Category: Question and redefine everything

“The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.” Socrates

Over 2500 years after Socrates determined the definition of terms to be the beginning of wisdom, we seem to have lost the importance of this critical practice.
Depending on how we define things, different avenues open up in front of us and other options cease to exist.

The way we define the terms of our life shapes our reality!

Join me in questioning and redefining the important elements of life in a way that quiets our inner critic and soothes our neurobiology to replace stress with peace. I welcome you to question my definitions and share your own.

The Problem of Addiction and Recovery

We have eradicated many of what used to be fatal diseases and also increased our life expectancy to the highest it has ever been.  Yet, we are in the midst of a significant global health crisis, which does not align with our incredible medical advances.  

We all recognize heart disease as one of the major killers of our species. But do you know which disease wrecks more lives than heart disease and cancer combined? Addiction!

Perhaps you think that this problem does not impact you.  After all, you are neither a homeless, opioid addict nor a character in a Quentin Tarantino movie.

In this article, I invite you to reconsider.

Recovery from addiction is a daunting challenge for the individual, family, and for our society. But if we unmask the real problems of addiction, perhaps we can come up with more effective solutions for recovery. 

Although I am not an addiction professional, eliminating obstacles to recovery from addiction is a personal mission for me. This mission began when I was sixteen and lost a loved one to a drug overdose.

For the last thirty years, I have been a committed advocate of addiction recovery. I began this work in college when I volunteered at the “Council for drug problems”. And today, a big part of my work as a Integrative Wellness coach and speaker involves providing addiction professionals with effective tools against compassion fatigue and burnout.

The privilege of working with these incredible individuals has taught me much about what the real problem with addiction is. I have also learned what it means to rise like the phoenix from the ashes and begin a new life.

Addiction and recovery

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil

This proverb of the three wise monkeys seems to encapsulate pretty well our problems with addiction. Our lack of moral responsibility and our choice to look the other way on this very solvable problem, may be the most lethal component of this issue.

  1. See No Evil: We don’t see addiction for what it really is

 

We often view addiction as a weakness, character flaw, or a punishable crime. However, addiction is a disease, which involves well-substantiated alterations of our brain’s structures and functions. Science informs us that the disease of addiction is a “brain disorder that is characterized by engagement in rewarding stimuli despite the adverse consequences.”

Regardless of our personal history, our common biology propels us to act in ways that get us closer to pleasure and away from pain. If we experienced events in our early life that disrupted the proper development of certain parts of our brain, we may be prone to turn to a substance for relief from pain. (Emotional, or physical.)

But we don’t have to be an opioid addict to suffer from this affliction.

Many of us turn to perfectly legal activities to activate the reward center of our brain despite their adverse consequences. These may include alcohol, work, shopping, video games, social media, or something as simple as food.

Addiction is a treatable disease, but we have to see it for what it is for effective recovery to occur.

  1. Hear No Evil: Stigma and shame.

Stigma is defined as “the mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person.” 

Here is how Stigma shows up as a problem with addiction. Historically, instead of joining hands to create paths to recovery for our fellow humans who struggle with addiction, we have cast them out and punished them. We throw people who are not well into the criminal justice system and make it impossible for them to get well or return to a healthy, productive reality.

Can you imagine punishing a fellow human being for having hypertension, diabetes,or obesity?  Sixty-seven percent of us struggle with weight issues or obesity. How would putting us away solve this problem?

  1. Speak No Evil: Fear makes addiction a silent killer.

Of the twenty million Americans who are struggling with substance misuse, only 10% seek treatment. 

The shame and stigma of addiction drive us to suffer alone and prevent us from seeking help. We are afraid to come forth into the light because of fear of the consequences. Thus, we are deprived of the possibility of treatment and recovery. The problem with hiding our issues with addiction is that it cuts off our lifeline to solutions.

Many people around us struggle with addiction, but we will never know if we don’t speak about it. By hiding our struggles and not celebrating our stories of recovery, we deprive one another of the support and resources to recover. Our hearts have been closed for so long because of our fear of being judged and losing connection.We can gain the relief we need through meaningful connection and kinship with others who perhaps suffer too. But this solution is hi-jacked by our fear. 

The unknown is a significant risk factor for our health,as is social isolation. It is not too late to take an active stance and break the silence of addiction.

If you personally are suffering in silence, know that you are not alone!

Call 1-800-662-HELP (4357). This is a free and confidential treatment, referral,and information services line open 24 hours/7 days a week.The service is operated by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

Final thoughts

Almost half a century ago, a Professor of psychology named Bruce Alexander came across a compelling discovery in a now famous addiction experiment that he called “Rat Park”.

He found that we do not become addicted to activities that have adverse consequences because we are flawed. We engage in addictive behaviors because we do not have access to healthy ways to overcome the challenges of modern life. These healthy ways include connection to others and a sense of belonging.

