How Can Mindfulness Help With Addiction?

In my last post I talked about the what and why of addiction. Recap: addictions are destructive thought or behavior patterns people engage in mindlessly to escape reality and find some kind of temporary relief from pain. Today I want to talk about mindfulness: how it can help us be present and find alternative ways of dealing with our reality so that we no longer have to turn to our addictions for relief from pain.

Mindfulness basics

Mindfulness is basically just practicing awareness in the present moment without judgment. Mindfulness is key in overcoming addiction. First of all, you can’t change a thought or behavior pattern if you aren’t mindful/aware of it; you have to understand that you are engaging in these patterns that aren’t serving you before you can change them.

Identifying your addiction

If you’re already aware of the addictions you struggle with in your life, skip to the next paragraph. If not, here are some useful questions to ask yourself to identify addictions in your own life:

• What thought or behavior patterns do I engage in that cause me to feel good in the moment but which cause me a lot of grief/pain/guilt/shame in the long run?

• What thoughts or behaviors do I turn to in times of high stress or emotion?

• How do I distract or numb myself from my reality?

Consider these questions and notice your thoughts and behaviors in times of high stress or emotion. Don’t judge or criticize yourself for the thoughts that come into your head during these moments or the actions you take as a result of high stress or emotion, just get curious and observe. You are not bad for engaging in these thoughts or behaviors; you are coping with life the best way you know how. You may learn new coping skills that work better for you down the line, but right now you are just trying to learn more about yourself.

How mindfulness combats addiction

When we can become more mindful of the mindless ways we respond to stress, emotion, and reality, we gain the realization that we have a choice in the way we respond. Sometimes it feels like we have no control over our addictions, but this is because our addictions have become mindless habits for us. We feel pain, we seek pleasure. It takes courage and a lot of work to break a habit, especially one that brings temporary relief from pain. To break a habit, we must first ask ourselves why we are having the thought to engage in the habit. Observe the emotions you feel when you feel triggered to engage in your addiction: stress, depression, anger, anxiety, fear, loneliness, etc. Get curious about these feelings and your reactions to these feelings.

Ask yourself how engaging in your addiction could help with these feelings. Observe what comes up, maybe it’s, “you wouldn’t have to deal with your feelings of loneliness if you got some more heroin” or “you won’t have to think about all the stress you’re dealing with if you just eat those cookies” or “you will finally be worthy of love and acceptance if you exercise for just one more hour.” We don’t judge these thoughts; we get curious about them. We ask ourselves if our thoughts are true. We reality check and question if engaging in this thought or behavior will really solve our ultimate problem. We wonder if there are any other ways of dealing with our problem.

By observing and getting curious about the thoughts that trigger us to engage in our addictions, we find that these thoughts are just thoughts; they are not necessarily true and they do not necessitate an action from us. We can have these thoughts without them controlling us and this helps them to lose their power over us. We recognize that they are not always the best solution to our problems and we find that maybe there are better ways of coping with our reality.

Learn more about mindfulness & addiction recovery in a therapy session with me.

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What Causes Addiction? And How To Heal

What image comes to mind for you when you think about addiction? A guy shooting up heroin in a public bathroom? A teenager home alone drinking himself into oblivion? A girl buying twenty makeup palettes in one day? A couple binge-watching Netflix for eight hours? A kid eating a whole box of girl scout cookies in one sitting? Addiction comes in many shapes and sizes and my hope at the end of this post is that you will better understand what addiction is and why it’s so prevalent in our society. I don’t think there are any simple answers to these kinds of questions, but I do think the source of our addiction issue lies within our culture. We live in a world we sometimes want to escape and a society we sometimes need a break from. 

