Recovery Archives - Page 5 of 35 - Enlightened Solutions

Creating a Relapse Prevention Plan

Written by enlightened solutions on December 6, 2018. Posted in 12 Step Program, Drugs & Alcohol. Leave a Comment

When we are in recovery, we soon discover that the challenges of addiction don’t disappear overnight. We still face the same addictive urges and temptations. We still live with the stress and overwhelm that drove us to our addictions. One of the best ways we can maintain our sobriety is create a relapse prevention plan. When we are hit with urges, our instinct is often to respond with frustration, resistance and panic, which can make us more likely to run to our addictions to escape the painful emotions we’re feeling. Creating a relapse prevention plan for ourselves provides us with a useful and effective tool we can keep with us moving forward, to help keep us on track with our sobriety.

1. Create a Routine

One of the greatest threats to our sobriety is a lack of routine. If we are on vacation, are not working or in school, or don’t have another outlet for our time and energy, we are more likely to find ourselves swayed by the temptation of our addictions. Create a routine for yourself full of things you enjoy, healthy activities, and productive ways to spend your time. Make attending meetings, going to therapy and working with your sponsor part of this routine. Give your energy to keeping this routine and make it a commitment for yourself.

2. Find an Accountability Partner

When we have someone to be accountable to, we’re more likely to stay the course of our recovery. This partner can be a sponsor, another friend in recovery, a family member, therapist or mentor. This person should be someone with whom we feel comfortable checking in and giving regular updates on our progress. We shouldn’t be afraid to discuss with them any challenges, temptations or even relapses that may arise. Keeping track of our progress, even when we stumble, can help us keep ourselves on track.

3. Choose Calm

We commonly become stressed, anxious and panicked when we’re faced with an addictive urge. We worry we’ll relapse. We fear we’ll always be suffering in this way. When we practice mindfulness, we can more easily calm ourselves down, which can help us avoid some of the emotional overwhelm that can lead to relapse. Practice doing things that bring you feelings of peace and calm. Repeat calming affirmations such as “I will get through this. I am at peace. I am reaching my goals.” Use other calming practices such as meditation, journaling and talking with a supportive friend.

Enlightened Solutions was created to help people learn more about addiction and to find the support of a community that understands the struggles firsthand. Call (833) 801-LIVE today to get the help you deserve.

How Our Lives Benefit from Inner Peace

Written by enlightened solutions on December 5, 2018. Posted in 12 Step Program, Sober Living. Leave a Comment

Having peace of mind changes everything for us and drastically transforms our lives for the better. We experience an internal well-being that can feel totally new and different for us when we’ve been consumed with inner turmoil for so long. The health of our relationships improves, and we repair those that have been broken and heal the conflicts that contributed to their demise. We change the energy with which we manifest in our lives moving forward, bringing us happier circumstances and easier navigation through life’s challenges. We start to see things working out more easily for us. We feel happier and more secure within ourselves.

Stress is a normal part of life, and recovery doesn’t mean our stress disappears. With inner peace, though, we can more easily deal with the stresses in our lives. We are more centered, balanced and grounded. We are less triggered by the things that formerly knocked us off our center. We become less reactive and less emotionally swayed by challenging things, events and people. We find it easier to stay true to ourselves and to keep our focus on our emotional well-being.

Inner peace allows us to reclaim the dignity many of us lost when we were at our lowest point, when we were most self-destructive and self-harming. We learn what it means to love and accept ourselves. We forgive ourselves for our mistakes rather than condemning ourselves to live in shame and self-deprecation. We’re better able to release the past in order to focus on the future ahead. We find ourselves wanting to move forward with hope rather than staying stuck in our pain.

With inner peace comes self-empowerment. When we’re at peace within ourselves, we mentally and emotionally start to uplift ourselves more. We shed the disparaging self-talk that dominated our minds. We stop being our own worst enemy and shed our self-hatred. We find it so much happier and easier to be our own ally instead. We start to shower ourselves with self-love and self-acceptance. We stop denying ourselves the gift of our own compassion and understanding.

When we have peace of mind, we start to make better choices, in our relationships, habits and behaviors. We shed our self-destructiveness. Being good to ourselves comes much more naturally. We become better able to recognize our harmful patterns, and we develop the mindfulness to stop them in their tracks. Our energy is one of peace, and we manifest more peace in our lives rather than the tumult, confusion and conflict we grew accustomed to. Our lives and everything in them benefit tremendously when we work to develop our inner peace.