The rats in the Rat Park experiment that lived in a housing colony, rather than in an isolated cage, were more resistant to addiction. When we have a solid sense of belonging (much like the rats in the Rat Park experiment), we have a positive way to stay closer to pleasure and further away from pain. We are able to do this without the adverse consequences of addictive substitutes.

I don’t mean to overlook the differences that the contributions of our individual histories of vulnerability, genetic make-ups and environments have on the problem of addiction.

I also do not intend to down-play the unique experiences and challenges that different forms of addiction present to our fellow human beings.

But I do agree with Professor Alexanderon the following point.

Our problem with addiction is much more of a social problem than it is an individual disorder.

We need to replace discrimination with compassion, punishment with compassionate care, and fear with early-addiction education and harm-reduction efforts. When we do this, then we may have the opportunity to solve the problem of addiction.

And we can then begin to end our global health crisis.

Recovery Tips When Facing a Significant Challenge.

challenge

Life is beautiful. Yet along with all of its wonderful parts, life also comes with a significant amount of challenges.

Right when we think we have done enough work to enjoy a sense of safety, stability and order, some new crisis shows up that disturbs our peace and leaves us feeling overwhelmed, frustrated and alone.

Perhaps a significant relationship ends, we lose our job, or a family member suffers an unexpected illness.

 I recently found myself in the midst of two significant family crises, involving two of the most important people in my life. These life developments came about, right when I had finally established a wonderful balance of living my life in alignment with my values. I launched my business, Myndzen, and was beginning to get some wonderful results helping Care Giving Professionals develop sustainable resilience against burnout and compassion fatigue.

With these family crises, my energy had to be redirected to elements I had not planned for.

I hope you did not take personally the lack of my on-line presence. I had to re-prioritize, re-distribute my energy, and take the necessary time to find a new balance based on my new life circumstances. I am so happy to be back with you again!

Sometimes, adverse life situations are long-term consequences of our own actions. Other times, they relate to things outside of our control.

Either way, the big question is: How do we minimize the pain and speed up our recovery when we face a significant challenge in our life?

Here are some strategies that were surprisingly effective in my personal experience.

  1. Take some activities off your plate.

When some unexpected twist of fate shows up in our life, we feel a palpable energy deficit.  The way we usually attempt to fix this is by sacrificing self-care, giving up things we enjoy, or working late.

Let’s face it, when we deal with major stressors, self-compassion goes out of the window and we become rather self-critical. Right?

But does the inner critic provide us with the support we need to overcome adversity?

The world’s most prominent expert on self-compassion, Kristin Neff, helped me realize that self-criticism activates our stress response, which is already over-activated. We are only physiologically designed to elicit our stress response occasionally. When we are dealing with a crisis, we need to purposefully create ample space to revive in between sprints.

When a major life change shows up, what can you realistically take off your plate, at least temporarily, to maintain access to the problem-solving abilities of your powerful brain? It is both okay and necessary to give yourself the permission to do so.

  1. Be with the pain of the challenge you are facing with equanimity.

When things fall apart, we face the immediate, realistic consequence—the loss of a person whose presence is significant for us, or the direct loss of financial resources associated with losing our job. Yet often times, there is a significant amount of suffering that stems not from the event itself, but from the narrative that accompanies a painful life situation. We may find ourselves going down the road of feeling guilty about the time we did not spend with the loved one that we lost, or envisioning all the possible things that could go  wrong when facing an unexpected re-organization at our workplace. The truth is, 95% of all the things we worry about do not actually happen. What does happen when we allow our mental activity to focus on regrets about the past and worries about the future is to short-circuit our thinking brain. The other thing that also happens, is an extended release of cortisol, which compromises the optimal performance of our body systems.

When events happen that take you off-balance, lean toward the pain and let it be without resisting or exaggerating it. Everything is temporary and this too shall pass. I promise.

  1. Recognize the human connectedness in all of life’s struggles.

When something happens that is linked to a negative outcome, we define it as failure. A sense of shame hides below the brave face we put on for the world, which leads to isolation. The truth is, we all have our fair share of vulnerabilities and the fear that “we are not good enough” is universal. The fabulous, grounded-theory research by Dr. Brene Brown has added much evidence to support this truth. This false sense of separation is a huge obstacle to self-compassion and connection, which is, after all, the most potent pain reliever there is!

Next time you are suffering, what if beyond acknowledging your suffering to yourself, you openly speak about your experience to people who care about you and support you?

Sometimes life gets more complicated than what we think we can handle emotionally and physically.

However, most of the time, it is during the difficult times that we feel compelled to re-shuffle our deck of cards, let go of things that no longer serve us, and chart a new course that is more aligned with our values and purpose.

Although sometimes I experience a great degree of intensity and discomfort in my life, I prefer to deal with it from an inner sense of calm and balance, while openly recognizing that this is part of our human experience.