Addiction as a result of societal pressures

We are fed messages daily that tell us: 

• We need to look a certain way to be loved

• We need to act a certain way to be well-received 

• We need to have a romantic partner, a thriving career, and babies by a certain age to be successful

• We need to conform to our gender roles, obey societal norms, and be the person our culture is comfortable with to be accepted

The expectations of our society are unrealistic and THEY’RE DRIVING US MAD. We aren’t robots without unique thoughts or opinions or desires. If we pay attention to our body and our mind, we’ll know what we need and we’ll know what we’re lacking. Our bodies send us distress signals when they’re not getting what they need. We feel bad physically when we’re not properly addressing the needs of our body and we feel bad mentally when we’re not properly addressing the needs of our mind. But instead of listening to our inner wisdom, we often listen to society’s messages about what we need. We strive to meet society’s expectations thinking that’s what’s going to make us happy, well-loved, and fulfilled, but find that no matter how well we meet society’s expectations, we’re still stuck with feelings of unhappiness, loneliness, and meaninglessness. 

Addiction as a way to numb pain

Between the stress of making ends meet financially in our not so great economy, keeping up with the trends in our ever-changing culture, staying in shape in the land of fast food and comfort snacks, maintaining healthy relationships in a world of disconnection, and trying to find meaning and purpose in a life we’re unhappy with, it’s near impossible to not want to escape sometimes. Couple all this stress with the fact most of us have been traumatized in some way by this world (and the people in it) and are doing our best to cope with the hurt without continuing the cycle of hurt. If you numb your pain in some way, I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND (I do it, too). It’s really, incredibly difficult to not turn to something to numb your pain or help you escape sometimes.

As humans, we naturally seek to gain pleasure and avoid pain. Nobody wants to feel bad physically or mentally, so we find ways of avoiding our pain by numbing or distracting ourselves. Although this kind of relief is only temporary, we can easily become reliant upon these pain-numbing, pleasure-seeking behaviors as we find that we can always count on them to give us an escape from reality, if only for a minute or two. Addictions are always born out of pain and are the best way many of us know how to deal with our pain. Most of us haven’t been taught how to deal with pain in a healthy way; we learn how to cope by observing how those around us cope. Unfortunately, most people cope with pain by numbing and distracting, so naturally, these are the behaviors we adopt as well.

What is addiction?

Addiction is a cultural disease that we're all predisposed to by being in this world and I believe everyone has engaged an addiction of some sort to some degree at some point in their life. So what exactly constitutes an addiction, you ask? An addiction (in my opinion) is a behavior or thought pattern that you engage in because it brings you pleasure or relief from pain temporarily but comes with negative consequences that get in the way of long-term personal goals and growth. Addictions often dominate our thoughts and are difficult for us to give up. We engage in addictions because they feel good in the moment. We aren't thinking about the future and how it will affect our long-term goals. We're thinking about how to escape the pain we're feeling right now. So we drink or use drugs or go shopping or eat food or have sex or work or exercise or scroll through social media or whatever makes us feel good in the moment to sedate the pain.

The problem? Pleasure never truly satisfies

There's nothing wrong with feeling good and I think it can be perfectly healthy to engage in any of the behaviors listed above in moderation, but when these behaviors become obsessions that hinder our growth and get in the way of our goals, we've got a problem. We will never find true satisfaction from our addictions. Do you ever wonder why you still can't stop after the tenth cookie in the package? Or why you're out shopping for another bathing suit when you already have twelve in your closet? Or why you're having sex with the fourth guy this week and you’re still not satisfied? IT’S BECAUSE PLEASURE NEVER TRULY SATISFIES. Physician and addiction specialist Gabor Maté says, "The reason we do anything one more time is because the last time didn’t really satisfy us deeply."

If we constantly seek things outside ourselves to satisfy our yearning for relief, we will never find relief. Gabor Maté wrote a book called In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction and it’s by far the most helpful book I’ve ever read about addiction. He sums up what I’m trying to say here with this quote: “The sparser the innate joy that springs from being alive, the more fervently we seek joy’s pale substitute, pleasure.” We will continue to obsessively seek pleasure until we find real joy within. We will continue to numb and distract ourselves in an attempt to escape reality until we can come to terms with and accept reality as it is. Resisting reality has never worked for us and will never work for us. We must accept the world as it is and accept ourselves as we are in order to find any kind of peace in this life. We’re not perfect and the world isn’t perfect, but numbing ourselves from this reality will never work for us in the long run.

