By Michael Rass
Sink or swim are the metaphorical options for people with addiction. Andrea Carr, Michael Arnold, and Scott Leeper teamed up for a personal guide to recovery in Drowning in Addiction, sharing their first-hand experience with substance use disorder (SUD) and its devastating impact on families. Continue reading “Drowning in Addiction: A Personal Guide to Recovery”
Addiction is a family disease. The Recovery Book advises family members of people in recovery that “Everyone in your family, as well as other people in your lives, has been affected by addiction in some way. Now you all need to work on getting your lives back to some kind of normal.”
Michael Arnold is a recovering alcoholic who now works as an alumni relations manager at the Harmony Foundation. In a recent Facebook Live with her twin sister, Michael and Casey talked about the impact Michael’s addiction and recovery had on their relationship. Both siblings demonstrated how important clear and honest communication is for the family dynamic.
Michael talked about the need to share with “brutal honesty what addiction can do to your family.” Casey talked about how hard it was for her to watch Michael decline in active addiction, realizing there was nothing she could do, that Michael had to save herself.
Michael recalls doing things to her family that “just weren’t nice.” Casey remembers all too well. Seven years ago Michael helped to put her twin sister briefly in jail—just to hurt her. Michael was in such a bad place that to hurt her sister made her feel better.
“I never thought I could be close with Michael again, never thought I could trust her again,” Casey said. But change can happen. Recovery can work miracles. “Michael has changed. She is not the person she was seven years ago,” Casey said. “She is not that selfish person that put me in jail. She’s working very hard at it every day.”
For desperate family members the trick is to be patient and supportive. “Don’t hammer people in recovery about all the mistakes they made in active addiction” all the time. “Show your love,” Casey said. “You need to have grace and patience with them. As family members you have to give them space to recover, the harder you are on them the worse it’s going to be.”
Appealing to people in the audience who have family members with addiction, Casey said, “You have to choose either to be there and support them or walk away. You can’t live in the middle and hold their past wrongdoings against them—that doesn’t help them recover. I have nothing but complete love for Michael now and I’m just so proud of her. It’s been a journey for both of us.”
Michael shared her side of that journey. Only “when I went through rehab did I get the tools to tell myself everyday to have that patience, to be so grateful that I’m sober. I have to know that my family will trust me; that they should realize that I’m a changed person but time is not on my side.”
It’s important to remember that recovery is a process. “I thought simply that Casey and I would be okay now that I’m sober. The relationship would be fine but it wasn’t,” Michael remembers. “Casey gave me that space for about a year to recover, but then she said ‘we need to talk about what happened’ so that we can move forward.”
Casey had to tell Michael what she had done to her and “she took it hard. I love you, I forgive you, but you have to earn the trust back.” That shook Michael, “but now our relationship is even stronger because you have to be able to open up about these things or they will simply fester.”
Making amends is an ongoing process for Michael now and Casey knows it. “Michael is ruthless and relentless about her recovery—she has even written a book about it. She is working hard every single day and that is all you can ask.”
I was 29 years old when I went to treatment. It was a nudge from a Judge that drove me to my first introduction to Harmony Foundation when I called asking for help. At that time I couldn’t imagine my life without alcohol, but I did know that I didn’t want to be miserable anymore. Alcohol may have taken away the bad feelings, but it certainly did not take away the misery, it was an unwanted houseguest that had moved in and was planning to stay.
I will never forget that first call. I was scared, uncertain and feeling hopeless. Sharon, a former Union Boilermaker, originally from Pittsburgh, was my lifeline to my new life in recovery. Sharon was kind and understanding, she eliminated barriers, was honest, and insightful. I had tried different feeble attempts of getting sober that all involved managing and moderation. When it was all said and done, Sharon was quick to point out that everything I tried wasn’t working and said, “Try this!” She added that I was allowed to try things once in my life and never have to try them again if I didn’t like it. So, I tried, came to Harmony and by the grace of my God of my understanding, I haven’t found it necessary to pick up a drink or a drug since that phone call.
