When beginning your recovery journey, you may experience a wide variety of emotions. Some may feel relatively foreign, such as joy, compassion, and empathy. Others may feel familiar, like anxiety, frustration, and resentment. It’s common to oscillate between the above extremes, too, finding yourself somewhere in the middle or possibly indifferent. While you may have experienced some joys during active addiction, chances are, those moments were fleeting and felt as though they ended as soon as the drink or drug ran out. In these moments, you possibly experienced fear, fear of what happens when you do “run out,” fear of the feelings of isolation, fear of being vulnerable.
The truth is, you experience fear no matter if you are in recovery or not. The difference is how you work through those fears. During your recovery process, you may reach a point where you are to identify a Higher Power of some kind. However, this can be intimidating and uncomfortable, especially if you don’t have a set belief or don’t want one. Even though you may feel wary of the idea of a Higher Power, it is still a good idea to be as open as you can be to it. This Higher Power, whether we call it God, The Universe, Great Spirit, or something entirely unique to you, is a power greater than yourself that can help you when you are in those moments of fear and isolation. Below are a few things to consider when identifying a Higher Power of your own understanding.
By the time you decide to seek out recovery, you may feel that your Higher Power is upset with you due to the choices you’ve made. You may even find that you are upset with your Higher Power, having experienced the suffering active addiction brought. Though it may feel impossible sometimes, when you follow through on your individual treatment plan, such as attending meetings or going to therapy, you simultaneously keep yourself open and available for things to begin to shift and grow. As this happens, you can become open to the idea of forgiveness and unconditional love, leaving you less afraid to feel those things, as well as to receive them from others.
This can include the relationship you have with your Higher Power, too. When you do not have a Higher Power or do not want one, you can still utilize these principles of forgiveness and unconditional love to make way for the new life you are building in recovery. Those principles and the many more you acquire throughout your journey can be your “Higher Power” just as much as a deity can be. Remember, processes of any kind take time, all you need to be is receptive, and the growth will come.
The process of identifying your Higher Power can be overwhelming. When the smoke clears and you begin your process of identifying a Higher Power, it may be easier to define what your Higher Power isn’t. This is because you may not be as familiar with healthy ideas of love and support and what those things look like in action. You may receive a clearer view of your Higher Power by understanding what you don’t want first. A few ideas of what a Higher Power may not be include:
If you do not have or want a Higher Power, you can simply identify what you want for your life by first identifying what you don’t. For example, if you don’t want inflexibility or to operate from a space of inflexibility, you can apply the principle of flexibility to your everyday life. This can be as simple as adjusting your work schedule a bit to make it to a family event, meeting, or therapy session, or as complicated as letting go of old behavior that you’ve come to realize no longer works for you.
It may feel awkward or intrusive to ask the ones you love what their personal religious or spiritual beliefs are. However, hearing the different ideas and ways beliefs can form may help you feel at ease in your discovery of your Higher Power and how that Higher Power works in your life.
If you can find the courage to consider such a task, the next thing you’d need to figure out would be how you should go about asking such questions. You must take special care to ensure that you are remaining objective towards the answers you receive. Some questions you may want to ask are:
It is imperative to remain mindful of the tone you use to ask such questions, as personal beliefs can be sensitive to some, and it is not your intention to cause harm.
When we begin our recovery process, we can become easily overwhelmed by the steps we’ll need to take to ensure long-term sobriety. Through that stress, we can start to feel the need for a holistic approach that will help us combat the disease of addiction and other co-occurring disorders. At NorthStar Transitions in Boulder, CO, we offer extensive treatment options for both women and men who are looking for a treatment program that can help support them on their path to freedom. We provide an Experiential Therapy and Wellness Program to clients enrolled in our addiction treatment services, which will provide a safe space for our clients to grow through activities such as yoga and guided meditation. We believe that these activities will help clients become comfortable with invaluable skills like teamwork, relying on others, trust, and asking for help. For more information on our program, call us today at (303) 558-6400.
