when I’m feeling sorry for myself is to make a gratitude list. This can help me regain perspective and disrupt excessive focus on the negative. I can identify things in my life that I’m grateful for. This does not need to discount the areas of my life that I want to improve or that I’m working on. This does not mean that it’s not okay to have problems or still wish for things to be better. After all, I continue on the path of recovery because I want continued improvement in my life. But ironically, that improvement comes through being grateful for what I do have today.
I am grateful for what I have today, even if that is just the willingness to improve the areas of my life that may still need some time and attention. I am grateful for where I’ve come from, where I am today, and where I’m going.
TRUST
RELATIONSHIPS
“As we do the things required of us to recover, we begin to trust the people who help us, the program, and our higher power. This often provides us with the reassurance we need to trust the world.”
Of Character: Building Assets in Recovery
In early recovery, I heard about the need to trust my higher power, but I was definitely not used to trusting anyone. But I had enough desperation to try. I was hoping to find someone I could trust, who would keep private whatever I shared with him or her. But I didn’t discover that person until I took a little risk and changed my old ways in order to find out.
I was desperate enough to try to trust, but as the desperation of early recovery wears off, so the willingness to trust can decrease. That’s why it’s so fortunate that I began to trust early on. By the time I had a little recovery under my belt, I had begun building a little bit of trust in the process. Today I know how and whom to trust.
I get to remember those times of desperation as reassurance when I’m embarking on another level of trust in recovery. I start with recovery and learn to trust myself. In trusting myself, I trust the world.
At any and all stages of recovery, I take the action first and develop trust over time. In trusting one person in recovery who guides me and provides suggestions, I develop trust in a higher power. Trusting a higher power helps me trust myself. In trusting myself, I learn to trust others.
EXERCISE, MOVEMENT
PHYSICAL BALANCE
“The less we move, the more pain we have when we do move, causing us to move less. It becomes a vicious and painful cycle. The only solution for this ‘un-movement syndrome’ is moving.”
Adapted from A Day without Pain
When I’m in pain, I feel inclined to rest and avoid exercise; however, exercise is one of the best things I can do to reduce my pain, as I learned in the book Pain Recovery. The danger of inactivity is that my body becomes de-conditioned, which can add substantially to my perception and experience of pain. Studies have shown that regular and sustained physical activity is beneficial to virtually every system in my body. During exercise, my body releases chemicals called endorphins, which naturally relieve pain and also help to lessen my anxiety and depression. The four major types of exercise are cardiovascular, strength training, balance, and stretching.
Other benefits of regular exercise are that it helps me to maintain a healthy weight, increases my flexibility so I don’t strain muscles and joints, helps me build strength, increases my serotonin levels, which improves my mood and fights my pain, and protects and strengthens my heart and circulatory system while increasing my dopamine levels, which results in improving my mood and giving me energy.
I make sure to exercise because not only is it good for my recovery today, it is insurance for tomorrow.
CONTROL
MENTAL BALANCE
“These seemingly natural, automatic thoughts… ‘self-talk’…define(s) your beliefs…While you may be powerless over the self-talk that first enters your mind, you are not powerless over what you do in response to it.”
Pain Recovery: How to Find Balance and Reduce Suffering from Chronic Pain
I take the action I need to take in my recovery, and sometimes that means choosing to intervene on negative thoughts. I have control over the continuing thought process that leads to physical, emotional, and spiritual imbalance. Through working the steps with a sponsor, therapist, or counselor, I become aware of the slippery slope of thoughts that eventually leads to actions that increase my pain, be it physical or emotional.
Certain thoughts lead directly to active addiction. I’m not responsible and have no control over the first thought, but I have the power to intervene on that thought and replace it with thoughts of recovery. I’ve learned to take appropriate action and continue to learn positive affirmations to replace negative thinking. When I’m thinking of ways to control situations, people, or my chronic pain, I surrender by stopping the thought-stream and replacing it with recovery-minded thinking.
I have control over how long I think something. I’m not responsible for the first thought, but I’m responsible for what follows. I replace negative thinking with positive affirmations. I have control over that which I choose to affirm in my life today.
TOXIC FEELINGS
EMOTIONAL BALANCE
“I count him lost who is lost to shame.”
Plautus
In the book Pain Recovery, I discovered ways to deal with toxic feelings like shame and guilt. Just because I work a program of recovery, I’m not immune to either of these toxic feelings.
I know I’m feeling shame or guilt when I catch myself in thoughts like these:
When I’m dealing with shame and guilt (either giving it or getting it), I need to stop and review the tools I already have. I start by describing my own strengths and positive qualities. I identify any lies that other
