Healing our Brokenness with Self-Love

Learning to love ourselves unconditionally – through our addictions and depression, through all of our life challenges and obstacles – is one of the most important elements of recovery. Learning self-love is far from a quick fix. It is a lifelong process that involves unprogramming all of the limiting and self-disparaging beliefs we’ve adopted about ourselves, and reprogramming our minds to love and accept and ourselves instead. Struggling with addictions and mental health issues can leave us feeling broken inside. We feel damaged. We feel as though we’ve ruined our lives and those of the people we care about. We can feel incomplete, empty and deeply lonely. How do we heal this brokenness inside us? The answers we’re seeking lie in discovering the sources of our pain. What first caused us to feel broken? What things have compounded that feeling over the years? Perhaps a traumatic loss at an early age, such as a death or divorce in the family, first made you feel broken, abandoned and alone. Maybe your unhealthy relationships later in life triggered those original fears of abandonment and loss and exacerbated the unhealed brokenness within you. Along with discovering where and how our feelings of brokenness originated, we can start to be more mindful of how they show up in our daily lives. Is your self-talk a reflection of your inner pain? Do you speak to yourself in belittling, critical and judgmental ways? Do you beat yourself up? Do you struggle with self-blame? Do you constantly feel like you’re not good enough? Do you carry your guilt and shame with you? These are signs you are operating from a place of self-rejection rather than self-acceptance. When we reject parts of ourselves, the things we think are bad, shameful, abnormal or weird, we are denying ourselves our own self-love and self-respect. We lose sight of our worth. Start to notice how you think and feel about yourself. We very often think, feel and behave in unconscious ways. Learning new patterns of self-love means recognizing the old ones and noticing when they arise. Actively put your energy behind directing your thoughts in new ways to create new thought patterns of self-love and self-acceptance. Become your own ally. “I love myself. I believe in myself. I am strong. I am brave. I am healing.” With time and repetition, we can reprogram our subconscious minds to fuel our progress and healing rather than our self-rejection and brokenness. Let Recovery Ways support you in your recovery process. Call 1-888-986-7848 for more information.