MINDFUL RECOVERY
DEFINITION: Maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment, through a gentle, nurturing lens.
DID YOU KNOW: Stress is identified as one of the major causes of relapse, as well as inter-personal conflict, and negative emotions. Many treatment centres across North America now incorporate various stress reduction techniques as adjunct therapies, such as yoga and meditation in treating individuals with addiction and mental health problems as well as their families. Many centres also offer the same opportunities to their staff as it is recognized that these techniques when practiced offer increased self-awareness, a renewed spiritual connection, increased creativity, and a decrease in negative emotional responses to life stressors.
FROM A RECOVERY LENS: We all experience the basic human dilemma “that even when we know we are doing something harmful and destructive; we cannot always manage to put that insight into practice.” As individuals in recovery practice the techniques of mindfulness, they experience a growing ability to face life and deal with life deeply and effectively with mindfulness practice. Mindfulness is a natural antidote for many problems involved in addiction, which at its core is a way of avoiding life rather than being aware of it. Mindfulness assists people in recovery to rebuild their lives with greater clarity and experience greater peace and insight.
This includes the awareness that life is limited, and therefore precious, and the choices we make today can limit our choices in future. Mindfulness recovery is getting back in touch with your true nature, and exploring a harmonious path to recovery. Mindfulness provides a gentle way to begin to face the pain and perceptions that has been blunted by addiction and mental health problems, and closing off our emotions. By gaining or regaining our ability to be in touch with the simple pleasures of life, we reduce the need to fill the void with destructive behaviours including drugs and alcohol.
RELAPSE PREVENTION: When we hurry through life, we often miss the simple joys that could give us pleasure. Research supports that the practice of mindfulness reduces stress levels, which is one of the major causes of relapse. As recovery is a process, mindfulness teaches that it is important to maintain a compassionate attitude towards the experience, seeing it in context. It is a learning process rather than the end of the world. Awareness of what triggered the slip allows the person to form a plan to deal with the situation in future, and is helpful, as well as intrinsically healing.