When we’re struggling with addiction and mental illness, we tend to become further and further removed from our inner selves as we go about living our lives. Our disconnection can cause us to become depressed and anxious, creating lives of sadness and fear that we use our addictions to try and escape. We feel like we don’t know ourselves. We feel foreign, distant and unrecognizable to ourselves. We are sometimes so consumed with guilt and shame that we turn away from ourselves, trying to forget the things we’ve done and the traumas we’ve experienced. We don’t want to know ourselves. We want to get as far away from the truth of who we are as we possibly can. We drink and use drugs to try and forget. We create new identities for ourselves in an effort to conceal the memories of our pasts. We’re not honest with ourselves or others about who we truly are. Our addictions in particular are something we especially try to hide, both from others and from ourselves, by choosing denial, escapism, dishonesty and avoidance as our defense mechanisms. When we’re ready to do the work to recover from our addictions and mental health issues, reconnecting with our inner selves is an important part of that work.
We can’t heal if we’re persistently continuing to run from ourselves, in an attempt to avoid our truth. When we’re finally honest with ourselves, we’ll have to face the truth of who we are, the mistakes we’ve made and wrongdoings we’ve committed, the shameful secrets we’ve been carrying and trying to bury for most of our lives, the parts of ourselves we wish we could forget. We’ve been trying to start our lives over, with completely new identities and circumstances, but the truth of who we are is always there inside of us, and we can only avoid it for so long. Our healing invites us to stop being so ashamed of ourselves and learn to forgive and accept ourselves unconditionally. Acts of self-love help us to reconnect with our inner selves, so that we can stop letting our pain bring us further away from ourselves but instead get to know ourselves again and learn to be good to ourselves, often for the very first time. Self-care, spiritual practice, creative expression and meditation are all powerful ways of connecting inwardly, of shutting out all of the noise, clutter and distraction of our ego minds so that we can hear our inner voices, our spirits, our connection to our higher power, our intuition. and the guidance of our hearts.
Pinnacle Recovery gives you and your loved ones a safe, beautiful place to heal, with the knowledge and tools you need to make a full, successful recovery. Call 1-866-301-0573 today for more information.
