiction”, or the addiction to being busy is actually “an advanced sort of laziness.” “The busier we keep ourselves,” the authors describe, “the more we avoid being confronted with questions of life and death. As we keep ourselves occupied with tasks, important or not, we avoid facing life.” Additionally, the authors later emphasize, “The busier we get, the more energy flows to the head and away from the heart.”

Stillness to Busyness

Modern society has taken giant leaps away from stillness and dove head on into busyness. The more busy one’s schedule is, the more accomplished they have become. Trying to avoid the stress of their schedules they assert that they aren’t “busy”, but that their lives are “full”. Full or busy, it is critical to practice slowing down. Take time out of each day to meditate, practice mindfulness, and be aware. Make sure to get enough rest, practice self-care, and stay connected to others. As the infamous Ferris Bueller once said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around for awhile, you might miss it.”

Enlightened Solutions wants to show you how to make the most of your life in recovery. If you or a loved one is struggling from addiction or alcoholism, call Enlightened Solutions today. We have a solution to the problem of addiction. 833-801-5483.

Common Questions About Meditation and Mindfulness

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is a practice of noticing. Many of us just go with the motions of our days without really noticing what is going on. Bringing awareness to our surroundings assists us in becoming present and enjoying life fully in each moment. Mindfulness is proven to help relax, sharpen focus, and regulate mood.

Is mindfulness different from meditation?

Yes and no. Mindfulness is a form of meditation but not all meditation is necessarily mindful. However, practicing meditation does tend to increase one’s sense of mindfulness. Meditation, like mindfulness, is a practice that helps develop a sense of awareness. Though mindfulness is a thought process, meditation can be practiced in different ways.

What if your mind is too busy?

Most meditation and mindfulness practitioners would argue that there is no such thing as a mind too busy to practice. They might even emphasize that the mind which thinks itself too busy for mindfulness and meditation is in the most need! Practicing mindfulness and meditation is a way to quiet the mind and calm the chaos internally. It may take time and meditation sessions of no more than five minutes at a time to start.

Is the goal to stop all thoughts?

Some disciplines of religion like Zen Buddhism include meditation in which the goal is to empty the mind completely. Not all meditation is about nothingness. Mindfulness, arguably, is about everythingness by noticing the world around you. Practicing meditation and mindfulness is about coming to terms with your thoughts.

Do I have to be spiritual to practice mindfulness and meditation?

No. Though mindfulness and meditation are spiritually founded practices, religion or spirituality does not have to be part of your life. It is important to note, however, that many people will have spiritual experiences or spiritual shifts. Meditation and mindfulness are proven to enhance feelings of connectedness and universality.

How do I practice mindfulness and meditation?

The simplest way to practice is to just breath and notice your thoughts. Meditation can be sitting, quiet, music, guided, etc. Choose what works best for you.

Enlightened Solutions combines holistic health and spiritual practices with both evidence-based treatment as well as 12 step philosophy. Our integrated approach to recovery creates a unique program of treatment for men and women overcoming addiction. For more information on our programs of treatment, call 833-801-5483.

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