The practice of gratitude, meditation, and deep breathing does wonders for calming your physical and emotional being. When you feel overwhelmed, anxious, or depressed, try a guided gratitude meditation to help ground you. If you’ve spent months or years soured by a negative outlook, it isn’t easy to swap rose-colored glasses with your current position of seeing everything as gray and stormy.
But if you’re in early recovery or beyond, it’s that much more important. Reach out to someone you like and trust, and ask to exchange gratitude. When you hear their perspective, when you see where they look for meaning, your mind will respond in kind.
Using Gratitude as a Driving Force for Positive Change
Some studies have shown that when gratitude is expressed in romantic relationships feelings of happiness lasted through the following day. It’s an internal quality — the ability to feel appreciation https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/psychological-dependence-on-alcohol-physiological-addiction-symptoms/ for a life free from addiction. As you learn to incorporate gratitude into how you view your new life, you may find that your recovery isn’t as difficult as you once thought.
- With gratitude on your side, you can be a positive force in the world.
- This newfound mindfulness-related gratitude becomes a wellspring of strength, empowering us to navigate the challenges of recovery with renewed hope and a gentle, joyful heart.
- It can lead to seeing the land surrounding us as our home, not as property we own.
- If you expect positive experiences you might experience that instead.
- Research suggests that gratitude motivates us to pursue our goals and achieve more.
It may also help individuals view recovery as a challenge that will help them grow instead of as an obstacle that could overtake them. As you begin your recovery journey, keep an eye out for all the positive things you encounter each day — see each one as a gift! By practicing gratitude, you will slowly transform the way you look at life, as well as the people you interact with. These small instances of gratitude can amount to a bigger overall impact on your mental health.
Addiction Destroys Dreams, We Can Help
No one decides that life is going so great that they want to put everything on hold to get treatment for a substance use issue. What’s more, many of the studies cited above measure trait gratitude, or the amount of gratitude you’re naturally inclined to feel without really thinking about it. The good news is that even if you aren’t brimming with gratitude right now, there are ways to increase your feelings of gratitude and reap the benefits. Therefore, you might consider adding one or several of the following gratitude practices to your recovery plan.
- When you feel overwhelmed, anxious, or depressed, try a guided gratitude meditation to help ground you.
- It also helps in decreasing cortisol levels and reducing negative emotions like anxiety, depression, and stress.
- These thoughts, as mentioned, can tend to be negative, always seeing what is wrong and what we don’t want.
- If you are struggling with addiction and looking for a way to overcome it, you are not alone.
As I navigated my way through addiction recovery, I discovered the incredible power of gratitude. In this section, I will discuss the various ways in which gratitude can aid in addiction recovery. We’ll explore how practicing gratitude can help us overcome negative thinking patterns and view our situation with hope and positivity. We’ll also delve into how expressing gratitude can help alleviate the stress and anxiety that often accompany addiction recovery. Finally, we’ll explore how cultivating a thankful mindset can serve as a powerful force for positive change, inspiring us to take action towards our recovery goals.
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It can be done anywhere, at any time, making it very easy to build a gratitude meditation practice. Further, practicing gratitude helps you look outward, to all the wonderful things that surround you, rather than keeping you focused inward, which can lead to feelings of negativity and despair. Especially in early recovery, there are a lot of emotions that surface that are no longer being numbed by drugs or alcohol, and these emotions can sometimes feel overwhelming. At its essence, gratitude is feeling joy for the things you have in life. This isn’t limited to material possessions, although of course you can be grateful for the things in your life, too.
Gratitude also means acknowledging the people who have helped you, such as your sponsor, peers, family, and higher power. You can also create your affirmations based on what you are grateful for in your life. Say positive affirmations to yourself in the mirror, or write them down on sticky notes and place them around gratitude in recovery your home. The more you repeat these affirmations, the more you will internalize them and feel their effects. Meditation is the practice of focusing on the present moment and observing your thoughts and feelings without judgment. Scientific studies tell us that gratitude can benefit a person’s recovery experience.