Those of us living with mental illness and addiction are no strangers to experiencing detours in our lives and our recovery. We can feel disappointed and frustrated when things don’t go as planned, when unexpected things come up, and when we don’t meet our own expectations. We can feel impatient with ourselves and disappointed in our lack of progress. We can beat ourselves up, judging ourselves harshly and criticizing ourselves for not handling things better. Life throws all kinds of things at us, though, and we want to be able to be prepared to handle them as gracefully as we can, with as much ease and inner peace as we can. How can we learn to navigate life detours more smoothly?
Active Anticipation
One way we can help ourselves deal with unexpected changes is to start actively anticipating them. Instead of being surprised, being caught unaware, or feeling as though we’re being blindsided, we can intentionally prepare ourselves by telling ourselves that at any moment things could change and something unexpected could come up. We can be prepared with a backup plan in place in case our original plan falls through. We can come to terms with there being all kinds of possible options, outcomes, solutions and pathways, and become comfortable with the idea with all of them. We can also work to become more comfortable with the idea of discomfort. We’re not always going to be comfortable as we’re doing this important inner work. Things aren’t always going to be easy for us. The recovery journey, and life as a whole, can present all kinds of challenges we might never have anticipated. We can learn to be more accepting of tension and discomfort as they arise, since resisting them only makes them more difficult for us, and we can practice actively anticipating that changes and detours might arise.
Finding Healing Tools
When struggling with addiction, we dealt with the stress and anxiety of our life detours by using our drugs of choice. In our sobriety, we want to use healing tools to help ourselves navigate any challenges that come up for us. We can use journaling and therapy to examine and process difficult issues. We can use creative self-expression to help ourselves create something beautiful, useful and cathartic from our difficulties. We can use meditation, yoga and energy healing to learn mindfulness, emotional release, acceptance and detachment to help ourselves cope with difficulties that arise. We can practice staying calm and having faith that everything will work out any time something unexpected happens. All of these things help us strengthen our inner resources, our calm, our inner peace and our resilience, making us much less likely to feel as though we need our drugs of choice to handle life’s many detours.
The Guest House is a welcoming and supportive recovery home where you will be met with open arms, wherever you are on your journey, without judgment or expectation.
Call 855-483-7800 today for more information.
theguesthouseocala.com
3230 Northeast 55th Avenue Silver Springs, FL 34488