Whether you’re a friend, family member or just desperately in despair looking for help, making that first call can be overwhelming. Many people perceive addiction treatment likened to Jack Nicholson in “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” In truth, most addiction treatment is not straightjackets, lockdown facilities and Nurse Ratchet’s.
In fact, good addiction treatment and working with someone in admissions is built on compassion, empathy, strength and guidance. As a person in recovery who went through the admissions process, I can say that the first call makes all the difference.
What can you expect when calling for help? First and foremost you should expect to be treated with dignity and respect. Someone who is willing to answer every question you have. You should expect to be valued enough as an individual that your questions will be answered honestly even if the Admission Staff knows the truthful answer may not be what you want to hear. Remember, you are making a call to save your life not giving someone on the other end an opportunity to close a deal. Insurance does not pay for flights, waving of fees and deductible only means that the revenue has to be made up from somewhere or someone else, that someone else could be you. If services provided and allowable items are different on the phone than the programs website, you have a right and self-responsibility to ask why the difference without being challenged. One of the most critical elements to a successful treatment experience is honesty. This critical element will be missing if the admission process revolves around any kind of dishonesty. You should also expect to work with an organization that will inform you if they cannot meet your needs and they will provide you with direction to programs they have a collaborative relationship with to best meet your needs.
Today, I am an Admissions Manager and since my first and only admission all those years ago, I have been given the good fortune to not just experience the admission process once, or twice, or even 100 times but thousands of times. I remind myself on every call how I was treated on that first call with Sharon, and I am committed daily to respond the way she did. People calling, no matter what the motivator, just want to be heard without judgment and respected. Admissions staff is the first impression of the organization they establish the trust necessary for the individual to begin a process of a willingness to change. Being dishonest, pushy and unclear about expectations sets everyone up for failure.
Each time I work with an individual or family, it is a privilege to be the resource that helps them begin their new journey of sobriety. No two admissions are the same. I honor and respect the clients allowing them to experience their own journey with the admissions process the same as I was.
So as you consider treatment and you inquire about what program is the best fit for you. Remember that that person on the other line may have the one thing you need to help you begin again. One thing I can say that is true for me, every time I try anything that involves the admission process, I learn from it, I grow from it, and most of all I love it.
by Walt Hester
I came into recovery, like so many, with extremely low self-esteem. The joke in recovery is that I didn’t think much of myself, but I was all I thought of. While I entered my 12-step fellowship immediately, it took me years to realize that one good habit I brought with me would serve me and my recovery for years to come.
The founder of The Phoenix, Scott Strode, states that something happens when we partake in athletic endeavors early in recovery. As we begin achieving goals, our self-esteem improves. As this happens, our identity shifts. We are no longer defined by the substance or disease that nearly killed us. We are no longer addicts. We become people in recovery; Survivors.
This is not an automatic event, not a switch that is thrown. This attitude takes time. It also takes more than movement. Exercise is not a replacement for the 12 Steps or therapy. Exercise is an adjunct, another tool in our recover toolbox. This, as it turns out, is something with which most addicts, in recovery or not, can identify; if one is good, more is better.
Exercise can by meditative. When one is hanging off of a rock face, forearms pumped, grip wavering, all one thinks of is the next handhold. The same is true with swimming or cycling or running. Just get through the next movement. This keeps us in the here and now in ways that we had not been capable of in the past. We don’t worry about the mistakes of the past or the mysteries of the future.
Similarly, movement can be a form of prayer. Perhaps there is an issue, a problem or challenge that I will take onto the bike during a long ride or even a walk with my family. The movement seems to lubricate those parts of my mind that help me solve the issue. I could explain the science, but then you would click on to something, anything, else. Just trust me on this.
Movement, exercise, athletics, can also promote fellowship. Many addicts, myself included, isolated in the latter stages of the disease. Shame and resentment drove me away from family and friends. Like the 12-Step programs, finding groups of like-minded people to share this experience helps us to break out of that isolation. We build friendships instead of walls. We relearn how to be a part of a community, instead of a part from. This promotes that sense of belonging that we craved but seemed incapable of before. It also begins to promote accountability. Like exercise, if one feels obligated to show up, one is more likely to follow through.
