A blog by Dr. Harry Henshaw
Posts tagged recovery
Two ways to deal with Breakdowns in Recovery.
Sep 1st
One way to effectively deal with a breakdown or upset, especially if it is creating the urge to drink or do drugs, is to talk with another human being. Keeping an upset to yourself or keeping it up in your head is a receipt for disaster. Something negative will probably happen to your if you do not share what is going on with you. This is why it is important to create a support network of people you can call, sponsor, therapist or friends in recovery.
The second way to begin to effectively deal with an upset or breakdown is to take a look at what you are not accepting about the situation, people, places or things. Most if not all upsets and breakdowns are about having something happen that we believe should not have happened even though it did. Our work, and it is work, is to accept what happened, to eventually get it that everything happens in the way it is supposed to happen. Our work is to take that on as a possibility and in the work to accept fully what we did not once accept.
Recovery involves being able to deal with Breakdowns.
Aug 27th
Success in recovery, or rather, staying in recovery, is dependent upon a variety of factors. For example, it appears that attending daily NA or AA meetings and staying in communication with ones chosen sponsor will definitely assist an individual in successfully implementing his recovery plan. Getting and staying committed to working the 12 Step Program also appears to increase the probability of the person staying abstinent from drugs and alcohol. While the above-mentioned elements of a persons overall recovery plan are crucial to his recovery, another major factor that will greatly influence an individual’s continued abstinence is how he is able to handle the breakdowns that happen in life.
Knowing about breakdowns, what they are and how to manage them, is absolutely necessary for one to stay committed to his recovery plan. Breakdowns are what brought an individual into treatment and eventually created the space for him to begin his recovery. Breakdowns also happen while a person is in treatment and will continue to take place after he leaves. Even after successfully completing a treatment program, breakdowns are almost certain to happen as one returns to the community from which he came. In fact, both the client and his counselor should expect breakdowns to occur after treatment. It is for this reason that knowledge of the structure of breakdowns and how to transform them is very important if not crucial for the individual wanting recovery.
Ten Principles for Transformation in Recovery.
Aug 20th
The ten principles listed below can be of assistance to a person who is in recovery. While they are not to be confused as the actual work in recovery they will provide a frame or structure from which to do recovery.
1. To take complete ownership and responsibility for your life. Understand that you have created and chosen your life the way it is occurring. You are the cause of what you experience and your life.
2. Watch your word! Stay present to what you think and say. Choose to say positive things about yourself and others. What you think and say creates your experiences of how life will occur and be for you.
3. Practice your Self Affirmations and Possibilities everyday. Say your Self Affirmations and Possibilities in the morning, throughout the day and before bedtime.
4. What is your Intention? Plan your Intention each morning upon awakening and stay present to it throughout the day. What are you committed to today? What are you committed to now? What is it that you want to create in your life? What is it that you want to create now?
5. Develop your RECOVERY PLAN. Plan your work. Your RECOVERY PLAN is about your life. Your RECOVERY PLAN is about your Integrity. Integrity is the bottom line. Are you in integrity with your RECOVERY PLAN. Are you in Integrity with your life?
6. Develop your DAILY ACTION PLAN. Work your plan. Do it everyday! Your DAILY ACTION PLAN is about your commitment and integrity with respect to your RECOVERY PLAN. Your DAILY ACTION PLAN is about fulfilling on your intention and commitments. Your DAILY ACTION PLAN is about keeping your RECOVERY PLAN in existence!
7. Acknowledge yourself and others daily. Acknowledge the miracles in your life. Practice affirming that every moment of your life is a miracle.
8. Practice patience! Remember that you are doing the best you can. At the moment that we do we do the best we can. When you know more, you will do things differently. Do this in regards to others too.
9. Share with others what you are getting out of your recovery.
10. STAY HUNGRY FOR YOUR RECOVERY!
Comments about the Power of Intention.
Aug 17th
I am currently reading a book by Wayne Dyer, The Power of Intention. This is a very powerful book. Its application to all human beings interested in transforming their lives is very direct, including those in recovery. All of our problems are the result of us being “disconnected” from our source, from intention or God.
While I believe that positive affirmation can help to transform a person’s life, to help them feel better, ultimately this transformation has to led to reestablishing that union that Dr Dyer talks about. Without the connection we live our life from ego, and with this comes the problems and struggles of life. It appears that meditation is part of this process for reconnecting.
The two modalities are important, positive affirmations and meditation. Ester and Jerry Hicks wrote about the power of affirmations and meditation for transforming a person’s life and way of being. When these two modalities are put together the therapeutic result can be very powerful.
