Treatment Archives - Page 8 of 31 - Enlightened Solutions

Growing in Self-Love

Written by enlightened solutions on October 10, 2018. Posted in 12 Step Program, Addiction. Leave a Comment

Those of us struggling with addictions and mental health issues often have in common a belief that we are inadequate, shameful and unworthy. Oftentimes we are filled with self-hatred that compounds, perpetuates and exacerbates our difficulties. We hear about self-love and maybe we know we ought to love ourselves, but how do we go about finding self-love?

We are not just our addictions, our drugs of choice, our behaviors and thoughts. We are not just our mistakes and wrongdoings. Underneath all of that, and including all that, we are beautiful manifestations of our higher power in human form. Before and after we became addicts and/or mentally ill, we were unique, special, strong and powerful. We have unique gifts and talents to share with the world, whether or not we are conscious yet of what they are. One way to grow in self-love is to focus our energy on finding that beautiful soul within us. Our souls are the essence of who we are. Our fears and pain don’t destroy our souls, in fact they can be a source of strength and empowerment if we allow them to be.

How can we strengthen and empower ourselves? With self-love. Every day, as often as possible, tell yourself things like “I love you. I believe in you. You are strong. You are resilient. You are healing.” Look in the mirror and repeat these words. This can be hard to do. When we hate ourselves, sometimes we can’t stand to even look at our own reflection. Give these exercises as much of your energy as you can. Try to infuse your energy with hope, faith and optimism. Start to work to shed the limiting beliefs you have about yourself. Use positive, self-loving affirmations to reprogram your subconscious mind.

See your addictions and mental health issues as one part of yourself, not the entirety of your identity. Love yourself for all of it, the good, the bad, and everything in between. Love yourself for not giving up. Love yourself for still trying. Love yourself for seeking help. Love yourself for getting out of bed today. Love and forgive yourself for your shortcomings, mistakes and wrongs. All of it makes up the wholeness of who you are, and you deserve love because of it, not despite it. You survived to tell the stories, and every day is a chance to learn, do better and move forward.

See yourself the way your higher power sees you, a flawed human being who is perfectly imperfect but perfect nonetheless. Finding ways to love ourselves unconditionally, and to love all the parts of ourselves, is crucial to our healing and recovery.

We’re here to help you along your healing journey. Call Enlightened Solutions at (833) 801-LIVE.

Depression is a Form of Trauma

Written by enlightened solutions on October 9, 2018. Posted in Mental Health, Recovery. Leave a Comment

Sometimes we think of our trauma as specific incidents from our past such as painful childhood experiences, injuries we’ve sustained, or abusive relationships we’ve survived. We might not think of our depressions as a form of trauma, but they definitely are. Many of us experience recurring depressions, cyclical depression and bipolar depression. Every occurrence of depression, even one isolated episode, can be extremely traumatic and destabilizing.

Depression is often accompanied by intense anxiety and panic. Our fears can cause us considerable pain and distress and are traumatic in and of themselves. When we are consumed with fear, we often adopt a fear-based perspective about everything- our thoughts, who we are as people, the world around us, our future. We can find ourselves afraid to leave our homes, venture out into the world, and be around other people. We isolate ourselves out of fear. We don’t necessarily question our fears and whether or not they are rational because they can be all-consuming, and we come to believe them to be true. This accumulation of fear can be traumatizing. The isolation we feel, the lack of support we so desperately need, and our disconnection from other people can all be traumatizing.

Because we attract things into our lives with the energy we carry, when we are depressed, we are manifesting with an energy of sadness and fear. We therefore find ourselves attracting more thoughts, feelings, relationships and experiences that reflect this painful energy. We often respond to these new manifestations with the same sadness and fear- we panic, we feel like we’re being hit from all sides, like we’re being kicked when we’re down. We feel like we’ll never be able to dig ourselves out of the hole. This build-up of more and more difficult challenges can be traumatizing.

We often come to believe that our addictions and mental health issues are proof that we are inadequate, weak, pathetic, and destined to suffer. We create all kinds of limiting beliefs about ourselves, and our painful thought patterns reflecting these beliefs can be so relentless we feel like we can’t escape the pain of our own minds. Our psyches are in distress. We might panic at the thought of having to live within these minds for the rest of our lives. All of this can be traumatic.