Exercise improves the bodies and brains of people recovering from addiction. It is also so much more. Our minds clear and our spirits are lifted as we lift more, run faster and climb higher. We feel better about ourselves as we encourage others to reach their goals. It’s another recovery tool. We can never have too much of that.
On any given day at Harmony you can witness life’s challenges and know that a compassionate soul is there to help along the path of healing. The mental health professionals are part of a team at Harmony and work with clients in a way that combines the natural beauty of our campus with the intrinsic values of each client.
To further explain how we know being in nature can help heal, I’d like to share a study out of Stanford University which suggests that time spent in natural settings may improve brain health.
“As more and more of us live in cities, we spend less time in natural settings, including parks. Studies also show that people in urban settings without access to green spaces have higher levels of psychological problems than those with access to green spaces. Is there a definitive connection between time spent in green spaces and mental health? The answer is yes. In a series of two studies, Stanford researchers believe there is a connection between time spent in green spaces and a decrease in “morbid rumination,” what is more commonly thought of as brooding over the negative aspects of our lives.”
“This study investigated the impact of nature experience on affect and cognition. We randomly assigned sixty participants to a 50-min walk in either a natural or an urban environment in and around Stanford, California. Before and after their walk, participants completed a series of psychological assessments of affective and cognitive functioning. Compared to the urban walk, the nature walk resulted in affective benefits (decreased anxiety, rumination, and negative affect, and preservation of positive affect) as well as cognitive benefits (increased working memory performance). This study extends previous research by demonstrating additional benefits of nature experience on affect and cognition through assessments of anxiety, rumination, and a complex measure of working memory (operation span task). These findings further our understanding of the influence of relatively brief nature experiences on affect and cognition, and help to lay the foundation for future research on the mechanisms underlying these effects.”
The study further asks, what does this mean for everyone?
1. “Spend Time in Natural Settings – What can it hurt to take a daily walk in the park or spend time sitting on your back porch looking at the creek (if you’re lucky enough to have that situation)? Take your lunch to a natural setting and spend vacation time at least partially in the outdoors. Doing so will immediately improve your mental health.
2. Move – Movement is good for us. No doctor in the world says that it’s healthy to sit at home and do nothing. But instead of going to the gym, find a nature trail to hike or bike, golf, or take a stroll in the green belt. Even if you don’t get your heart rate up to aerobic activity levels, you’ll still mentally benefit from the movement.”
The healing journey for a client at Harmony can include a client expressing their emotions in a calmly lit room, moving forward on a walk to the river at Rocky Mountain National Park or learning a really cool coping skill. One of many examples of coping skills taught to clients is called 5,4,3,2,1 where one is taught to evoke all five senses. This is a great coping skill where a client is taught to tap into all 5 senses within as a viable resource. Another experience often happening at Harmony is witnessing clients as well as staff simply spending time with Cooper, our therapy dog.
As a mental health provider at Harmony, I have noticed clients seemingly more calm during sessions when we are taking a walk together in nature. I believe they appreciate the fact we are walking and talking side by side as opposed to sitting across from one another. Clients have stated, “Wow, this is better than sitting in an office, this is a nice place to get treatment.”
Since Harmony offers outings each week at an indoor climbing gym or hike in the park, depending on the weather, clients are able to take advantage of the natural beauty and the healing attributes of moving Harmony has to offer.
Harmony is a special place that helps client’s feel safe, accepted and cared about. For some on their path of healing it is a beginning, for others it is a renewal; for all whose path includes a stay at Harmony, it is a step toward healing in the arms of nature’s embrace.
Kelly Baker, MA, LAC, LPC, NCC
Mental Health Professional, Harmony Foundation, Inc.
References:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/22/how-nature-changes-the-brain/?mwrsm=Facebook&fb_ref=Default&_r=0
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/28/8567.abstract
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204615000286
http://www.girlscouts.org/
by Dr. Annie Peters: Harmony Foundation’s Chief Clinical Officer
Harmony has been helping people who are struggling with addiction to find recovery since 1969. While Harmony is well-known in Colorado for providing clients and families with support and quality services for many decades, reputation means little without demonstrating that people do, in fact, get better.
