Self Esteem Archives - Enlightened Solutions

Long Term Mindsets to Adopt for Positive Thinking

Written by enlightened solutions on January 16, 2020. Posted in Mental Health, Recovery. Leave a Comment

What you think influences who you are. It can be challenging to tackle huge parts of yourself when you have all the tools; when your toolbox is empty; however, it can seem impossible. If you are struggling with negative thoughts, you probably also are dealing with low self-esteem, which isn’t something you want in your life when you are working on your recovery. People with depression, anxiety, or addictions often have negative self-talk patterns. A crucial step in recovery is shifting how you talk to yourself. Changing your thoughts and improving your self-esteem make all the difference in the world when you are trying to recover. So, what can you do to change your thoughts and improve your self-esteem?

Focus on What You Want in Your Life

When you think of what you want in your life, focus on what you already have. The healthy existing relationships and habits you have in your life are essential and should be nurtured since they improve your experience.

Avoid All-Or-Nothing Thinking

This cognitive distortion is not the place where you want to be. Recovery is never black or white, all-or-nothing. Try to find the gray areas — the areas in between — and focus on those. Remove terms like never, always, nothing, or every from your vocabulary.

Ask Yourself, “Would I talk to an 8-year-old self in this way?”

If the answer is no, you shouldn’t be talking to your present self in that way either. Think of your friends or family members that love you. How would they talk to you in the situation? Talk to yourself in that way.

You Don’t Have to Always Be Happy, but You Can Always Be Grateful

Small things can make a world of difference. Don’t wait until the very end of something to appreciate it. Focus on the little things that you’ve achieved and give yourself the credit you deserve. You’ve come so far.

Pause and Breathe

When you are feeling overwhelmed, try to take a moment and pause. Think of everything that you’re thankful for in the moment. Another way to practice gratitude is to keep a journal. Write down as many things you can think of that you’re grateful for before bedtime. Jotting down little notes of why is also something you can do.

Improve the Moment

Do something today for which your future self will thank you. Improve your moment now and in the future. If you’re having negative thoughts, try to do something that interrupts those thoughts.

Short-Term Things to Do Daily:

Drink Enough Water

Keeping yourself hydrated is an important thing. Everyone would benefit from drinking more water. If you tend to drink a lot of coffee, try to have a glass of water in between each cup of coffee. Keeping yourself hydrated is an essential building block to living a healthy life in recovery.

Exercise Your Mind and Body

Keeping your mind sharp and your body limber is another necessary tool you need in recovery. Exercise releases feel-good endorphins in your brain. Exercising should be a tool that you use every day in your recovery. You can also do brain-teasers to keep your mind sharp. That’s important, too.

Get Back Up

Everyone has struggles, makes mistakes, and fails at things in their life. If you’ve failed at something, get up and try again. No one is perfect. You cannot expect perfection. That’s an unhealthy and unrealistic expectation.

Give Yourself Little Rewards

To motivate yourself and keep you going throughout the day, make sure to give yourself short breaks and rewards. Take a break from work for fifteen minutes or reward yourself with your favorite snack. Small rewards keep you pushing toward your goal.

Use Positive Affirmations

Positive affirmations are sayings that you repeat to yourself, such as “I am doing my best” or “I believe in myself.” These mantras can help remove some of the negative self-talk you may have during your recovery. Talk to yourself compassionately. You deserve that.

Avoid Triggers

Avoiding your triggers can be a difficult thing to do daily. Some days will be relatively easy, while others will be much more difficult. To avoid triggers, you might have to avoid certain people, places, or things that will trigger your substance use or memories. You must find something else to replace the triggers with. Try to get enough sleep and keep busy by doing a puzzle, listening to music, or exercising.

For more information about how Enlightened Solutions can help you or a loved one learn new skills for a happy, joyous, and free life, call us today at 833-801-LIVE.

Three Key Ways Social Media Can Lower Self-Esteem, Cause Depression

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

Social media use is not always healthy. During the early months of recovery and addiction treatment, it is best to leave social media to itself while you focus on healing.

Comparing Your Insides To Others Outsides

It’s always newsworthy and deemed revolutionary when someone posts something real to social media. Something about the bad day they are having, the amount of hours it takes to create the perfect shot, the “reality” of their lives behind their carefully curated social media profiles. What we often see on our newsfeeds are just small chosen moments to depict the best of the best rather than the realest of the real. Spiritually, we are reminded to consider what is behind every person’s smile. It isn’t always happiness. We aren’t aware of what happens beyond a photo, in real life. When we start to make assumptions and judgments, we set ourselves up into a trap of false beliefs- not just about someone else’s life, but about our own. Comparing what we see in other people’s “outside” to what we see within ourselves and how we feel about our own lives can lower our sense of self-esteem and cause feelings of depression.