Using Positive Affirmations to Transform your life.
Aug 8th
Enhanced Healing is developing two types of Positive Affirmation programs. All of the first affirmation programs that are being created are about 30 minutes in length. The second set of positive affirmation programs will be about 10 mins length. Each positive affirmation program has three components to its creation, therapeutic relaxation music, binaural tones and positive affirmations. These new products will be put on the website in approximately three weeks.
The areas or domains that are being created have to do with confidence, forgiveness, hypertension, self esteem, relaxation, prosperity and abundance, Who I am, Recovery from Drugs and Alcohol, Surgery, Spirituality, relationships, general health, sleep, my future, smoking cessation, and weight management.
Our Nature as Human Being Involves Resistance.
Jul 30th
As human beings we do not really want or like to change. We like for things to be the same, for us not to have to put forth much effect to have what we say we want. We do not want to change and even, will resist change especially if another human being attempts to help us. Yes, we do change but we have to first get it that we do not want to change. Accepting our resistance is important for the process. We must first accept the fact that we will resist change in order for us to take it into consideration in our planning to transform our lives. It is important for us to plan and to make goals but it is equally important for us to plan how we will resist the process, will resist our achieving the goals we set. Such planning gives us power to respond appropriately when needed.
In my work in recovery I counsel people in how to recognize when they are resisting, when they are doing things to counter the goals they set and say they want. Such insight is important and necessary if individuals are to say in the program of recovery. The resistance will also show up in the very suggestions that are given, by a sponsor or therapist. The tendency is not only to resist but to continue to do it his or her way, with the results usually the same, much of how it was in the past. Our tendency is to try to do things and life our way, even when we continue to get the same results.
Positive Affirmations for Recovery from Surgery.
Jul 28th
Below are listed ten positive affirmations for anyone in recovery from surgery. While positive affirmations are very powerful, this power can be enhanced by using them with therapeutic relaxation music.
1. I am healthy and filled with energy.
2. My body restores itself ow to its natural state of good health.
3. I am perfect, whole and complete.
4. Every cell of my body is healthy.
5. My body heals quickly and easily.
6. I love and accept myself exactly as I am.
7. I joyously release the past. I forgive. I am at peace.
8. I always take good care of myself.
9. My body is strong and healthy, I am strong and healthy.
10. I am grateful for my good health.
New Project being created for Transformation and Recovery.
Jul 28th
One of the projects that I have long thought about doing is to read and compare, possibly with the intention of writing something at some point, the Big Book and maybe even Basic Text, with authors such as Louise Hay, Wayne Dyer, E. Tolle, Don Miguel Ruiz, Donald Walsh, and Dan Millman. The intention would not be to rewrite recovery but merely to explore and discover other resources that could assist a person in his or her recovery and ultimately his or her transformation. The Big Book is a very powerful writing and the authors mentioned above have a profound message for the transformation of the world and life itself.
The intention of a study group like what I am creating, as it nows move closer to realization, would also be to report or comment on what is discovered and to do so in this blog. I am now in the process of creating the study group, so to speak, and then after the process begins, to write about it here. I would also invite others to join in, to write and make comments on the blogs which they believe are relevant to the purpose of the project.
Part of my commitment and intention out of this project will be to not only share that which is discovered, the knowledge and insights, but to convert that understanding into something practical, something that can be used by others, to be of service to all of mankind.
Daily Homework – Four additional Principles for Transforming your life.
Jul 26th
Daily Homework can make the difference in ones transformation and recovery. Here are four additional Principles for transformation your life.
1. Acknowledge yourself and others daily. Acknowledge the miracles in your life. Practice affirming that every moment of your life is a miracle.
2. Practice patience! Remember that you are doing the best you can. At the moment that we do we do the best we can. When you know ore, you will do things differently. Do this in regards to others too. Always do your very best.
3. Share with others what you are getting out of your transformation and recovery.
4. Stay hungry for your transformation and recovery.
Creating Life from the Possibility of Acceptance.
Jul 25th
One of the most powerful of principles is that of acceptance. Acceptance creates possibility in your life. For me acceptance is the key to recovery and transformation. It is that from which we experience of sense of serenity and peace, and with it our power as human beings. Without acceptance we are at the mercy of life happening.
Below is one of the most powerful passages that exists. The passage on acceptance comes from the Big Book, page 449 in the third edition and 417 in the fourth edition.
“And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation – some fact of my life - unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober, unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes.”