Our addictions and mental health issues often develop from the relationship we’ve created with our fears. We resist our fears and avoid them, giving them more power over us and allowing them to overtake us. Our fears thrive on our avoidance and our reluctance to face them. This foundation of internal resistance and avoidance enables our fears to fester and to grow stronger, ultimately causing us tremendous pain and difficulty. When it comes to our recovery, our fears hold us back, they limit us and keep us from getting the help we need. They make us resist the support being offered to us. They make us avoid treatment, therapy, support groups and other forms of healing. They cause us to disconnect from ourselves and to isolate ourselves from other people. How can we conquer our fears, especially our fears of recovery, so that we can reclaim our power over them?
When we’re able to look at our fears head on, we realize that we’ve been making them out to be so much bigger and more powerful than they actually are. We’ve been infusing them with meaning, allowing them to define who we are and how we relate to ourselves. As we explore our fears openly and honestly, one of the ways we can help ourselves to move through them is by thinking of everything we stand to gain when we confront them. Over time we come to realize that our fears pale in comparison to what we can achieve in our recovery – the gifts we will be blessed with, the fulfillment of our purpose we’ll find, the meaning we can bring to our lives. We realize that what we can gain from our sobriety, all of the self-love, happiness and inner peace, far outweigh our fears.
Another way we can conquer our fears is to ask ourselves, “what is the worst that can happen if I face my fear?” When it comes to our recovery, the worst that can happen is that we will fail, and this scares us immensely, but the truth is we really fail when we don’t even try. We fail when we give up on ourselves. We fail when we allow our fears to keep us from doing the work we need to do to recover. The worst that will happen when we venture into our recovery is that we will be challenged, pushed and stretched. We will experience growth, we will learn valuable lessons, and we will expand ourselves. When we’re able to look at the worst-case scenarios of our fears, we realize they’re really not so bad after all. In fact, giving into our fears is so much worse.
The Guest House is a welcoming and supportive recovery home where you will be met with open arms, wherever where you are on your journey, without judgment or expectation. Call 855-483-7800 today for more information.