Defining what recovery is, and demonstrating that people who use Harmony’s services begin finding recovery, are essential components to the provision of ethical and effective care. Harmony’s mission is to provide the foundation for recovery from the diseases of drug and alcohol addiction. If clients leave treatment and begin re-developing lives of purpose, satisfaction, and rewarding relationships, we know we have helped to provide the foundation for a journey toward wellness.
Harmony contracts with an external research organization, OMNI Institute, to examine treatment outcomes regarding substance use, psychological well-being, and improvement in life satisfaction.
Data collection for the most recent outcomes study performed by OMNI began in March 2015, and the study was finalized in 2017. One hundred and forty eight (148) Harmony clients were assessed upon admission, at discharge, and at 1, 6, and 12 months post-discharge. The percentage of clients who responded at these time points were, respectively, 100%, 94%, 63%, 61%, and 64%. While results cannot be generalized to clients who were unable to be reached for follow up, a number of statistically significant findings can be reported and provide valuable information about the effectiveness of care provided at Harmony.
DEMOGRAPHICS
Understanding the people we serve helps us provide the highest quality of care by tailoring treatment interventions to the specific needs of our clients. In this study, the average age of clients was 38, with a range from 18-65. Sixty-four percent (64%) of clients identified as male, and 36% identified as female. All clients were asked to identify their “primary drug.” The majority of clients (74%) identified this as alcohol, followed by heroin (10%), methamphetamine (6%), other opiates/painkillers (5%), and marijuana (3%).
Clients under the age of 25 typically used more substances – the average number was four. The primary drug differed by age as well; clients under 25 identified heroin or alcohol (38% for each), followed by marijuana (13%).
REASONS FOR DRUG/ALCOHOL USE
Clients were asked about the reasons they used alcohol and drugs, and their responses help us understand how to help people better. Many clients (30%) said they used substances for “self-medication” or emotional pain/mental illness (28%). Other common answers were using for pleasure (22%), to escape reality (15%), habit (13%), or pain (5%).
PREVIOUS TREATMENT AND REASONS FOR SEEKING TREATMENT
About a third of clients had been to a detox treatment before, and about a third reported a prior treatment for substance use. Another third reported never having any treatment for drug or alcohol use.
About half of clients surveyed reported a prior diagnosis of a mental health disorder, with the most common diagnoses being depression (37%), anxiety (25%), ADHD (11%), PTSD (7%), and bipolar disorder (6%).
Most clients said that coming to treatment was a personal decision (71%). Other common reasons given for seeking treatment were a family situation, health reasons, a legal situation, or a job-related reason.
POST TREATMENT OUTCOMES
After leaving Harmony, clients were asked at 1, 6, and 12 months about their drug and alcohol use. They were asked whether they had been continuously abstinent from drugs/alcohol since discharge, and they were also asked if they had been clean/sober for the previous 30 days. As can be seen in the table below, over half of clients at one year post-discharge had been continuously abstinent since coming to Harmony, and 71% of them had been abstinent for the past 30 days.
Follow-up %Abstinent for %Continuously Abstinent
Time Past 30 Days since Discharge
1-month 77% (n=88) 68% (n=91)
6-month 64% (n=90) 57% (n=91)
12-month 71% (n=90) 54% (n=95)
Abstinence since treatment is not the only outcome that demonstrates that clients are recovering and have improved their lives. In this study, we also wanted to determine how quality of life had improved for people who had come to Harmony. So all those surveyed were asked questions about relationships with family and friends, physical/emotional health, and other factors. Clients reported significant improvements over time in their family relationships, friendships, spiritual connection, physical health, emotional health. They also reported significant positive changes in their ability to handle finances and handling problems or conflicts, as well as improvements in self-respect. There were also significant reductions in arrests and other legal problems post-discharge, as well as improvements in employment status.