Scrolling And Posting For Dopamine

Dopamine is that tricky neurotransmitter which communicates pleasure to key areas of the brain like the reward center. Numerous brain imaging studies have found that various components of interacting with social media cause a spike in the production of dopamine. For example, scrolling through the news feed of any social media platform can cause dopamine production which mimics stimulation from cocaine. Getting a “like” or a “comment” on something we post gives us another big boost of dopamine, as well as a boost of ego. There is more to the psychology of social media than meets the eye. Some studies have even suggested that the impulsive need to check social media devices is causing dopamine production as well. Before you even start to scroll, your brain is happier. Thus, once you put it down and have to go another set of hours without social media, your brain lacks in dopamine production, which can simulate feelings of depression.

Other Negative Influences

Social media is a breeding ground for lies, judgments, bullying, and false realities. Fake news, political arguments, and offensive comments can be common. Social media is a public landscape meaning very little is private. Instead of having healthy, regulated conversations in real life with people, everyone has the opportunity to hide behind their keyboards. Losing out on human interaction, people can begin to feel isolated and alone.

Recovery is an opportunity to redefine every area of your life from mental health to substance abuse. Enlightened solutions wants to show you how. Our unique program blends proven areas of treatment together to create a meaningful, holistic partial care program. Recovery starts with you. Start your recovery with us. Call 833-801-5483 for more information.

Things Contributing To Negative Self-Thinking

Written by enlightened solutions on December 21, 2016. Posted in Mental Health. Leave a Comment

Negative self-thinking is exactly as it sounds: the negative thoughts one thinks about themselves. Do you have negative self-thinking? Most people have at least one thing they hold high above their own heads, something that just isn’t…right. Whether a physical imperfection, emotional imperfection, or a work-oriented imperfection- one might think more highly of themselves, if only that one thing would change.

“Ego says: once everything falls into place, I will find peace. Spirit says: find peace and everything will fall into place.” The drive for some kind of perfection is a matter of acceptance. We often feel that we cannot be accepted and loved by others unless we achieve this expectation of perfection. It is true that there are thousands of messages being sold by the media each day to convince us of just how imperfect and unloveable we are. To absorb and consume those messages and make them into our own thoughts is a matter of ego. Our ego believes in perfection because our ego likes to think it might be achievable. Spirit, on the other hand, the spiritual soul by which we learn to live in recovery, does not need perfection. Spirit lives in acceptance, transcending the ideas of perfect or imperfect. While the ego is in constant struggle, the spirit is content with simply being.

Negative thinking is the result of beliefs and habits that form over time due to certain blockages we set up. The more we feed the ego, the more we block the spirit. One way we do that is by punishing who we are. The freckles on our face, the way we snort when we laugh, or our difficulty in certain school subjects makes us unique. Assuming and deciding that there is something defective with us is damaging to the spirit which sees everything with an unconditional love. Another way we block the spirit with ego is by refusing to forgive ourselves. Forgiveness means, by one definition, giving up all hope of a better past. Through addiction, alcoholism, eating disorders, and other harmful habits or ways of thinking, we punish ourselves for our faults. Somehow we think hurting ourselves in this way in the present will help change the way we’ve been our whole lives- the way we were meant to be. Forgiving means taking a weight off our own shoulders, being able to breathe, love, and accept who we are. Until we can forgive ourselves, we continue to have negative self thinking because, if for no other reason, we do not think we are worth being forgiven or worth living without punishment.

Recovery is a beautiful process of healing for mind, body, ego, and spirit. Enlightened Solutions uses the philosophy behind holistic and spiritual practice in conjunction with 12 step philosophy and evidence based practices to create a wholesome approach to treatment. Serving dual diagnosis needs of substance use disorders and mental health disorders, we welcome anyone to contact us for help.

Size Isn’t Everything

Written by enlightened solutions on December 7, 2016. Posted in Healthy Living. Leave a Comment

Imagine if the whole world ran on the principle of size the way that the fashion industry forces us to do. The entirety of the world’s systems would be changed. Classrooms wouldn’t run by age but perhaps by weight and height. Job promotions would be given out not based on performance but on shoe size or length of hair. Medical treatment in an emergency room might be based on shirt size rather than urgency. It might seem silly to think about. For the millions of men and women suffering from negative body image, size matters. In fact, size is everything.

Get Over the Size Thing

An obsession with size is literally waking up and making the decision on how worthy or unworthy one is based on what clothing size they will be able to fit into that day. If there was a daily regulatory process where everyone was weighed and measured, then told how they should a) feel about themselves b) feel about others and c) be treated by the rest of the world, there would be an outcry. Due to years of pressure from the fashion industry, unfortunately, many people feel that they deserve this kind of treatment. Sadly, they are unable to recognize that the only one stamping them with their daily evaluation is themselves.

According to a recent survey by Yahoo, 71% of women surveyed (about 1,000) didn’t even know what size clothing they should be wearing. However, when women don’t fit into the size they think they should, they experience shame, guilt, and disappointment. The size on their clothes, when it doesn’t fit the ideal standard, brings on feelings of shame about oneself and one’s body.