As we embark on our healing journeys, we can choose to feel compassion and understanding for ourselves and for the suffering we’ve experienced, rather than belittling or dismissing just how traumatic our depressions can be.

We offer therapy, mentoring, recovery planning and more at Enlightened Solutions. Call (833) 801-LIVE.

Finding the Courage to be Honest with Ourselves

Written by enlightened solutions on October 8, 2018. Posted in 12 Step Program, Addiction. Leave a Comment

When it comes to our addictions and mental health issues, many of the problems we experience are due to the fact that we are afraid to face the truth. We are in denial about how severe our problems are. We may not have come to terms yet with the challenges we are facing. Recovery from our deep-rooted issues means finding the courage to be honest with ourselves.

When we are struggling internally, we sometimes tend to focus outwardly because our pain can be too much to bear. We blame our issues on other people in our lives, our traumatic childhoods, or past experiences. We distract ourselves from our inner turmoil with our drugs of choice, addictive behaviors and thought patterns, and relationships. We transfer our hurt onto other situations and people in our lives. Healing requires that we be able to look inward and focus on healing our inner world. This can be terrifying. We’re up against fears and traumas that have been causing us pain for much of our lives. How do we muster the courage?

We can start by changing the limiting belief we have that our pain is unbearable. It might feel unbearable, but we are strong enough to get through it. We have to believe in our strength to overcome our challenges and in our power to heal. We are capable of transcending anything and everything that limits us. Oftentimes what holds us back most are our own thoughts and beliefs about ourselves. Let’s start affirming that we are stronger than our pain. To create new beliefs for ourselves that are self-affirming and self-empowering, we can repeat affirmations such as “I am strong. I am brave. I have the power to heal myself.”

We can also begin to question the beliefs we’ve carried about ourselves that we are weak and unable to cope. Just because we’ve struggled with addictions and mental health issues does not mean we are not strong. It means we have been given unique, difficult challenges that are ours to overcome when we find our strength. The default thought patterns of our thinking minds are often so negative, self-critical and self-hating that we have come to believe what they tell us. We can choose to focus our attention on the messages from our hearts and spirits instead. Our higher power, and its power manifested within us, knows we possess the strength and courage to heal ourselves.

Give yourself the gift of support during your recovery. Let Enlightened Solutions be part of your support team. Call (833) 801-LIVE.

Mindfulness for Healing

Written by enlightened solutions on October 5, 2018. Posted in Alternative Therapy, Recovery. Leave a Comment

Most of our suffering happens without us being fully conscious of it. We often don’t know why we feel the way we feel. We aren’t aware of the ways in which we are contributing to our own challenges. We don’t have a clear understanding of what we’re going through and what caused it. Our subconscious minds direct most of our thoughts and behaviors, so much of our suffering is happening outside of what we are conscious of. How do we become more aware and grow in understanding?

Mindfulness teaches us to put our conscious attention on the issue or task at hand. It asks that we slow down, get quiet, be still, and allow ourselves the space and time to really be present. We often are focused elsewhere, caught up in another issue, or distracted by other things. When it comes to our mental and emotional health, we can learn how to bring mindful awareness to our thoughts and emotions, which can help us to move through them in healthier ways.

Breathing and Meditation

Focusing on our breathing is one form of meditation, and the more we practice, the more we can slow down our racing thoughts. When our minds are overly active, it is hard for us to have the clarity that helps us to process our thoughts and feelings. We might be easily overwhelmed, confused, distracted, or agitated. We might feel like we’re all over the place. We might be inundated with sad and anxious thoughts. Breathing and meditation help us to develop more control over our thoughts. We learn to direct our thoughts in ways that benefit us rather than contribute to our mental and emotional stress. As we slow down and process our emotions, we give ourselves the opportunity to really heal.

Self-Reflection

Self-reflection is the foundation for recovery. We often move through life without consciously reflecting on our issues, behaviors, cycles and patterns. We don’t often look at our mistakes to see what lessons we can glean from them. Sometimes we feel too depressed to reflect, sometimes we are afraid or in denial. When we are struggling with our addictions and mental health issues, sometimes we don’t do the work of analyzing for ourselves what may have caused these issues, how our inner world manifested them, and what we can stand to learn from it all.