The answer? Confronting your pain to work towards healing and joy

I want to end by saying your addiction is no better than anyone else’s and your pain is no less significant than anyone else’s. The person struggling with a heroin addiction is no better or worse of a person than the person struggling with a sexual addiction or a food addiction or a shopping addiction. We all have pain and we all deal with pain the best way we know how. What we choose to numb the pain with is largely a product of our environment. If you had drugs in your environment growing up and that’s what you found pleasurable, you will likely turn to drugs for comfort and relief now as this is how you learned to cope with your pain and discomfort. Maybe you didn’t have drugs… maybe it was food or money or video games or television that was at your disposal. Whatever pain relief is available to us is the pain relief we will choose. Some of our addictions have greater stigma and consequences because society has decided they are inherently wrong (esp. drugs) and some of our addictions seem inconsequential (work, exercise, food) because they are glorified in our society. Regardless of how society views your addiction, if you can recognize that you’re numbing and distracting yourself from pain and discomfort, you must take a serious look within to figure out what’s causing your pain if you ever want to find true healing and inner peace.

In Lexington KY and think you’d be a good candidate for addiction therapy?

Contact me today to inquire about scheduling an appointment to process through your pain and work towards healing!

What Causes Anger and How To Control It : An Alternative Approach To Anger Management

What causes anger? And what does it mean that anger is a secondary emotion?

When you’re angry, it just feels like anger to you. Sometimes it’s hard to notice anything underneath your anger unless you really dig in to your emotions, but anger is an emotion we often resort to secondarily when we’re trying to protect ourselves from feeling a more vulnerable primary emotion such as sadness, fear, or pain. In The Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz, anger is described as a mask for fear. Anger is fear that: we (or those we love) won’t get what we need, are not safe and secure, are not loved, valued, or respected, and/or will not be included. Anger has a lot to do with expectation. We expect others to treat us and our loved ones fairly, with dignity, and with kindness. When these things don’t happen, we often react in anger because we have been hurt. Anger is an emotional response to an unfulfilled expectation. We want to resist our feelings of pain and we do this by feeling anger instead. Anger is a natural emotion that we can’t avoid, but it doesn’t have to be negative.

Anger can be healthy if it’s in the present.

It’s natural and healthy to respond to an injustice with anger. It’s also natural and healthy to let this anger motivate us to make some kind of change in our lives or in the world. If we can change the situations that are causing us to be angry, we must. If we can’t change the situations, we must change ourselves. It isn’t natural and healthy to allow anger to persist past the present. When we suppress feelings of anger, they often come back up in the future. Dwelling on past hurt and becoming angry about it does us no good, which is why we must lean in to our anger when we experience it so that it doesn’t come back up.

How do we lean in to our anger?

First, we must identify what’s triggering our anger. Easy enough, your spouse made a backhanded comment to you, your boss didn’t give you the raise you were promised, your pharmacy won’t give you the prescription you need. Of course you’re angry about this. The next question is a little harder and will require you to dig a little deeper. Why are you angry? What’s underneath it? Your spouse making a backhanded comment makes you feel hurt and/or afraid that they don’t love you anymore. Your boss not giving you a raise makes you fear that you aren’t valued and respected at work. Your pharmacy not giving you the prescription you need makes you fear that you won’t get what you need to function. It can be difficult to identify what’s underneath your anger, but if you look deep enough, there’s always something there.

Alternative Anger Management : Reality Checking

Now that you’ve identified the other emotions accompanying your anger, it’s important to acknowledge these emotions. Acknowledge the fear or pain you are experiencing and acknowledge how you feel threatened. These feelings are normal! It would be abnormal if you didn’t experience fear in response to being threatened. Acknowledge that your feelings of fear are normal, but then you must take a closer look at these fears. You must ask yourself if your fears are legitimate. Does your spouse really not love you anymore or were they just having a bad day and decide to take their frustration out on you? Does your boss really not value you or have they simply forgotten about your raise because of their busy schedule? Does your pharmacist really want you to suffer or have you failed to get the proper prescription approvals needed for your medicine? When we can reflect in this way and practice awareness around our anger, we are much more likely to think rationally about our anger. If we can think more rationally about our anger, we can respond to our anger more rationally, as well.