Ignore the Shaming

It really seems quite preposterous. Yet, mainstream society has created a valuation of women based on beauty, which is in part founded by size. Where did this madness start? Multiple documentaries like America The Beautiful have investigated. What lies beneath a global obsession for thinness is the penny pinching efforts of fashion labels. In an effort to save money on expensive fabrics being used for fashion shows, designers turned to models with smaller sizes in order to make smaller close, hence less fabric. That’s it. As a result, there’s a global insecurity with size, shape, and body image.

Enlightened Solutions is a certified dual diagnosis treatment facility offering care and recovery to those suffering from substance use disorders and mental health disorders such as an eating disorder. Body image, eating disorder, and substance abuse often come hand in hand. We’re here to help you find a healthy view on yourself, love yourself, and accept yourself again. For more information, call 833-801-5483 today.

Losing Yourself in Someone Else: Codependency

Written by enlightened solutions on August 15, 2016. Posted in Healthy Living, Recovery. Leave a Comment

Codependency can be a development that takes place through hidden increments. At the foundation of codependent tendencies is a set of basic human fears:

I am not worthy

I am not whole

I am not loveable

Should our significant other discover these unconscionable truths, they may leave us. Forgetful that these fears are the fallacy of the human conditions, we adopt them as personalized convictions. Our relationships transform from mutual to one-sided, shifting from healthy to unbalanced.

Codependency is Losing Yourself in Someone Else

Healthy relationships have an open communication channel for limiting what each individual is capable and not capable of doing. Saying “no” is setting a loving boundary with just two letters. Relationships are unbalanced when saying “no” becomes a point of anxiety because saying “yes” has become obligation for one or both partners. Love and service are beautiful parts of any partnership. They are not the same as indentured enslavement. Codependency is when we lose our ability to say “no” out of fear. We might notice that when our partner needs help, we run to their aid. When we are unable to attend to them, we suffer from guilt and anxiety. Unless we are validated by our partner’s need for us in their lives, we feel lost. Our sense of being is defined by how we are needed.

Detached from our inherent strength to set boundaries is the beginning of a decline in our authentic voice. Codependency in a relationship creates fear that our opinions, thoughts, and feelings might scare the other person away. As a result, we cease expressing ourselves as we are. Instead, we speak as we think our partner would prefer us to be heard. We might mimic them entirely. We feel that our being is not as good as theirs, that we are less than them. Ultimately, we are in fear of abandonment and rejection. Allowing fear to dictate how we act as a whole being extinguishes our ability to come from love.

We not only lose sight of our personal power and our voice, we disconnect from our needs entirely. Prioritizing the identity and responsibility of our partner, we forget to focus on our own needs. Friends, family, 12-Step meetings, hobbies, and interests fall to the wayside as our world closes in around our partner.

Enlightened Solutions humbly offers a holistic design for the recovery process to heal the spirit, mind, and body. Our program is rooted in twelve step philosophy as a solution to the problem of drug and alcohol addiction. Call us today for more information on our programs of treatment for men and women seeking recovery 833-801-5483.

Peace, Balance, Body Positivity

Written by enlightened solutions on August 10, 2016. Posted in Healthy Living. Leave a Comment

Recovery from drugs addiction and alcoholism is often accompanied by secondary issues like body image. Both men and women suffer from poor senses of self-esteem and self-worth stemming from how they relate to and honor their physical selves. Learning to live without drugs and alcohol requires new ways of thinking, being, and doing. Food, physical activity, and self regard are parts of that formula. So many turn to drug and alcohol as a way of feeling better, or worse, about themselves.

Learn from Your Body

Every day we are burdened with other people’s opinions of how we should look, what we should eat, and how ‘healthy’ is defined. Attempting to abide by these vast generalizations is more harmful than helpful. We live in a world where customization is luxury. Why settle for what everyone else says you need? Learn what your body needs, wants, and likes the most. Explore the foods that are good for your particular body type, blood type, or suit your hormonal needs. Accept the limitations of your physical capacities and work within them. You can spend your life working against your body to satisfy someone else or work with your body to satisfy: you.

Work with Your Body

Running is a great exercise. It burns a ton of calories, is the perfect cardio, and builds endurance. Running is not for everyone. Hard, consistent, repeated impact can damage a person’s ankles, knees, and back. Focusing on physical activity that is damaging instead of fun does not help body image or body positivity. Instead, it exhausts any attempts to be in balance. Pushing your body to its most extremes results in extreme compensation on your body’s behalf. You might find you simply can’t do the things other people can do, which causes you to struggle with maintaining inner peace. Staying in such a state of internal and external conflict is hardly peaceful. This body is the home for your soul. It is unique in it’s needs just like you are.

Recovery through treatment is the time to return to love and heal the wounds of addiction. Enlightened Solutions offers an answer to the unending question of “how did I get here?” There is hope and way out of the struggle which is addiction. Our program offers holistic healing supplemented by 12 step philosophy, treating mind, body, and spirit. Begin your new life here.

Tag: Self Esteem