Mindfulness

In active addiction we can be slaves to our thoughts, spending hours feeding into spirals of vicious circles. Working ourselves up, incredulous that others could have different views of the world, or creating argument and counter argument. Alone.

Well maybe that was just me.

Its exhausting and was probably why I started to think about recovery, because I was tired of it all.

I met a few people in LifeRing who I admired and most of them had one thing in common. They practiced mindfulness in one form or another.

I suppose I practice a really simple form of mindfulness, but I try to incorporate it into my feelings of self.

I keep check on my emotions. I think there is a fine line here, in early be recovery I would rather be right in the middle rather than be happy or sad. I was concerned that if I was too happy then that would make it more likely that I could go low also.

I’m letting up on my that now and allowing myself to be happier.

I do find myself having a reaction to something and automatically find myself saying ” oh that’s irritation you are feeling ” or ” I can feel anger”. Acknowledging it, and realizing I don’t need to feel like that, and acting a lot more rationally.

When I do meditate ( why don’t I do this more? ) I love the feeling of rising above it, of watching the thoughts float by. I got past the worry of trying to do meditation correctly and worrying about thinking too much.

Look up “Do nothing” meditation. Its ok to get caught up in thought, but when you realize that that’s what you are doing, then let it go.

These two simple things help me.

I would have never found this without sober to sober conversations with people in LifeRing.