At Enlightened Solutions, our holistic and multidisciplinary approach is focused on healing the whole person and invigorating your soul. Call us at (833) 801-LIVE today.

The Challenges of the Holiday Season

Written by enlightened solutions on December 4, 2018. Posted in Healthy Living, Recovery. Leave a Comment

The holiday season is most commonly associated with cheer, joy and nostalgia. Our cultural traditions are intended to bring us together with family and friends to celebrate gratitude and appreciation with loved ones. For many of us, however, this time of year brings with it some very real challenges that can make the season stressful rather than joyful. We can be filled with fear, anxiety and sadness rather than with the merriment the holidays are traditionally known for.

Some of the challenges we face with the holiday season come from the fact that we don’t have the family or other close relationships that other people are joyfully celebrating this time of year. We can feel an acute sense of loneliness seeing other people with their loved ones when we aren’t able to be with ours. For some of us, we have isolated ourselves so much that we no longer have close relationships to benefit from. Our addictions might have caused so much damage to our relationships that we are now totally estranged from them. We might have lost our loved ones, and this time of year serves as a painful reminder of our grief.

The sadness and loneliness we feel are some of the emotions we grew accustomed to avoiding through our addictions. The holiday season can make us want to return to our old behaviors to escape the pain we’re feeling. We might find ourselves feeling anxious and afraid that we’ll relapse. We can find ourselves tempted by the holiday parties and celebrations that are often centered around alcohol. We might be spending time with people who themselves are not sober and who might not realize the difficulties we’re having. The heightened emotions and temptation surrounding the holidays can be overwhelming, and we might find ourselves increasingly worried about relapsing.

There are some ways we can handle the challenges of the holiday season. One of the most important things we can do for ourselves is to prepare and plan ahead. We can plan which parties we attend and choose events hosted by other sober people in recovery. We can plan ahead to attend extra meetings whenever we’re feeling particularly challenged. We can make a plan with our sponsor to communicate more than usual. We can ask our loved ones to support our efforts and make parties more inclusive of people who don’t drink. The holiday season can be overwhelming, but with preparation, we can allow ourselves to partake in its fun and celebration rather than becoming depressed and risking relapse.

At Enlightened Solutions, we believe that every addict can recover. We want to help you remember that life can be full of happiness and enjoyable experiences. Call (833) 801-LIVE today.

Prioritizing Our Peace of Mind

Written by enlightened solutions on December 3, 2018. Posted in 12 Step Program, Healthy Living. Leave a Comment

When we are struggling with addiction, depression, anxiety and other mental health issues, we often tend not to prioritize our own well-being and peace of mind. We place more importance on everything else in our lives – our families and relationships, our obligations and responsibilities, and the lifestyles that allow us to maintain our addictions. Getting high becomes our primary focus, along with avoiding the difficult emotions we’re afraid to face. When we make the life changing decision to work towards recovery, we learn that we have no choice other than to prioritize our peace of mind.

When we realize how important our internal peace is to the rest of our lives and to our overall health, we learn that there are some things we must shed. We go through an elimination process where we remove the things and people that no longer serve us. We separate ourselves from toxic relationships. We work to discontinue the destructive habits that facilitated our addictive behaviors. We begin to create lifestyles focused on health and wellness rather than on self-harm.

This process can bring up some challenging emotions we might not have been prepared for. We might feel grief to lose people in our lives with whom we were close but who contributed to inner turmoil. We might feel resistance when we have to drop the habits we’ve become so accustomed to. We may want to cling to our former lives and all the ways in which we self-identified. We might feel frustrated with the complicated recovery process and overwhelmed with how much more is involved than simply abstaining from our drug or behavior of choice. We might feel afraid to venture forward, uncertain of what’s to come. We can be filled with anxiety and trepidation.

All of these feelings are normal and natural. When we’re ready to prioritize our peace of mind, we realize that we must be brave and move through the fear and other challenging emotions that arise. When we work through this process, we come to know that a healthier and more empowered version of ourselves is waiting on the other side. We come into this new sense of self with renewed joy and purpose. We feel more fulfilled within ourselves. We feel as though we’ve come home to ourselves. Prioritizing our peace of mind enables us to open all of these important doors for ourselves and venture confidently into a life of recovery and wellness.