Anger is an emotional response to an unfulfilled expectation

Gabor Maté, a physician who specializes in addiction and who I will most definitely talk more about in a future post, says you should “be at least as interested in your reactions as in the person or situation that triggers them.” If we can dig in and explore why we respond with anger to certain people and situations, we can learn a lot about ourselves. When angry, ask yourself what expectation of yours went unmet. You expected your spouse to be kind, your hard work to be recognized by your boss, or for things to go your way at the pharmacy. What expectations do you have for the people around you and the situations you find yourself in?

We know that life isn’t fair and things don’t always go our way, but we still get angry when we feel we haven’t been treated fairly or things haven’t gone our way. So, are our expectations realistic? Can we really expect for people to treat us kindly, fairly, and with respect all the time? Regardless of your answer to this question, it doesn’t change the fact that people won’t always treat you with kindness, fairness, and respect. There will be times where you’re treated unfairly or without respect, so what are you going to do about it? You can choose to get angry and dwell on this anger for an indefinite amount of time OR you can choose to acknowledge the way you feel threatened, ask yourself if your fears are legitimate, and release your expectations for others.

Alternative Anger Management : The Hypothesis of Generosity

Brené Brown talks about the hypothesis of generosity in her book Rising Strong and this hypothesis has significantly changed the way I respond to frustration and anger. With the hypothesis of generosity, you ask yourself: what’s the most generous assumption I can make about this person’s intentions or what they said or did to me? You are much less likely to be angry about the person who cut you off in traffic if you assume they are speeding to the hospital with their pregnant about-to-deliver wife. You are much less likely to be angry about the person who made a rude comment to you at the grocery if you assume they are going through it because they just lost someone they love. You are much less likely to be angry about your friend cancelling plans last-minute if you assume they have overstretched themselves and are making this decision to preserve their mental health because they just have way too much going on. If we can release our unrealistic expectations for others and accept a hypothesis of generosity, we can live much happier lives.

Alternative Anger Management : Choosing to live on the track of love

Don Miguel Ruiz sums all this up in his book The Mastery of Love as he explains how we choose to live our lives either on a track of fear (and scarcity) or a track of love (and abundance)…

“Love has no expectations. Fear is full of expectations. With fear we do things because we expect that we have to and we expect that others are going to do the same. That is why fear hurts and love doesn’t hurt. We expect something and if it doesn’t happen, we feel hurt- it isn’t fair. We blame others for not fulfilling our expectations. When we love, we don’t have expectations; we do it because we want to, and if other people do it or not, it’s because they want to or not and it’s nothing personal.”

The world could be a much better place if we all decided to choose love over fear.

Alternative Anger Management Worksheet (Feel free to share this resource!)

If interested in seeking therapy for anger management in the Lexington, KY area…

Contact me to see if we could be a good fit to work together and address some of the fears that may be holding you back from living a more joyful love-filled life.

What is Intuitive Eating? 10 Steps to Mindful & Intuitive Eating

Ditching diet culture

It’s so difficult to maintain a healthy relationship with food in our culture where dieting is the norm and avoiding certain foods is seen as a good or wise thing to do. We’re taught to feel shame if we indulge in certain foods and learn to resent the bodies we have because of our indulgences. We listen to how culture tells us to eat rather than listening to our bodies because we don’t trust that we know what we need. We restrict ourselves from certain foods, set goals for our food intake, and then berate ourselves when we eat the food we promised ourselves we’d stay away from. This is diet culture and it’s super toxic.

We need food and eating food makes us feel good but somehow we’ve demonized food in our culture. There are certain foods that are bad and you should feel guilty if you eat them. To that I’d say if you stole the food you feel guilty about eating, I’ll allow you to feel guilty. Otherwise, the guilt is a little unnecessary don’t you think?

There’s no reason to feel guilty about something you ate. If you ate it and it made you feel bad physically, you’re already suffering enough. If you ate it and it made you feel good physically, your body is happy with the sacrifice you’ve given it and there’s no reason to feel bad. When we can practice mindfulness around how the food we eat affects our body, we are better able to fuel our body so it can help us meet our needs.