Because so many of our clients have co-occurring mental health issues, we also asked questions about symptoms of anxiety and depression. There were statistically significant reductions in symptoms such as hopelessness, fatigue, nervousness, restlessness, sadness, and feelings of worthlessness.
WHAT PREDICTS ABSTINENCE
In order to continuously improve Harmony’s services, we wanted to determine if there were factors that were associated with post-treatment abstinence. For example, do older clients have better abstinence rates than younger clients? Is primary drug related to abstinence rates, such that clients who primarily used alcohol do better than clients who primarily used heroin?
Interestingly, the only variable that predicted abstinence was the reduction in mental health symptoms during treatment. In other words, the more clients’ symptoms of depression and anxiety decreased during their time at Harmony, the more likely they were to remain abstinent after leaving treatment.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE
One of the most compelling and recurrent themes in this study was the importance of mental health care and support. As mentioned above, self-medication of emotional pain and mental health issues were primary reasons clients reported for using drugs and alcohol. Half of our clients had co-occurring mental health diagnoses. And the single best predictor of post-treatment abstinence was the reduction in symptoms of depression and anxiety that clients reported during their treatment at Harmony. For the past few years, Harmony has worked to improve the quantity and quality of support provided for mental health issues. We have added mindfulness groups, a trauma coping skills group, and education groups on a variety of mental health topics. Clients can receive both addiction-specific counseling at Harmony and counseling specific to psychological issues. Given the results of this study, Harmony plans to continue enhancing the services provided to help people recover not just from chemical use, but from underlying emotional issues that can increase risk for relapse.
While the results of this study show that Harmony clients do, overall, have improved lives and decreased drug and alcohol use, we want to help more individuals and more families to recover, with more significant reductions in substance problems and more improvement in life functioning. Harmony is committed to continuous improvement in our services to provide even better care and help more people find their way to recovery. Studies such as this one remind us why this work is so important and why we need to always examine ourselves and find areas for improvement.
CLIENT FEEDBACK
At the end of each survey, clients were asked if they had any feedback about the Harmony experience. Common answers were that they appreciated the support provided by staff as well as the community they built with the other clients. While data can provide us with important feedback on who we serve and how we can continually do better at helping people find recovery, it is these comments that remind us why we do what we do at Harmony:
“I have come to better understand myself, my need to use, and what I am struggling with so that I won’t need to turn to drugs and alcohol to deal with my problems.”
“I’m really grateful to Harmony…it helped me a lot… I was in really bad shape. If I would have went somewhere else, I probably wouldn’t still be clean.”
“The staff here was absolutely amazing and seemed to truly care about me and my recovery. They were instrumental to my time here and truly helped me recognize qualities and worth in myself that make my sobriety worth fighting for.”
— Carol O’Dowd, MPA, M.Div, RP President, Colorado Association of Psychotherapists
Recovery, whether from addiction or a difficult situation, is aided by listening to the seen and the unseen. Often, how we listen causes us to not see what is in front of us. Have you ever walked into a familiar room to meet with family, friends or business associates and someone points to a new decoration or a piece of furniture in the room? You sat there wondering, “How did that get there?” Sometimes objects go for days being unseen. Our ancestors go unseen flowing as DNA in our veins while being powerful forces making us, us. Some of us grew up in households where we were trained to be addicted whether to alcohol or other substances. We learned to be pawns in a game with our unseen emotions.
Another option is to listen and notice the messages we hold and consciously choose which ones we want to play with instead of letting them play us. When the voice in our head is an old message from Mom, Dad or a memory of destructive family argument from long ago, we can create space between us and the message. We can take a moment to breathe in and hold in our fist the ghoul of anger, fear, frustration or the voice crying out “Go get a drink.” We can then set down the unseen emotion, unclasp our fist and release it. We can breathe out lovingkindness into our pain and sorrow. We can breathe in lovingkindness that we send to that space in our body where we held the destructive emotion. We can tell that portion of our body to relax. We can breathe out lovingkindness to the ghoul in front of us and tell it, “I do not need you right now. Please stay here. For the next 20 minutes I have a project to do a without you.”
