When struggling with addiction, sometimes our sense of self-respect becomes tainted because we feel so ashamed of ourselves for the many things we’ve done wrong, for the ways in which we’ve hurt people, for the countless mistakes we’ve made. We can’t believe we’ve done the things we’ve done. We’re consumed by regret. We’re self-punishing and can’t seem to forgive ourselves. We judge ourselves harshly, look down on ourselves and treat ourselves in self-deprecating, abusive ways. We can’t heal from our addictions and mental health issues when we don’t love and respect ourselves, when we’re full of self-hatred and self-condemnation. We can’t get better when we don’t believe we deserve to. We can’t cultivate happiness when we feel as though we’re not respectable enough to deserve to be happy.
Fostering self-respect means reacquainting ourselves with our true selves. We’ve become so disconnected from our inner selves and our truth that we don’t even know who we are anymore. We barely recognize ourselves. We catch ourselves feeling as though we’re looking at a stranger when we look in the mirror. We can feel as though our experiences are happening to someone else, as though they are foreign, distant and unrecognizable. We’re horrified by some of our choices. We’re embarrassed and deeply disappointed in ourselves. All of these emotions cause us to feel as though we’re unworthy of love and respect. Our healing requires that we redefine our conception of respect and realize that we deserve to respect ourselves regardless of the mistakes we’ve made.
We want to practice believing that we’re unconditionally worthy. We want to work to believe in ourselves again. We want to amplify our self-love by practicing feeling gratitude for everything we are, for our stories no matter how complex, for our experiences no matter how painful. When we see our life experiences as evolutions, as journeys of healing, connection and self-exploration, we can start to see our mistakes not as evidence of our unworthiness or lack of respectability but as part of our necessary growth process. Respecting ourselves means being able to accept even the things we’re unhappy with. It means seeing that regret is a wasteful emotion, that we can take everything we’ve been through and glean all of the powerful wisdom, all the lessons, all the power therein and use them to empower ourselves moving forward. Self-respect is self-love. Without it, our recovery from addiction will always be out of our reach.
At The Guest House Ocala, you will be treated with dignity, respect and compassion. Call 855-483-7800 today for more information on our treatment programs.