I know that we live in a culture that does not give us permission for falls, failures,and imperfections. Yet the only way to change that is to slowly, but surely, plant seeds of kindness for ourselves. If we purposely replace self-judgment with self-compassionand isolation with connection, we may just realize that we have plenty of resources and support to transform unfortunate events into catalysts for positive change.

Self Worth Matters

self worth

What if I was to tell you that your sense of your self-worth is directly proportional to your happiness in life? Have you ever pondered what on earth self-worth is?The dictionary defines self-worth as “the sense of one’s own value or worth as a person.” But how do we get to value ourselves? Well, one thing is for sure: None of us are born with it.

Here are the two ways we can get a healthy dose of self-worth:

1. Learn it from responsive primary caregivers in our early life, or

2. Cultivate it through dedicated “self-work” as an adult.

Origin of self-worth

Believe it or not, the value we place on ourselves in the world begins forming in our mother’s womb alongside the development of our nervous system as early as twenty-eight days after our conception! As an infant, our worth is shaped by how we are perceived by our first attachment figures—our parents. Our brain gets sculpted by the information it actually processes, so a nurturing environment ideally will form the blueprint of how we should expect life to go for us, which is directly related to our perception of our place in this world. Imagine our brain as a network of freeways taking us to different destinations.

When we feel a need like hunger, as a baby, we do not yet know what that leads to. If the response from our mother comes in the form of a feeding, that builds a “freeway” in our brain’s neural circuitry, which takes us to a place where we feel reflected and seen. Therefore, a positive implicit memory forms about our place in the world. (Implicit is a memory that cannot be recalled consciously.)

Of course what I call “a freeway” is basically a connection between our neurons (synapses). These connections represent the main channels of information flow and storage in our brain.

In early childhood, hundreds of synapses are formed per second. It is within these connections and not in plain sight, where how much we value ourselves forms.

Later, as children, we process more data from the outside world, creating more pathways of being, while in the background; we chisel away parts of ourselves that are not reflected by the outside world. Sadly, storing away what the external environment, does not reward, can lead to us having a diminished sense of self-worth over time without even realizing it.

The delightful Dr. Brene Brown has pretty much proven in over fifteen years of grounded theory research (generation of theory from systematic research), that our issues with self-worth are universal!

That means that although we may not want to admit it or be consciously aware of it, we could all improve our experience of life (even just a tad) by investing some of our attention in uncovering areas of improvement in how much we truly value ourselves.

Here is a list of behaviors that give away that one has a wounded sense of self-worth. If you identify with any of the items below, be happy, because addressing these issues is also the “to-do list” to get on the pathway to living the most beautiful experience of life ever imaginable.

-We look for approval in external sources, although we do not like to admit it!

-We are not that good at setting boundaries. We have a hard time saying no, although that makes us very frustrated on the inside.

-Although we are very good at playing the role of a good relationship partner in the beginning of a relationship, deep down, we have a fear of dependency, so we will often sabotage our relationships— even the ones that are truly wonderful.

-We have a hard time taking responsibility for our own actions and prefer to blame others when things do not work out in life.

-Although we are very smart and eloquent, we often contradict ourselves. What we think, what we say, and what we do are not in harmony. (Based on Mahatma Gandhi’s definition, that is the opposite of happiness.)

-We are not comfortable expressing our own feelings and needs, so instead we take the stance that we don’t have needs, going against our primary force in life— the need for human connection! When we are not satisfied with another person, we give them the silent treatment.

-We have the propensity to take things personally.

-Although we may create a really beautiful exterior, our deep, hidden, fragile sense of self, may lead us to seek to have power over another in order to elevate our sense of self. This can range from mild passive- aggressive behaviors all the way to different types of abuse.

In extreme cases when someone’s damaged sense of self-worth is the result of a traumatic experience like sexual abuse in childhood, one can completely “kill off” the real self in exchange for a false self, which can lead not only to maladaptive behaviors, but also to a wide range of personality disorders that can greatly impact ones’ odds of being able to successfully navigate through life.

A healthy sense of self-worth holds riches beyond comprehension that are directly related to all noble human pursuits. Understanding our own neurobiology and our selves, can be a gateway to the incredible freedom of personal transformation. We don’t actually have to be a scientist to take advantage of the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of neuroplasticity— the process by which our brain can be changed and re-wired throughout the course of our life by environmental interventions.

We can change the pathways that have been created in our brain from our past experience and re-write the narrative of our story.

And we can start by the simple practice of bringing to our awareness the narrative of our thoughts. Anything outside of our awareness is also outside of our control to change!

Then we have to be ready to cut the lifeline to excuses. But that is a whole different story that I will tell you another time!

Self Worth matters was first published on RecoveryView.com, an Online journal on March 8, 2018.