Yes, those unseen emotions and old tapes can be so powerful, they keep returning. The practice is to listen carefully so that you can choose the ones you want to influence you. Seeing them as thoughts or emotions gone awry, you can put them inside a doll, rock, pencil holder or other object. Then pick them up and set them aside. If only for a moment, you can walk away without them. Although they may return, each time, they do so with less force. You can listen instead to acts of kindness from those in your past. In one moment you can listen to messages from the unseen to guide you to see more of the world right in front of you. You can consciously choose to spend time with people, animals and spirit beings who inspire you to live in a world of peace.
Go to www.coloradopsychotherapists.com for the mental health services offered by a wide diversity of mental health professionals.
Contact me at president@coloradopsychotherapists.com if you want to join a group that will be exploring the practice of deep listening on Sunday mornings starting in February.
by: Lorie Obernauer, Ph.D., A.C.C
Congratulations! You’re in recovery. You’ve made it through detox and your physical, mental, and emotional health feels more balanced. You have learned a lot about yourself through the treatment process and may be participating in some continuing care programs or recovery support groups. You may have started some new self-care routines. You might have some legal issues that you’re tackling. You’re probably repairing some personal relationships. You may be back to work, thinking about a new job or considering some options for volunteer work. A lot is going on and on some days you feel positive and energized. Other days, you feel depleted: nothing is really wrong, yet nothing feels exactly right.
This is the story of recovery. I’ve been there. I started my recovery in 2006. I’m still in recovery and the challenges continue. There are ups and downs, good days and bad days, lots of new emotions and new experiences. Life feels easier, lots of good things have happened, yet on some days, I wonder: is this all there is? What’s next? Fortunately, I got some great guidance about how to find an answer to that question.
Successful businesses all have a Vision Statement: a declaration of values and purpose. A Vision Statement provides a business with direction for all of its activities. So to discover my direction, to answer “what’s next” I began by crafting a Personal Vision Statement.
A Personal Vision Statement is a brief description of what you want to focus on and accomplish and who you want to become. It’s a way to focus your energy, actions and decision towards the things that are most important to you.
You can start this process by asking yourself some questions:
1. What are the things that I most love to do?
2. What is most important to me right now in my life?
3. What do I want more of in my life?
4. How do I want to feel everyday?
5. What am I meant to contribute to the world?
Then, write 3 – 5 sentences that capture your thoughts. Keep it simple, clear and brief. Include words that reflect your values and a description of how you want to show up as your best self. State positively what you want to do and who you want to become. Write it in the present tense as if it’s already happening!
Finally, use this Personal Vision Statement as a framework for making plans and decisions. If what you’re thinking or doing doesn’t align with your Vision, then adjust what you’re thinking or doing!
Writing a Personal Vision statement is something you can do on your own. You can go online and find many exercises and articles that can help you write your statement. You can also accelerate this process by working with a Life Coach. Find a coach who is trained to help you with this visioning process AND who will support you as you figure out and take the steps to live your vision.
There is a myriad of research that supports the positive impact of visioning. In studies of business and leadership, crafting and sharing vision statements with relevant constituents is considered a “best practice”. Visioning strategies are in used in the fields of science, education and technology to “re-imagine” products, processes and strategic direction. There is also growing evidence that indicates that “values clarification”, which is a major component of the visioning process, impacts life satisfaction, increases personal growth, and even resulted in a reduction in drug use among students who participated in controlled study.
I currently facilitate visioning groups at a local addiction treatment center. some of clients who have participated in the visioning process said:
“It’s the first time I feel optimistic since I’ve been in recovery.”
“Now I know where I’m headed in my life.”
“I’m reconnected to my dreams.”
“I’ve also had a vision for my business that guided my decisions. Now I have a vision for how I want to grow in my personal life.”
My grandmother used to say that “growing old is not for sissies”. Well, neither is recovery. It requires courage and a willingness to accept the “whole you”, your best side and your dark side. It requires resilience and a capacity to try new things, make adjustments when needed and then, try again.
Creating a Personal Vision Statement offers a way to enhance your recovery growth, and create your own answer to “what’s next?”.