If you are like many of us and feel trapped and controlled by your addiction, know that you are not alone and that there is hope. Enlightened Solutions is here to help you find your way. Call (833) 801-LIVE today to get the care and support you deserve.

A Disconnected Crown Chakra

Written by enlightened solutions on November 30, 2018. Posted in Addiction Recovery, Alternative Therapy. Leave a Comment

Our seventh chakra is the crown chakra, and it represents our connection to our higher power, to collective consciousness, to cosmic awareness. When we experience blockages in our energy, and in particular in the energy of this chakra, we can experience profound emotional crises which often contribute to our addictions and mental health issues.

Being disconnected from our higher power means we are also disconnected from our inner self. Our ability to access our innate wisdom and love, and our ability to forgive and to have compassion and empathy, can all be hindered. Essentially we are cut off from our source – our higher power, the universe, source energy – and like a body of water cut off from its source, we can become empty and lifeless. We can lose our vitality, our sense of hopefulness and purpose. We can struggle to know our place and to find our direction. We don’t feel confident in ourselves, and deep down we don’t love ourselves. We don’t have a clear sense of what purpose we’re here to serve or what path to follow in order to fulfill it.

Without a connection to our higher power, we can lose our faith – our faith in ourselves, our faith in our abilities, our faith in our capacity for healing and for overcoming challenges, our faith in humanity. We can experience serious depression and other existential crises as a result. We can turn to things outside of ourselves to fill that hole, the void within us that can only be filled by the light of inner power and self-love – things such as substances, unhealthy relationships and compulsive behaviors. When we look at the health of our emotions and our energy, we can see that our addictions very often come directly from a place of unhealed emotions and toxic energy.

An unhealthy crown chakra can make us withdraw from other people and avoid having close relationships. We might isolate ourselves and close ourselves off from intimacy and closeness. We may feel apathetic about people’s pain and lack the ability to connect with them, to feel their pain with them, and to care deeply. When we are cut off from our true selves, we tend not to treat other people with authenticity. In a sense we don’t know who we are. We’ve lost our true selves. It’s impossible to be genuine with other people when we can’t connect with ourselves in an honest way. We tend to lie to ourselves and to others, to totally disconnect, and to remove ourselves from people, and it can take years to understand why.

Healing our energy is an important part of recovery. Call (833) 801-LIVE for information on our treatment programs.

A Clouded Third Eye Chakra

Written by enlightened solutions on November 29, 2018. Posted in Addiction Recovery, Alternative Therapy. Leave a Comment

Our third eye chakra, also known as our pineal gland, represents the vision that goes beyond what our two seeing eyes can see – our inner vision, intuition and clear perception, as well as the ability to manifest from visualization.

When our third eye is blocked, we can have tremendous difficulty connecting to our inner selves. We can feel totally lost, uncentered and ungrounded. We can feel as though our minds, bodies and hearts are all in different places, battling different things, without a sense of connectedness between them. We can feel like we’re detached from our inner strength and power.

Our intuition is a powerful guiding force in our lives, but an unhealthy third eye can mean we have a hard time listening to it or hearing it. We may be ignoring it and prioritizing the other aspects of our lives, such as our relationships and addictions, or we may be so inundated with all of those other things that we have a hard time knowing how to decipher its messages. We may have difficulty knowing whether the voice we are hearing is our true inner voice or the voice of our fears and doubts. When we don’t follow our intuition, we become disconnected from ourselves and struggle to know our place in the world and our purpose. We don’t have a solid sense of direction and it can be a real challenge moving forward in life, looking ahead, setting goals and gaining momentum. We can greatly hold ourselves back.

A blocked third eye can show up in how we perceive things in our circumstances and relationships. We can have a very hard time seeing the big picture, gleaning the lessons and wisdom within them, and being able to process information for our own personal growth. We get caught up in the challenging details of situations which means we can miss the lessons we were meant to gain from them. As such we become distracted and confused by, sometimes even obsessed with, the things that are of less importance, the illusions, rather than being able to see through all of that and into the heart of the matter. The third eye is often associated with obsession, another form of illusion which totally takes us away from the truth. A healthy third eye enables us to go deeper into the truth with clarity and perceptiveness.

Our recovery benefits greatly from healing ourselves holistically. Call (833) 801-LIVE for more information on the treatment programs we provide.