Start by being open and honest with yourself. Ask yourself questions such as “what is really bothering me? Why am I depressed? What subconscious fears am I burying underneath my addictive behaviors?” Write in a journal. Talk to someone. Anything we can do to bring more mindful awareness to our issues can help us to heal them.

We believe in the power of holistic healing at Enlightened Solutions. Call (833) 801-LIVE for more information.

Learning How to Manage Our Moods

Written by enlightened solutions on October 4, 2018. Posted in Mental Health, Recovery. Leave a Comment

One of our biggest challenges when living with addictions and mental/emotional health issues is dealing with our changing moods. We often find ourselves feeling drastic changes in our moods, also known as mood swings, that can make handling our challenges all the more difficult.

When a mood swing hits and we experience a rise in anxiety or sadness, we often react with fear and panic. We worry that we’ll always be dealing with these issues, that we won’t be able to cope with them, that they will overwhelm or incapacitate us. We are reminded of past depressions, and it scares us.

To offset the panic, we might try to convince ourselves that everything is ok. We might be in denial about how difficult our mood swings can be. We might avoid thinking about it or dealing with it. We may have considered getting help but then put it off because we are afraid or in denial.

The more we can respond to our changing moods with self-compassion, the easier it is to move through them. Don’t judge yourself or beat yourself up for any of the emotions you’re experiencing. They are normal, and you are human. Rather than adding to your distress by being upset with yourself or panicking, comfort yourself and remind yourself you will get through this. Affirm you are strong. Have faith in yourself.

Be patient with yourself. Our mental health problems, emotional challenges and addictions didn’t develop overnight, and they will take time to unravel and process. We can learn how to move through our moods, but being frustrated and impatient with ourselves only makes it harder.

Allow yourself to feel whatever you’re feeling. Suppressing our difficult emotions is a form of resistance that ultimately exacerbates them. Usually we bury our emotions under our addictive behaviors, but true healing and recovery mean learning how to manage our moods without our usual coping mechanisms and distractions.

Ride the wave. Our emotions will naturally ebb and flow. As much as you can, try to surrender to them. This doesn’t mean allowing our emotions to take over our lives. It means accepting and embracing all of our emotions with grace, knowing that the difficult moments will pass.

Commend yourself for your resilience. You are living with some very real challenges, and you haven’t given up. You are strong. You are brave. We are living with fears, traumas and grief that we could have let derail our lives but haven’t. Be proud of yourself for working through your emotions and keep going.

We can all use help processing our stuff. Enlightened Solutions is here to help. Call (833) 801-LIVE.

Ways to Help Our Loved Ones Who Are Struggling

Written by enlightened solutions on October 3, 2018. Posted in 12 Step Program, Family Recovery. Leave a Comment

Seeing our loved ones suffering with addictions and mental health issues can be difficult and painful. One of the hardest parts is not knowing how to help them. Here are a few suggestions.

Listen

Sometimes what people need most is simply to feel heard. They don’t necessarily need advice, just a listening ear. It can be therapeutic to get things off our chest. Keeping things bottled up inside of us can contribute to our depression and anxiety. Providing the safe space for your loved ones to process their emotions is a real gift. Allowing our emotions to flow and expressing ourselves is important for our mental health.

Check on Them

Call, text, email, stop by. However you can get them to respond to you so you know they’re ok, do it. They might not be able to express their appreciation if they’re in a very depressed place, but know that you are helping them by checking on them. You might be helping them through a panic attack. You might be giving them much needed relief from their anxiety or diverting them from their suicidal thoughts. Just knowing someone cares means a lot to us when we are struggling.

Understand

Release judgment. We might not be able to understand why our friend can’t get out of bed, or go to work, or why they’ve given up on their passions- but we can try. We may not have experienced addiction in the ways our friend does, but we can try to put ourselves in their shoes and imagine what kind of sadness and fear they might be feeling. Have compassion and empathy. Be patient with their struggles.

Commit to Boundaries

Addiction and mental health issues can contribute to our having codependent and/or toxic relationships. Sometimes when a loved one is actively using or struggling emotionally, there can be extra conflict and turmoil. You may feel disrespected, controlled or manipulated. You might feel hurt or uncomfortable. Create boundaries for yourself and commit to them. Don’t allow yourself to sacrifice your own peace of mind.

