One of the reasons why our addictions and mental illnesses affect us so powerfully is that everything we go through, every issue, challenge, difficulty and crisis, affects us not only mentally and emotionally but also energetically. Our energy is comprised of everything we do, think and feel. It is our fears, our pain, our sensitivities and our wounds. It is also our joy, our hope and faith. It is the life force coursing through us. It is our beliefs. When we struggle with addiction, depression and other mental health issues, our energy has become one of addiction – dependence, attachment, neediness and pain, and within all of that is an energy of fear. We’re so consumed by fear that we allow it to ruin our lives. We’re afraid of feeling our pain. We’re afraid of facing ourselves. We desperately avoid seeking our truth, and we try to distract ourselves from it in any way we can. We self-medicate with drugs and addictive behaviors to try to numb ourselves from our pain. With this energy of fear come denial and emotional suppression, silence, secrecy and shame. The unhealthy coping mechanisms we develop are reflections of our self-hate and insecurity, our self-rejection and fears of inadequacy. We continue to hurt ourselves and become trapped in cycles of self-destruction and self-sabotage.
When we are struggling with any kind of resistance, and for us as addicts chronic dependence issues, we experience blockages in the flow of our energy, causing us all kinds of mental, emotional and physical difficulties. Our chakras, or energy centers, and our meridians, or energy pathways, are clear representations of how our energy, our emotions, our thoughts and our physical bodies all work together to either keep us in good health or make us sick. When there is an illness in any one of these areas, our entire energy system is impacted, throwing off our equilibrium and causing us mental, emotional and physical pain and distress. Our mental illnesses really do affect our entire systems, and each organ is connected to a different emotion, for example fear is connected to our kidneys, grief to our lungs, and anger to our liver. Our energy runs through our entire bodies, affecting every part of us. When we’re addicted to a substance or behavior, our energy of fear and the subconscious programming of our limiting beliefs make us afraid that we can’t cope without our drug of choice. We feel we can’t live without it. Our temptation is so strong and so forceful, and we convince ourselves that we’re weak, that we’re powerless over it. We resign ourselves to believing we’re nothing more than addicts, not strong enough to empower and nurture ourselves.
Understanding the energy created by addiction, and all of the energetic causes that might have contributed to our addictive patterns in the first place, can help us learn ourselves more deeply and know ourselves more intimately, enabling us to heal ourselves. We can add energy healing to our recovery program. We can explore things like Reiki, acupuncture, acupressure, tapping, chakra alignment, and other energy attuned practices. Yoga, meditation, writing and other forms of creative self-expression are all powerful forms of processing, aligning and releasing energy. Knowing ourselves is a process, and it takes time and practice. We’re often afraid to explore our inner selves. The energy we carry can feel too overwhelming and too heavy. What we often don’t realize is that we can learn to shift our energy ourselves, both with energy healing practices and with consciously choosing and directing our thoughts. We have more power over our own thoughts and feelings than we think we do. We believe we’re victims of our imbalanced brain chemistry, our depression, our anxiety disorders, complexes, neuroses and phobias. We actually can reverse the mental pathways of our brains and create new ones, and with the science of neuroplasticity, we can create new beliefs just as we regenerate new brain cells. We can reprogram our subconscious mind and transform all of the beliefs it’s holding onto, practicing and perpetuating.
Our energy and our subconscious mind are inextricably linked. What is stored in our subconscious, all of our emotional memory and information, our fears, our traumas and our wounds, creates our energy and therefore impacts how we view ourselves, how we are in relationship with other people, and how we live our lives. Luckily the subconscious mind responds to reprogramming with many few different tools, all of which impact our energy and transform it from within, including meditation, visualization, repetition and the written word. To heal energetically and subconsciously, we can meditate on the energy we want to carry within us. We can embody it and illuminate ourselves from within with that energy – an energy of fearlessness, of strength, courage, resilience and hope. We can visualize ourselves being everything we want to be, living with the energy we want for ourselves, setting our intentions and pursuing our goals with an energy of purpose and clarity, following through on the things we want for ourselves, manifesting from within, and recognizing our own power. We can write and repeat out loud our life mission statement along with empowering affirmations to create the energy and the life we want for ourselves – I am strong. I am powerful. I am making my dreams come true. I am perfectly at peace within myself and aligned, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually and energetically. I love myself.
At The Guest House Ocala, we are uniquely equipped to help our guests heal from trauma-induced substance abuse, process addiction, anxiety and depression in a safe, comfortable and confidential setting. Call 855-483-7800 today for more information on our treatment programs.