Building a Solid Foundation
The recovery Journey can be a long and at the same time, extremely fulfilling experience, with wide-ranging emotional highs and lows along the way. Most of us who step into this way of living life, and intentionally choose to take it on with the same kind of passion we sought out all of our addictive and compulsive behaviours in the past, will experience a variety of thoughts and feelings that we’ve probably been avoiding for a very long time, usually keeping them locked away deep in the shadows of our personality. In my experience, most people who have developed any form of lifestyle that uses harmful and destructive behaviours to cope with their internal state, are probably dealing with some form of psychological, emotional, or even physical trauma. These traumas are predominantly revolving around our unmet childhood needs and it can be extremely beneficial to have a solid understanding of the symptoms associated with these issues so we can recognize their presence in our current way of being. This is why, in therapy, people often delve into certain areas of the past, which can be a daunting, and at times, an extremely triggering process.
However, it is usually the most rewarding and empowering part of your journey too. Being able to finally put to bed all of those demons from the past and start to move forward with your life, is the essence of sustainable behaviour change, and this is the reason that the foundational work you complete at the start of your journey is vital to the long-term success of building the Life you Want to Live, whatever that life may look like for you. As we have been repeating, again and again, in any process of behaviour change, regardless of the approach you are taking, creating a solid foundation using the four primary fundamentals we are going to talk about in the work we do in group, and one-on-one coaching, can only go towards increasing the probability of you creating the life you want to live, not only as something in the distant future, but also something you can begin to experience right now!
But what are the 4 fundamental areas of foundation we are going to be exploring?
1. Developing a Mindfulness Practice
2. Creating a Structured Lifestyle
3. Creating and Using a Support Network
4. Balancing the Physical with the Emotional
What each of these areas look like for you personally is entirely your choice, and this is not about you doing what you’re told to do in order to make the changes you want to make. If that’s what you’re looking for, ask yourself if this has worked for you in the past, because if it has, you probably wouldn’t be here to begin with. Failing to do something you’ve been “told to do” just activates the primary emotions you are using these addictive and compulsive coping mechanisms for in the first place, so let’s not go there again. This is about you building the Life that YOU Want to Live, and if you haven’t gotten this by now, then I strongly suggest you go back to the beginning and start this all over again. Putting these fundamentals in place is very different for everyone, and you will fail at some point, that’s just a given. If this was easy for you to do, you wouldn’t be signing up for a course to help you do it, so let’s get that straight right now.