Learn About Enabling

Think about whether anything you’re doing might be enabling your friend’s addictive or toxic behaviors. Are you making excuses for their behavior? Are you allowing yourself to be manipulated in any way? Are they taking advantage of your kindness and help, being dishonest, or using you? When we allow our loved ones to involve us in these patterns, we are enabling them, even when that is not our intention.

At Enlightened Solutions we offer intervention services and recovery planning. Call (833) 801-LIVE for more information.

Inner Demons

Written by enlightened solutions on October 2, 2018. Posted in 12 Step Program, Addiction. Leave a Comment

We often hear the expression “inner demons,” but what do we mean by that? Our inner demons are the thoughts and beliefs we have that we find most troubling, that are often recurring or obsessive, and that can cause us a lot of distress. They are our complexes, or thought addictions, that are essentially a manifestation of our subconscious fears.

Those of us with addictions and mental health challenges can find ourselves feeling tormented by our inner demons. Sometimes we feel haunted or tortured by them, and they can be relentless. They tell us lies and feed off of the illusions of the ego mind. They tell us that we are inadequate or inferior to other people, that we don’t deserve love, that we are destined to fail. We believe their lies, and as a result, they can do a number on our self-esteem and sense of self.

For some of us, our inner demons are not just thought addictions but also compulsions, and we suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Some of us may experience our inner demons as other difficult anxiety disorders, such as Social Anxiety, and we may have a very hard time interacting with other people. We may have an inadequacy or inferiority complex, where we are constantly consumed with fear that we’re not good enough or that others are superior to us. We may struggle with certain phobias.

Like many of our emotional issues, our inner demons come from the stored emotional memory of our subconscious minds. Years of repetition make these troubling thoughts our default thought patterns, and sometimes our inner demons drown out any other lines of thinking. We might find it especially difficult to think positively, or to focus elsewhere. Our inner demons can be all-consuming.

One way we can reprogram our subconscious minds to drown out the inner demons is to write and repeat affirmations that teach our minds a new truth. “My subconscious mind is on my side. It wants what is best for me. It is my friend and ally. I believe in myself. I love myself.” Over time, our minds absorb this new perspective of cooperating with us rather than attacking us. You might find that with practice, your inner voice becomes less critical of you and more supportive and encouraging instead. The goal is to feel liberated, and mentally and emotionally free, no longer haunted by your inner demons.

Part of recovery is learning to work with the complexities of our minds. Enlightened Solutions offers therapy, mentoring, recovery planning and more, with a focus on holistic healing. Call (833) 801-LIVE.

Our Subconscious Blocks to Healing and Recovery

Written by enlightened solutions on October 1, 2018. Posted in 12 Step Program, Addiction Recovery. Leave a Comment

Many of us who experience addiction and mental health issues have beliefs stored in our subconscious minds that are blocking us from healing. We have often been fueling and deepening these beliefs for many years. It takes a change in our consciousness to undo the subconscious programming holding us back from recovery and inner peace.

Here are some of the limiting beliefs we tend to perpetuate with the ways in which we think and speak about our challenges.

“Once an addict, always an addict.”

Many of us are in recovery and are living proof that it is possible to create a new life for yourself. This is not to say that recovery is easy, or that once in recovery you’ll never relapse, but when we believe recovery is impossible, we cut ourselves off from having the faith in ourselves we need in order to get better.

“I can do it alone. I don’t need help.”

Sometimes we are afraid to ask for support because we’re ashamed of ourselves. Sometimes we’re prideful and embarrassed and don’t want anyone to know how bad our issues have become. Sometimes we naïvely think we don’t need the support of other people. We come to learn that there is no shame in asking for help, and that getting support can mean the difference between drowning in our problems and saving ourselves.

“I don’t deserve to live. I want to die.”

Our addictions and depression are often accompanied by suicidal thoughts, Over time our thoughts form our beliefs, and many of us have come to believe that we are inadequate and unworthy of love, that our shame and regrets mean we don’t deserve to live. We don’t feel we deserve help. Sometimes we are in so much pain we see suicide as the only way to escape it.

It can help to remember that our thoughts are not the entirety of our consciousness. Our thinking minds are just one part of who we are. We also have our hearts, bodies, souls and spirits, all of which store valuable healing information for us if we are open to receiving it. When we believe in our inner power, we start to see through the illusions of our limiting beliefs. We start to transcend the human challenges we thought we would always struggle with.