A Blocked Throat Chakra

Written by enlightened solutions on November 28, 2018. Posted in Addiction Recovery, Alternative Therapy. Leave a Comment

Our throat chakra governs communication, and self-expression, two critically important elements of interpersonal relationships as well as our relationship with self. When our throat chakra is blocked, it can have tremendous effects on how we function in our lives.

A blocked throat chakra can be identified when we have difficulty communicating and expressing ourselves. We might have a hard time speaking to other people. We might shut down and turn to silence and avoidance during conflicts. We might have extreme anxiety about being in social situations where we have to talk. Even speaking with the people closest to us can be a huge challenge. We might have learned silence as a coping mechanism in childhood. We might have adopted this as a way to avoid problems within our families or to escape punishment. We may have had caregivers who had difficulty communicating, and we inherited this trait from them. We may have grown to develop this coping mechanism after difficult relationships or traumatic experiences.

Communication is so important for the health of our relationships. Without it, we can develop unhealthy patterns and cycles in our relationships that can contribute to their toxicity and abusiveness. We can have difficulty connecting with our partners, friends and loved ones. We might keep our distance, thinking it will keep us safe. We might isolate ourselves and have a hard time being around other people. We might not be able to handle dealing with conflict.

Self-expression is so important for the development of our inner voice and for learning to empower ourselves. When we feel silenced, whether by other people or out of our own fear, we essentially block ourselves from harnessing and conveying our inner power. We can become emotionally stunted and derail our healing process. We can hinder the progress of our growth and development.

Being able to speak our minds, voice our opinions and express our needs is of the utmost importance to our relationships, and also to our self-confidence and feelings of self-worth. It is very hard to have healthy relationships when we can’t express ourselves fully. Just as important, it’s extremely difficult to have a healthy relationship with ourselves when our self-expression is stifled. We may be living in fear of what will happen if we express ourselves, of being judged or rejected, of being hurt or abused if we are true to who we are. We may be closing off entire parts of ourselves because we are afraid to face them, because we ourselves reject them. We become disconnected from our true selves. We don’t tap into our full potential or allow ourselves or the world to see what we’re truly capable of. We keep ourselves small. We’ve learned coping mechanisms of silence that we think will protect us but which can actually harm us.

Healing ourselves from within is transformational. Call (833) 801-LIVE for more information on our holistic healing methods.

An Unhealed Heart Chakra

Written by enlightened solutions on November 27, 2018. Posted in Addiction Recovery, Alternative Therapy. Leave a Comment

A healthy heart chakra is fundamentally important to our emotional wellbeing. Our hearts are a source of infinite wisdom and power, and when their energy is out of balance, it can wreak havoc on our lives.

Love is perhaps the most important force in our existence as human beings. An imbalanced heart chakra can cause us to have an unhealthy relationship with love – love for other people, for humanity and for ourselves. A lack of self-love is a driving force behind our depression, anxiety and other mental health issues, as well as our addictions and other self-destructive behaviors. Not loving ourselves leads to deep insecurities, feelings of low self-worth and self-esteem, and our tendencies to want to hurt ourselves and self-destruct.

When we don’t love ourselves, we don’t have the instincts for self-preservation and self-protection that enable us to move through life in healthy, confident ways. We struggle with feeling good enough. We have a hard time feeling as though we belong. We may feel out of place everywhere because within ourselves we haven’t found the nurturing emotional sanctuary we need. We may reject ourselves, in whole or in part, and we might be unnecessarily disparaging and overly critical of ourselves. We might live in so much fear that we’ve lost our connection to self and to our sense of self-love. When we don’t love ourselves, it’s practically impossible to have healthy relationships with other people and to feel love.

An unhealthy heart chakra can lead us to very toxic ways of handling our emotions. When we can’t connect with ourselves and others in loving ways, we have a hard time expressing how we feel. We suppress our emotions. We reject them. We bury them. We develop unhealthy and even abusive relationships. We have a hard time communicating our emotions, and we might struggle to feel emotionally connected to anything – our inner selves, our families and other loved ones, our purpose and direction in life. As a result, we can become increasingly lonely. We might isolate ourselves from other people out of fear of connection and rejection. Deep loneliness can cause us to lose hope. We feel can hopeless about what we’re meant to do in life, about our ability to have love in our lives, about life in general. We might feel as though our futures are bleak and the world is a cold and heartless place.

Healing from addictions means healing our hearts as well. Call (833) 801-LIVE for information on our treatment programs.

