Part of our work in recovery involves looking at how we’ve been trained to think, act and feel over the years. Upon more closely examining our thought patterns, emotional responses, choices and behaviors, many of us discover that we’ve been perpetuating very toxic limiting beliefs that contribute to our mental health issues, including our struggles with addiction. We learn that we’ve been taught to think and feel certain things that are detrimental to our health and well-being. How have we been conditioned for unwellness?
Inadequacy and Unworthiness
One of the major harmful ways we’ve been conditioned is to believe we’re not good enough as we are. We grow up feeling as though something is wrong with us. We have deep fears of inadequacy, inferiority and unworthiness that fuel our addictions, our depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses. We feel lacking and deficient in our sense of self. We create our identities around these feelings of deficiency and inadequacy. We suffer from low self-worth. We feel we need something or someone outside of ourselves in order to complete us, and many of us turn to our drugs of choice for the comfort, solace and sense of completion we’re looking for. We might have had parents or other caregivers abuse us or tell us we weren’t good enough. We might have experienced a form of trauma that convinced us we were to blame, and we’ve carried our shame all these years, allowing it to make us feel less than. We may have been in relationships where our partners constantly criticized us and made us feel inadequate. All of these things can condition us over time to develop limiting beliefs around our worthiness.
Mental and Emotional Incapacity
Another problematic way we’ve been conditioned is to believe we’re not strong enough to cope with our mental and emotional challenges. We’re told we’re weak if we express sadness. We’re told to calm down when we feel angry. We’re taught to silence, avoid and suppress our feelings, and the more we continue these patterns, the more we come to believe we don’t have the internal resources to handle them. We become depressed in part because we don’t have healthy outlets for self-expression. We develop anger management problems because we haven’t learned how to confront, express and communicate our anger. We develop patterns of addiction because we’re convinced our emotions are too overpowering for us to handle them on our own.
In order to recover from our addictions and mental health issues, we will want to analyze the different harmful ways in which we’ve been conditioned over the years. We’ll want to consciously undo that conditioning and implement new mental and emotional programming that reinforces our recovery rather than detracting from it.
At The Guest House Ocala, our experience with addiction and recovery makes us uniquely equipped to be able to understand the struggles you’re experiencing.
We’re here to help.
Call 855-483-7800 today for more information on our treatment programs.
theguesthouseocala.com
3230 Northeast 55th Avenue Silver Springs, FL 34488