Not everyone is going to get excited about the prospect of pursuing spiritual growth–a lot of people probably believe that this is going to amount to religion, just without naming specific Gods.
Don’t panic. What you will find here is the broadest definition of spirituality you are likely to find in any addiction recovery program. I won’t even mention the idea of prayer.
Of course, if you already happen to be religious, you can go ahead and just run with that–no need to complicate things. Although I would suggest that you can still learn from the following concepts, and benefit from them.
So what exactly are we talking about, if it’s not all about higher powers and prayers?
Let’s take a look:
1) Meditation
2) Moving meditation (exercise!)
3) Mindfulness
4) Self reflection through journaling
5) Gratitude
Meditation – maybe you have heard about it by now…
The problem is….meditation is hard.
Sit still, watch your thoughts arise, don’t judge them. That’s it.
Try it once, get through it for 5 minutes….maybe. However, a long term, seated meditation practice may be more than some people can commit to. It can feel so foreign and unnatural to sit still and do nothing, with no sensory input. Making it a permanent habit can be really tough.
If you can build up to longer periods of time with meditation, you will gain even better benefits than with a short 5 minute session.
To be honest, I never broke through to the point where this became a natural and easy habit for me. I forced it for a few weeks and I eventually switched to other techniques in this article.
But you should realize that the benefits of meditation are vast, well documented, and pervasive across nearly all cultures and religions of the world. If you research it heavily then you’ll come to the conclusion that it is like unlocking a superpower.
But while I couldn’t quite get the knack of seated, silent meditation sessions, I believe that I stumbled onto the next best thing, with very similar benefits, and that is “moving meditation” if you will: exercise. And in particular, cardio exercise outside in nature.
If you can’t sit still-consider moving meditation
When I was early in my journey of addiction recovery, I started jogging with my dad. We would run outdoors for about an hour each day. Although we would talk at first, through the second half of the jog we would become silent. One, we would run out of things to talk about, and two, it became more difficult to speak as we became more winded from jogging. And I got to the point where I did not feel right if I did not get my jog in, I would feel out of sorts, and a bit upset, and I almost felt like I depended on this exercise for me to “feel right.”
Later on in my recovery I read that various groups have used various forms of walking meditation as well.
It was then that I realized that jogging outdoors along the countryside in silence is absolutely a form of meditation, and I had been doing that all along.
So if you are not an avid runner, I would give you 2 suggestions:
1) Outdoor cardio – find a form of outdoor cardio that suits you: Walking or biking come to mind. Outdoors is better than indoor in terms of enhancing the meditative quality of the exercise. (consult your doctor first of course). Consider exercising without headphones if possible: notice things as you move along, rather than let your mind be distracted by music or podcasts.
2) Try yoga – I would sign up for a class, or join a gym that offers a class as part of the membership (this might be a social stretch moment, I know!). You may also consider the idea that certain types of yoga, and certain yoga instructors, are going to focus more on the meditative aspects of the practice than others. For example, there could be an instructor focused on breathing and the breath, versus a sports focused yoga class that is more focused on healing sports related injuries. Alternatively you could simply watch an instructional video at home.
Mindfulness – some actual directions
Mindfulness became quite the hot topic over the last several years, and for good reason: it’s actually very helpful.
Let me cut right to the chase and give you the shortcut to some real action you can take.
We want to talk about 3 things you will be doing each day, each in a little 60 second break: breathing, a body scan, and “watching” your thoughts.
My suggestion to you is that you use your cell phone to set little vibration reminders to go off at specific times, every single day. For example, at 12:30PM, right after I normally get done with my lunch, my phone will vibrate and the label will read “breath.” So I close my eyes for a moment, and I just take 5 really slow, deep breaths. That’s it. Nothing more.
Then at 4:40PM in the afternoon, when I’m sort of winding down at my workday, the phone vibrates again and it says “thoughts.” So again I close my eyes for a moment, and I simply watch what thoughts pop into my head. Not judging them, not trying to force myself “not to think” or anything like that. I simply watch what thought arises. That’s it. Do it for a brief moment or two. Then move on with my day.