Healing requires tackling the limiting beliefs we’ve allowed to hold us back. The community at Enlightened Solutions is here to help. Call (833) 801-LIVE.

Any Behavior Can Become an Addiction

Written by enlightened solutions on September 28, 2018. Posted in Addiction, Mental Health. Leave a Comment

Culturally we tend to associate addiction with dependencies on drugs and alcohol, and we often disregard and belittle other lesser known addictions as just people’s “issues.” Because there is still a lot of stigma surrounding addiction, people struggling with these other “issues” are sometimes afraid to consider their problems addictions for fear of being judged. This can cause them to avoid seeking the help they need. The stigmas we perpetuate cause more division in our societies and alienate people that need support.

Love/sex addicts are suspected of using addiction as an excuse for promiscuous behavior. Gaming and gambling addicts are stereotyped as being lazy and irresponsible. Food addicts are judged for being overweight and looked at with scorn, “why don’t they just stop eating so much?”

These judgments are missing an element of understanding about the deeper nature of addiction. Addiction consists of a person’s behavioral patterns that become addictive or compulsive in nature, that are used as coping mechanisms to deal with pain. These can include any behavior that a person might engage in, that then becomes compulsive for them. This can include behaviors that other people might consider harmless because they themselves are not addicted to them, but that can take over addicts’ lives and cause considerable suffering.

When we have become dependent upon these addictive behaviors, we feel powerless to stop, even when we have hurt ourselves and other people, even when we are experiencing severe breakdowns in our mental and physical health. Just like we can develop bio-chemical dependencies on drugs and alcohol, we can become dependent on the dopamine released during pleasurable activities. This becomes our escape from our pain- a way to forget, numb ourselves and self-medicate. As addicts familiar with the cycles of addiction, we know these things exacerbate rather than heal our pain.

As a culture, we could broaden our conceptualization of addiction to reflect an understanding that people can develop addictive relationships with just about any behavior. It doesn’t serve us to shun addicts, regardless of their drug of choice or addictive behavior.

Sometimes those who are quick to judge addicts and addiction also have their own behaviors, issues in their own lives, that are harmful or destructive. The more we can be inclusive as a culture, the more we can help people recover. We are stronger together when we can connect with understanding, compassion and empathy.

At Enlightened Solutions, we have years of firsthand experience with addiction and recovery. Call (833) 801-LIVE.

Sharing as Service

Written by enlightened solutions on September 27, 2018. Posted in 12 Step Program, Addiction. Leave a Comment

Sometimes when we think about sharing our stories during our recovery process, we think about the benefits it can have for us. Sharing helps us to express our pain, to find the understanding and compassion we’re looking for from other people, and to connect with other people experiencing similar things. Because we are always learning from each other, sharing of ourselves can also be an act of service- to help others, to offer guidance and wisdom, and to be a part of their recovery.

It can be really scary to share our thoughts, emotions, stories and experiences with other people, especially if we don’t know them well enough to know that we can trust them. Sharing requires a vulnerability and honesty that can be really hard to muster. It can be uncomfortable, awkward and embarrassing. We are putting ourselves out there at the risk of being judged, criticized and rejected.

Instead of only focusing on how we can benefit from sharing our stories, we can start to see sharing as something we can do to help other people who are suffering. Looking at it this way can help us summon the courage we need to take that step. It can be a leap of faith. We don’t know how we will be received, but we share anyway, believing someone out there might be helped.

Many of us feel like we wouldn’t have been able to recover from our addictions and mental health issues without other people’s help. Oftentimes these people helped simply by sharing their own stories. The lessons we learn from other people’s experiences can be invaluable and lifechanging.

We can choose to help other people not be alone in their suffering. We can take everything we’ve learned and pass it along. We can be a guiding light in other people’s healing journeys. Sometimes simply knowing we’re not alone can make all the difference. Addiction, depression and other mental/emotional challenges can be very isolating. At times it can be difficult and frightening to talk to other people, or to even be around other people. Imagine the impact you could have on someone who is struggling, just by talking, just by being yourself and sharing your story.

Being honest about our struggles can be difficult, but it can be less so when we open ourselves to the idea of sharing as service. We can choose to wish other people healing and wellness, and to want to help them along their way.

We have years of experience helping people to share their stories, and sharing our own. We’re here to help. Call (833) 801-LIVE.

Tag: Treatment