Meet Lorie Obernauer, Ph.D., A.C.C.
Lorie Is a certified Life Coach, working exclusively with people who are in recovery from addiction or who are considering whether they have a problem with drugs or alcohol. Lorie comes to her calling in part, because she is in long-term recovery from addiction and has tackled the challenges that are part of the recovery process. In her coaching practice, she uses a strengths-based, practical approach to help clients create a satisfying, productive life while advancing their recovery from addiction. Lorie will help you find solutions and take action to repair those difficult situations that addiction often creates.
Lorie’s past training and career experiences also strengthen her work as an Addiction Recovery-Life Coach. She has a PhD from the University of Pittsburgh and advanced coach training and certification from the International Coaching Federation. She was the Alumni Program manager at a renown addiction treatment center in Colorado. She also founded a national, non-profit organization to help addiction treatment centers create robust Alumni Programs. In her early career, Lorie ran educational programs at the University of Pittsburgh, then owned and operated her own businesses for over 20 years.
Most recently, Lorie has created a new coaching program called VISION TREK. It is designed to help people in recovery develop and implement a personal, relevant life vision, a plan to create the life they want and a strategy for moving forward.
Lorie has a deep, intimate understanding that recovery requires honesty and openness and a dedication to learning and growing everyday, She will inspire you to imagine new possibilities for your life and motivate you to act boldly
By: Khara Brindle
With the closing of 2017, you may be looking to the new year to create resolution or revisit goals in the hope of change. It’s a time to explore goals that are measurable and attainable; it’s a time to create small steps to build self-confidence to remain motivated and hopeful. Perhaps you say “I want to join a gym to help my depression.” You want to work out every day to help your mood but aren’t currently working out on a consistent basis, and not at a gym. So, you find it important to explore your motivation as well as the perceived strengths and challenges of reaching your goal. You learn that smaller steps can support success and agree to working on short-term goals to build confidence and to move towards your long-term goal of working out daily.
Monitoring Motivation
Why is it important to explore motivation around a goal? Research tells us goals around fitness and gym attendance peak in January and dramatically decline by February and March every year. Additional research tells us that we must do something consistently for a minimum of 30 days for it to become a habit. What this conveys to us as human beings is that we need to see results or progress to continue to work hard at a goal. You may normalize this for yourself in understanding the pattern of motivation. You may also explore research on the Stages of Change from Motivational Interviewing as a visual to support yourself in identifying strengths and barriers to change. By being open and honest with yourself, you will be setting yourself up for success. Ask yourself the following questions to fully discover where your motivation lies (and note the Stages of Change in parentheses):
• What do you want to change? (Pre-contemplation to Contemplation)
• What makes that a problem for you? (Contemplation)
• Is it a big enough problem to want something different? (Contemplation)
• How would you achieve the desired change? (Preparation)
• What do you need to support change? (Preparation)
• What would help you to begin? (Action)
• How will you know when you are ready for change? (Action)
• What would help you keep going? (Maintenance)
• Who/What would hold you accountable?
• What would happen if you don’t succeed?
By exploring these questions, you can identify any current strengths or barriers to succeeding and further explore what is needed to progress through the Stages of Change.
Make it Measurable
It isn’t uncommon for someone to identify a goal but not know how to attain it, thus remaining in the stage of contemplation. It becomes our responsibility to break down a long-term or larger goal into measurable, smaller pieces for it to feel worthwhile. Here are some examples of how to make it measurable when identifying a larger, more abstract goal:
I want to be healthy. Logging daily exercise, keeping a food journal, using a mood tracking app
I want to work out. Identifying current exercise habits, exploring interests to increase exercise gradually such as walking at your lunch hour, walking the dog, or taking the stairs instead of the elevator
I want to be more confident. Exploring times in your life you’ve felt confident, gathering meaningful quotes, engaging in values exercises or creating a vision board
I want to be happy. Defining what happy could look like, gratitude journaling, and/or pleasant activities scheduled
Smaller, more measurable efforts can support short-term goals blending into long-term goals over time. By identifying and writing down goals that are measurable, can be reviewed regularly, and can be celebrated when attained, the effort it takes to achieve these goals can feel validated and encourage motivation for the long-term work as well.