Then at 8:00PM in the evening the phone vibrates again and it says “scan.” Again, I close my eyes and I just notice what is going on in each part of my body, where the tension is, where I might be tightening up the muscles without noticing it, if I have my jaw tensed up, and so on.
If you actually do this, and you set up these 3 reminders on your phone, and you do these three little 1 minute “pauses” throughout your day, then you will be way ahead of all of these other people who hype up mindfulness like it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread–who actually are doing very little to practice it on a consistent basis.
There are lots of phone apps out there. If they work for you, by all means, get one. But setting up vibration alarms should be more than sufficient to establish a consistent practice. If you don’t know how to set these alarms, get someone else to read this, and then walk you through it.
Self reflection and journaling
There is definitely some overlap here when it comes to emotional health, in that I strongly suggest that you write in a journal in order to help with that as well.
However, writing in a journal regularly will also help you in a spiritual sense.
The way that it does this is through self reflection: you write in the journal consistently, then eventually you glance back through what you’ve written, and then you can see yourself more objectively.
Journaling gives you the objectivity to say “is this who I want to be?” and then “what do I need to change in my life right now?”
Because you are journaling consistently, over time you can see the patterns in your thoughts and behaviors. Then you judge if that’s what you really want for your life, and take action to correct it–as opposed to a higher power and the corresponding religion’s morality telling you what you should and should not do.
Practical gratitude
Much has been said about the power of gratitude–but this is a lot like meditation: It’s really hard in practice.
The key, in my experience, is to practice gratitude consistently when things are going well. You have to be good at it so that when your life goes through a bit of a downturn, you can call upon this skill to help protect you from relapse.
You may have heard of the idea of writing out a gratitude list. Write down what you are grateful for. This is only mildly useful. Gratitude is a feeling. It should feel like you are brimming with joy, your heart should simmer when you feel it. Simply writing down that you are grateful for your health, your house, and your family probably doesn’t set your heart ablaze just by writing it down.
Likewise, recalling the things on your list isn’t going to magically light your heart on fire. It’s powerless to help you if you are down in the dumps and really struggling.
So how do we turn gratitude into something that actually works for us?
The answer is through mindfulness–something we just touched on a moment ago. Real gratitude comes when you are in the moment, when you notice something that is unfolding in front of you, and your heart is jumping in delight with realization that this thing, whatever it is, is truly amazing, and good, and you’re just so grateful for it. It happens in the present, in real time, gratitude is that feeling of overflowing joy, as a realization is hitting you smack in the face. THAT is a power that is strong enough to overcome an awful, no good, very bad day. Writing out a list doesn’t cut it, I’m afraid.
So how do we do it? How do we unlock this real time, overflowing joy, of in-the-moment gratitude?
It’s not easy. The reason it takes practice is because you have to remember to do it, meaning, you have to keep trying to notice moments where you appreciate something enough to want to focus on it and amplify that feeling. Remember, it only happens in the present moment.
So this may be worthy of a phone alarm if you want to experiment with it. Your phone vibrates once a day, prompts you with “gratitude,” and you simply look around and notice your surroundings:
At your job? Just think back to when you were scraping by, no money, stuck in addiction, and then realize that you are earning money today, free to make choices, able to buy whatever you need.
Walking into your apartment? Just think back to when you were stuck in the cold rain, miserable, and now you are in your nice warm home.
Whatever the situation, you can always think back and compare to a worse situation, and realize that things are pretty good right now. It may seem counterintuitive, to think of a time when you were miserable, but then when you compare to where you are right now, in the present, you can squeeze more appreciation out of the present moment.
Go forth and be spiritual
Most people who are sitting in 12 step meetings every day are just paying lip service to the idea of being spiritual….without actually putting any practices into motion. A handful of people might pray, usually only once in the evening, and only a slim few will attempt real meditation.
If you adopt a handful of the techniques outlined here, you’ll be way ahead of the pack and well equipped to forge ahead in your recovery journey.
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