One of the most challenging things to do, especially if you identify as a “giver” more than a “taker,” is allowing yourself to receive support.
Letting your guard down, allowing others to support you, and being vulnerable can be uncomfortable for anyone, but they are essential components of addiction and mental illness recovery. Recovery can often feel isolating, lonely, and impossible without allowing yourself to do these things. Part of recovery is learning how to allow yourself to receive support from your treatment team, therapist, family members, and friends.
Cultivating Safety in the Unknown
Receiving support may feel uncomfortable and scary if it’s a new way of being for you. If you’re used to not allowing yourself to be vulnerable and supported by others, your nervous system isn’t used to the difference in how it feels to receive instead of to give support. Even if your mind knows it’s safe to do so, this experience is unknown, and your body may register it as discomfort and fear.
Ultimately, the way you cultivate new ways of living is through leaning into the resistance that comes with reprogramming your mind and body to feel safe — even in the care of others and if this is an experience you’ve never had.
Leaning Into Resistance
It’s human nature to resist change, even desired change, because any change threatens old ways of living.
Leaning into the resistance that comes with change is how you trust yourself to heal in the moments when parts of you that are rooted in fear are tempting you to tap out when you begin to feel uncertain. Choosing to embrace resistance rather than fight it can be as simple as welcoming it and figuring out what it feels like in your body; it often shows up as a feeling of anxiety or fear.
Remember that resistance often shows up in moments you are on the verge of entering into a new way of being and experiencing breakthroughs on your healing journey.
Normalizing the Discomfort
We can be quick to make receiving support mean that we’re not strong enough or that we should be able to do things alone. It can be comforting to remember that most people experience discomfort when being vulnerable. Maybe the resistance you feel about receiving help is normal, and perhaps accepting such support doesn’t mean anything more about you than that you’re on the road to healing.
You deserve to be supported as much as you’ve helped others in the past. Think about your recovery and get the help you need now as a way of giving something to yourself.
The hardest part about receiving support to facilitate your healing journey — a vital step in your journey to recovery from mental illness and cultivating holistic wellness in your life — can be as simple as allowing it to happen. At Avalon Malibu, we recognize the discomfort in the decision to enter treatment and allow yourself to be supported, both of which require vulnerability. We will explore and help you work through such feelings with gentleness and nonjudgement during the treatment process. To learn more about how we can support you, call us today at (844) 857-5992.
