Many of us struggling with addiction and mental health issues have a very hard time putting ourselves first and caring for ourselves. We prioritize our drugs of choice and the high we receive from them over everything else because it feels better in the moment to escape our difficulties than to confront them. We prioritize our romantic relationships because we think we are incomplete without them. We make choices out of obligation and do things we don’t really want to do because we’re afraid of people being angry with us or disappointed in us. We struggle to listen to our intuition and follow our instincts. We don’t put ourselves first because we don’t believe in our worth. Deep down we’re self-hating and don’t love ourselves enough to put our well-being first. We can learn to prioritize our well-being by shifting our self-perception and changing our mentality around self-care.
We’re conditioned to think that self-care is selfish and that we should be selfless and only do for others. We think if we’re prioritizing ourselves, we can’t also be loving to the other people in our lives at the same time. When we operate in this way, we tend to become so overwhelmed and stressed out with the burdens of trying to please other people and with taking on more than we can handle that we often burn out. We collapse. We break down. We’re unable to care for other people at all because we haven’t been caring for ourselves. We can become bitter and resentful that we never have time for ourselves, that we never get a break, or that we’re always doing for others and never for ourselves. Self-care replenishes our internal resources so that we can heal ourselves, be at peace and therefore be a positive influence in other people’s lives. Self-care allows us the time and energy to nurture ourselves and be good to ourselves. Self-care is far from selfish. It’s vital to our overall health and well-being.
Transforming our self-perception enables us to feel better about prioritizing ourselves, so that we can shed the guilt we feel, along with the sense of obligation that keeps us from being good to ourselves. Here is where unconditional self-love and acceptance come in – believing we are worthy, believing we deserve happiness and goodness in our lives, affirming to ourselves that we are important and that we matter. We have to make sure our well-being is our priority if we want to be healthy and therefore able to be there for the people we care about.
At The Guest House Ocala, we are uniquely equipped to help our guests heal from trauma-induced substance abuse, process addiction, anxiety and depression in a safe, comfortable and confidential setting. Call 855-483-7800 today for more information on our treatment programs.