Recovery Enthusiast/ Recovery for Women

Psychologists have a name for that. It is actually part of our stress response system. You might have heard of the fight or flight response. Psychologists have recently recognized a third characteristic of this response which is freeze . The freeze response is a way of protecting us from danger by a sort of  camouflage with not moving; you become "invisible." The thing is, our stress response automatically triggers regardless if it's an actual life and death situation or psychological stress. When you are overwhelmed and feeling stressed out, it's vital to reduce the intense feelings. I have another post that goes into more detail about TIPP skills they use in DBT , and you can click on the link here for that post. Once you reduce the intense emotions, then you can think cognitively. What I'm going to talk about in this post is more of a preventative measure, and by doing the skills, you will hopefully prevent feeling overwhelmed. Like anything else, they ...

  We all experience stress, but it can be detrimental to our recovery to reduce the overwhelming stress. Here are several ways you can reduce stress in your life. 1.       Practice meditation . All you need is 5 minutes a day to start with your meditation practice. It's all about consistency. It's kind of like going to the gym. It is more beneficial to go to the gym several times a week and work out for half an hour than going once a week and working out for two hours. Meditation practice consists of anything from self-guided meditation to listening to music or listening to Mother Nature. It helps to focus on your breathing and allow yourself just to be. It is perfectly normal for your mind to wander. When it does, just gently and nonjudgmentally bring it back to your breath. That is the exercise. Meditation is the practice of your mind wandering, and you bringing it back to the present moment. When your mind is at ease, it is less likely to be stressed. ...

    DBT's TIPP skills Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) uses acronyms for almost every skill. TIPP stands for T emperature, I ntense exercise, P aced breathing and P rogressive relaxation. The theory or the reasoning behind it is when we are feeling intense emotions - whether that be stress, anxiety, fear, overwhelmed, etc., our body goes into fight or flight mode. This is an innate reaction (innate meaning that we have no control over). It happens automatically. It's a survival skill to protect us from danger. So if there's a  woolly mammoth chasing us and we need to either fight or flee, our bodies react very quickly. We automatically respond to this danger by increasing heart rate, breathing more shallow, and digestion actually stops, and so does the part of the brain that problem solves. So the critical part of the brain that, you know, makes decisions based on facts, and all that stuff is put on pause. W e don't need it when we're responding automatica...

I don't know about you, but I didn't get sober to be miserable. I had spent years trying to figure out this sobriety thing I was in and out of the halls of AA and treatment centers. And I had had various lengths of sobriety. But there seemed to be something missing, something I wasn't getting. There were times that I had felt peace and serenity but true contentment? What was that? Over the past few years, I have realized or recognized some of the key elements in the various programs that I had attended AA, refuge recovery, the different programs I was researching NLP, DBT, CBT, and I started listening to motivational speakers such as Tony Robbins, Dean Graziosi, Mel Robbins, and Jens Sicero. All of them had similar approaches, although their techniques might have been a little different. I also was trying to find motivational speakers, particularly women in recovery, and I didn't see many actually; I didn't find any that I could identify with. So as I started learni...

 I was supposed to go for a walk this morning. My daughter called and asked if I wanted to go to her house for lunch. It's been a while since I went to visit her and I had been working very hard at work, school, and creating my online course. So I was happy for the break. I finished some homework in the morning and I figured I could go for a walk with her and my grandson. It was very chilly outside. We did go outside to play for a bit but no walk. I haven't' been getting my walks in after work because it gets dark early and by the time I get home it's too dark.  These are my top three excuses; lack of time, it's too dark, and my favorite             It's too cold out!!! I need to find a way. I need to change the plan. I know when things are not working and I'm not achieving my goal I need to change the plan not the goal!! change of plan 1. On my days off go in the morning before I do anything else and get distracted 2. Take a break at w...

 I've been studying stress a lot lately. I've studied it in the past, but my most recent course has brought me some new information and new ideas about where stress comes from and how we deal with it. Now I know what you're thinking, "Doreen, I already know what stresses me. It's my job, or it's my kids, my elderly parents, my S/O, and don't even get me started on traffic jams!" The truth of the matter that these external factors are not the root cause of stress.  But let me back up a bit. First of all, Why do we have "stress"? Well, we have an automatic response to danger. You've probably already have heard about the "fight or flight" response. Way back when a wooly mammoth was chasing us, our sympathetic nervous system responded by producing a hormone (really a group of hormones, but to keep it simple, we'll just say the primary one, cortisol). Our bodies would then temporarily shut down other non-essential organs or syst...

Good morning ⛾. I sit here at 4 am to start my day. Yes, it is by choice . I have made a commitment, and by golly, I'm going to follow through. Since COVID hit, I've had to rethink my approach to becoming a motivational speaker and life coach. You see, I was developing skills to do lectures and travel the world, helping people, particularly people with substance abuse issues. Like many of you, COVID changes that completely. But it's not all dome and gloom. Due to COVID, I've been forced to do my schooling online. And due to COVID , I've had to get created with how I was going to motivate and help people.  I've mentioned before that I am now part of a mastermind platform. I have been developing an online course to help addicts and alcoholics deal with life, particularly with being overwhelmed in this pandemic. While creating this course and taking several attempts and redo's, I have developed a liking not only for course development but also for writing in g...

 I've been listening to a lot of motivational audiobooks. The lastest one You Were Born Rich by Bob Proctor, not a new release by any means. He talks about the saying " you   reap what you sow" . He explains it in a way I haven't heard before. He says "you sow in a season and you reap in a season but you don't do both in the same season". He goes on to say that most people give up too fast and that success has more to do with grit than anything else. I know for me when I've been working hard on something and get antsy for the reward and at times I feel I must not be doing something right or that it's not meant to be because nothing is happening (or at least not how or when I want it to). When I look back at all the things that I tried to do or become I notice a pattern. That pattern is I get so far and then stop, quit, maybe do something else .  How many of us have given up before the miracle? If we had just hanged in there a little bit longer...