What is mindful eating?

I think people complicate the term mindfulness; think of mindfulness simply as being aware and intentional. You’re eating an orange? Mindful eating would require you to be aware of the orange: it’s flavor, texture, and smell. It would require you to think about the orange’s journey to you and all the hands required to get the food into your body: the farmer, the shipper, the grocery store worker. You would practice gratitude for those hands and for the food itself. You would think about how the food will nourish you and enable you to do the things you love. You would not label the orange as good or bad and you would not judge yourself as good or bad for eating the orange. You would chew slowly and savor the flavor. You would stop eating when your body tells you to, not when the portion you served yourself is gone. Those are the basics: practicing awareness and gratitude around food, thinking about the source and purpose of food, not judging the experience of eating, and listening to your body in regards to it’s needs for food.

What is intuitive eating?

Intuitive eating incorporates mindfulness into it’s principles but also focuses heavily on ditching diet culture and cultivating respect for your body. The focus of intuitive eating is in transforming your relationship with food and your body as our culture often causes our relationship to these things to be pretty poor.

10 Steps to Mindful & Intuitive Eating

Eat when you’re hungry

Hunger is the body’s way of telling us that we’re lacking sustenance. If you try to fight off hunger, you will end up at the refrigerator at midnight gorging on whatever you can get your hands on because your body will be in famine mode. Your body is just trying to survive and hunger is it’s way of letting you know it needs something more than you’re giving it!

Honor your feelings without using food

A lot of times we eat for reasons other than hunger, so we have to learn how to stop chewing our worries and pain. Ask yourself why you’re turning to food and what purpose it’s serving for you. Are you eating because you’re bored? Sad? Angry? Stressed? Food might not be the best way to deal with these emotions; take action to really address your body’s messages of discomfort/pain rather than distracting your body with temporary pleasure.

Respect and practice gratitude for your food

Think about where it came from and how it got to your plate. Acknowledge all the hands it took to bring this nourishment to your body. Remind yourself that it’s a privilege to have access to an abundance of food and respect food for the miracle that it is.

Set the table before eating

Okay, so you don’t actually need to set the table, but you do need to metaphorically set the table.  Make time for the meal. Sit down to eat. Relax. Breathe. Get yourself in the right headspace to properly experience the meal.

Enjoy your food!

Don’t be thinking about the ten thousand other things going on in your life and don’t allow any outside distractions (phone, TV, work) while eating. Think about the food you’re putting into your mouth. You have to eat, so you might as well enjoy it!

Eat slowly

Chew your food and put your utensils down between bites. Notice how your body changes with each bite. Pay attention to how your body responds to different foods. Recognize when your body has had enough.

Respect your body!

Give it what it needs! And stop giving it what it doesn’t need! Listen to what it’s telling you and respond appropriately. If your body tells you it needs more of something (food, exercise, rest, etc.), give it that! If it tells you it’s had enough, honor that! Your body is not a machine and it’s needs are always changing. Honor your body and it’s needs.

Eat (mostly) for nourishment

Food is nourishment for your body. Think about what foods give your mind and body the energy and strength they need to thrive and choose food based on these factors. 

But stop labeling and judging your food

If a food makes you feel good physically and mentally, stop labeling it as bad! When we set certain foods or food groups as off-limits and restrict our access to them, this makes us want them more! When we allow ourselves to freely eat the foods that make us feel good, we’ll stop gorging on ‘restricted’ food.

And please stop labeling and judging your eating habits as good or bad

We must get out of the diet mentality and stop judging our ‘performance’ around food. If you want to indulge in dessert, do it! This doesn’t make you bad and it isn’t a moral failure. If you continue to judge your eating habits as good or bad, you will continue the cycle of guilt and shame you feel after indulging or eating a ‘forbidden food’.

Interested in starting therapy to begin healing your relationship with food and your body? Shoot me an email or book an appointment with me. Know somebody else who could benefit from this information? Send it to them!