Accountability Buddy
Motivation can be internal such as, “I can do this” or external, “she said I can do this.” Identifying a trusted support as an Accountability Buddy can help you achieve your goals. Accountability Buddies are selected as a support person who is aware of your goals and holds you accountable by remaining in regular contact with you on your progress. They may meet with you weekly, monthly or on whatever schedule can help you remain focused and present on the goals you are working towards. Sometimes Accountability Buddies have a similar goal and may participate alongside you, such as going to the gym with you three times per week. Not having to work towards a goal alone can serve as an incentive in absorbing someone else’s positivity when you begin to question your own motivation. You may struggle to recognize the small but important shifts in progress and begin to question why you are working so hard for minimal results. Perhaps they help you recognize the smaller changes that have taken place when you feel the seeds of doubt are planted, thus preventing you from giving up on a goal that is supporting healthy change. By identifying an Accountability Buddy that is supportive throughout the process, you can experience motivation and recognize goal progression, allowing the ongoing growth and change you desire.
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” Barack Obama.
Khara Croswaite Brindle, MA, LPC, ACS, is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the Lowry Neighborhood of Denver, Colorado. She received her Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of Denver with a focus on community based mental health. Khara has experience working with at-risk youth and families, including collaboration with detention, probation, and the Department of Human Services. Khara enjoys working with young adults experiencing anxiety, depression, trauma, relational conflict, self-esteem challenges, and life transitions.
By Jolene Park
As you encounter various experiences, situations, interactions and decisions throughout your day ask yourself this simple question: “Is this nourishing?”
Who are the people that you surround yourself with? Do your friends, family members, co-workers, intimate romantic partners uplift or deplete you? Have you chosen healing mentors, practitioners, healthcare providers who listen and tend to you? What about the environments you place yourself in at work and home? Are they clean, cluttered, and weighed down with stuff literally or metaphorically? What about nature? Do you have a place in nature that you can access and visit easily and frequently?
What about those conversations you have in your own head? Or the conversations you have with others? Are they uplifting, supportive, nourishing? Do you speak up for yourself or do you swallow and suppress your feelings, words, or truth? Do you nourish yourself with quiet time, reflection, rest? Are you in a nourishing work situation and environment? Does your work provide nourishing compensation for your contributions? Do you make nourishing decisions about how you save and spend money?
Do you move, stretch your body in a self-compassionate (nourishing) way? The style of exercise or time spent exercising isn’t as important as how you use exercise. Exercise is not meant to be a self-punishment for something that you ate or drank, instead exercise is meant to boost endorphins and build physical and mental strength. How do you use exercise?
Which foods do you eat on a regular basis? Does the food you choose energize and fortify you? Why do you select the food that you do? Is it delicious, nutrient rich and nourishing? Or is it convenient, processed, and something that you’re eating because you think you should? How often do you cook your own nourishing meals?
Do you connect to something outside of yourself on a regular basis? Prayer, gratitude, forgiveness or other practices? What sustains and anchors you? How about play and pleasure? Or is this an area that’s malnourished and pushed to the back burner? Is pleasure a forbidden, scary thing? If yes, why? And finally, once your cup is full with true nourishment in various forms how do you offer that out to others? This isn’t just about what you’re getting, accumulating, doing, and using, there is a boomerang effect to nourishment as well. Once you have filled up your own cup it’s time to help “feed” and uplift others.
Building a supportive, consistent routine of nourishing practices, habits, relationships, and choices is the true nourishment that sustains and strengthens us.
This is not about being perfect, punishing yourself or being a purist. Instead, this is about bringing ease, fun, and enjoyment (healthy nourishment) to all areas of your life. We live in a time when we have access to more Healthy Discoveries – resources, options, practices and support than ever before. Start now. Make nourishment a part of your daily focus.
To Learn More about Jolene Park and Healthy Discoveries, Visit:
www.healthydiscoveries.com