A Misaligned Solar Chakra

Written by enlightened solutions on November 26, 2018. Posted in Addiction Recovery, Alternative Therapy. Leave a Comment

Our solar chakra, or third energy center, has to do with our will, our inner power and our confidence. Think of the sun shining brightly and all the incredible power it has. That’s exactly what a healthy solar chakra is like.

When our solar chakra is out of balance, we can find ourselves struggling with low self-esteem and feelings of low self-worth. We might speak poorly of ourselves and look down on ourselves. We might be overly critical of our mistakes, our perceived failures, even our lives as a whole. We may have a poor self-image and struggle with insecurities in the form of body image issues, eating disorders, inadequacy complexes and other emotional difficulties. We might suffer from depression, anxiety and other mental health issues.

When we don’t have a healthy relationship with ourselves and our solar chakra is imbalanced, we can struggle with our sense of identity. We may feel confused about who we are and our place in the world. We might have a hard time expressing our authority when around other people, and as a result people may take advantage of what is perceived as weakness. You may even feel weak and convey that to other people.

Without a healthy solar chakra, we often don’t have a strong sense of autonomy or independence, and we might find ourselves feeling the need to rely on other people. We might form codependent relationships where our sense of self is compromised. We may feel powerless in different areas of our lives, and we may feel like we’ve given away all our power in relationships. We might feel that we haven’t found our voice personally and professionally, both in personal relationships and in our work. This can leave us feeling profoundly unhappy and unsatisfied. We might isolate ourselves. We might struggle to set goals for ourselves. We may have a really hard time speaking up for ourselves, expressing our needs and voicing our opinions.

A healthy sense of inner power is so important for navigating the emotional challenges of life. When our solar chakra is misaligned, we can have a hard time facing our emotions. We may be afraid to confront them. We might suppress them and avoid having to deal with them. This inability to handle our emotions in healthy ways is one of most common factors in addictions. When we don’t have a strong sense of self and don’t process our emotions productively, we very often funnel them into our addictions, finding solace in substances, relationships and compulsive behaviors.

Working to heal ourselves holistically is an important part of recovery. Call (833) 801-LIVE for more information on how we can help.

An Unhealthy Sacral Chakra

Written by enlightened solutions on November 23, 2018. Posted in Addiction Recovery, Alternative Therapy. Leave a Comment

Our sacral chakra is our second energy center and governs our emotions, sexuality, creativity and manifestation. These things are all related, and when we carry extreme shame or other negative emotion pertaining to one, it can greatly affect the others. For example, when we carry shame around our sexuality, we have a harder time exploring and expressing our creativity, and our power to manifest what we want in our lives is hindered. Unhealthiness in any of these areas can cause us to have an imbalanced sacral chakra.

When our sacral chakra is out of balance, we have a hard time expressing, managing and processing our emotions. We might feel overwhelmed and confused about our emotions, or we may feel numb and have difficulty feeling them at all. We might not have the skills we need to identify our emotions and to navigate them. As a result, we can become further removed from our sense of self and find it hard to connect with our intuition.

Sometimes our sacral chakra is imbalanced because we’re carrying sexual shame from a traumatic experience. Sometimes we feel ashamed because of the cultural taboos around sexuality that make us feel wrong or sinful for enjoying sex. Our sexual energy can become repressed, and we might not know how to express our sexuality in healthy ways. We might become compulsive sexually, or on the other hand we might shut down and not open ourselves up to allow ourselves to have intimate partnerships.

A misaligned sacral chakra can hinder our ability to express our creativity. Many of us have creative talents and passions that get lost or buried under the busyness of our daily lives and responsibilities. We forget the artistic things we loved to do when we were younger. We can feel disconnected from the beautiful parts of ourselves. We might become depressed from the lack of creative outlets so many of us need in order to be happy.

When we have an imbalanced sacral chakra, we can struggle to manifest because we don’t have a clear sense of who we are, how we feel, what we want in life, or the direction in which we’re headed. As a result, we are often manifesting from a place of confusion and misguidedness, causing all kinds of things we don’t want to show up in our lives. We don’t have clarity around our emotions, our purpose or our direction, so it can be very difficult to direct our energy towards manifesting in positive ways.

Holistic healing is a major focus here at Enlightened Solutions. Call (833) 801-LIVE for more information on our treatment programs.

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