When people are in recovery, they need a lot of support and confidence. Anything that threatens to sabotage this growth can be detrimental, but also triggering, which may lead to relapse. No matter how successful a person wants to become, they will not achieve their goals if they self-sabotage their growth. Mentally, there can be barriers people need to overcome that can help them if they strive for it. Overcoming limiting beliefs can boost a person’s self-esteem, but also help propel them into the next level of their lives in recovery.
Overcoming Limits
The brain is a curious thing. It loves to collect evidence to support its premonitions, thoughts, and feelings. It likes to organize things in a certain way to make the world make sense. In spite of everything, there is a feeling that the brain can limit a person’s ability to grow if they let it overtake their daily thoughts. Here are some of the ways people allow the brain to respond in a way that does not support a healing pathway in recovery.
What If
Asking yourself ‘what if’ is like forecasting the worst-case scenarios in your mind. Usually, this is not done to predict good things, instead, the brain goes into the anxious mode and predicts what could happen, if the circumstances were just right. What ifs are exaggerated thoughts that go like a stream of consciousness through the brain. These worries take joy and hope from the present moment. Most things people worry about never happen. They usually do not happen the way a person sees them happening. The brain has a way of magnifying concerns in a way that is unparalleled by anything else a person experiences. By letting the what-ifs take over, they make it nearly impossible to focus on goals and feel less anxious about the future.
Waiting to Exhale
When waiting for things to happen, or the outcome to be achieved, it can feel like waiting for the world to change. In a way, the world is changing all the time. Every second our body produces new cells to replace ones that are dying. Waiting to exhale is about doing a reality check of what is happening and how it is happening to see where things may go. This is done to support a person’s journey of recovery. Mentally, waiting for life to catch up can be stressful. This may drive anxiety to wait for results, wait for things to shift, or hope for things to be different. The only action a person takes is the action of moving forward at the moment. Waiting for change will not effect change, it will only keep pushing it further away. When these thoughts creep into the mind, it is helpful to remember growth comes from within. It comes from putting self-care first and not sabotaging thoughts. Recovery is hard enough, don’t put pressure on yourself to constantly strive for things if you need a rest and break from everything. Sometimes you just need to pull back, rein things in, and focus on recovery for a time without other things pushing your boundaries too far. Stay strong and positive so you can focus on healing and staying mentally healthy for the journey of recovery.
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