Recovery, therapy, personal development, leadership, mindfulness- everything that has to do with helping you grow into a more authentic, fulfilled, happy, and healthy individual talks about it. Gratitude. Gratitude is a very popular word. People have gratitude journals, they make gratitude lists, they schedule time in their day to stop and reflect on what they are grateful for. Religious people practice gratitude, secular people practice gratitude, and everyone is just grateful all the time. To really assume everyone is that grateful, all the time would be a vast generalization.
Gratefulness and the Brain
Gratefulness has been put under the microscope and the fMRI machine multiple times. A brain on gratitude is a happy brain. Gratitude helps us experience humility and stay humble. We can be grateful for what we have, who we are, and what we go through in life- good and bad.
Being grateful all the time is unrealistic. Is it possible? Possibly. However, life still happens and we aren’t always in perfect mint condition to cope with it in our most graceful manner. The truth is, there are going to be plenty of times when we have difficulty finding gratitude. Instead, we are going to be bitter, resentful, exhausted, defeated, disappointed, saddened, or confused. We might not be any of those things in particular, we just won’t be grateful. Not being grateful 100% of the time is completely OK.
Gratitude For Recovery
Gratitude is meant to be an anchor in the storm for those in recovery from addictions or other mental health disorders. When All else fails, we can still be grateful. Recovery can be hard to hold on to. Drugs and alcohol especially create a confusion in the mind about what feels good. The way chemical substances interrupt the natural production of chemicals in the brain alters the way we relate to and experience emotion. It also changes the way we respond to emotion. Stress, for example, often triggers cravings to abuse substances. To use again is to relapse, which means throwing recovery away. Gratitude is a means for holding onto why it’s important not to pick up again, no matter what is happening.
Avalon By The Sea offers certified treatment for both substance use disorders and mental health disorders. We are able to treat each as primary or co-occurring disorders. Our program focuses on healing mind, body, and spirit, through exceptional clinical work and holistic training. For more information, call 1 888-958-7511.
