Mindfulness Techniques
Addiction Treatment Center in Oregon
Learn to Self-Regulate & Let Go
We love to use Jon Kabat-Zinn’s quote when it comes to explaining that we are never looking to ‘fix’ your problem: “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
Often, when clients come in for addiction treatment, they say they just want all the stressful situations to disappear so they can live a life of ease. The desire to use numbing drugs and alcohol typically comes after someone experiences stress, anxiety, fear, worry and the desire to avoid the present moment feeling. It sounds logical to just get rid of everything that’s stressful, right?
Not really. Stress happens, fears arise; challenging circumstances are the stuff of life. Attempting to repress, deny or simply stop the challenges from coming is both counter-productive and unrealistic.
At Avive la Vie, we specialize in empowering participants to actualize the skills necessary to live fully in the present moment, without resistance to what is actually occurring.
It’s not a small thing to learn to become profoundly aware in the present moment, to breathe slowly and stay calm amidst anything. In addition to trauma release and discovering your core beliefs, the most essential skills for establishing and maintaining a life of lasting sobriety are the skills of mindfulness and self-regulation.
Experience Serenity
Within Yourself
• Release Fear, Anxiety & Past Trauma
• Shift Reactions into Empowered Responses
• Feel Loved, Relaxed & Centered
• Become Effective in Your Communication
• Gain Insights to Follow Your Passion
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Mindfulness & Relaxation
We like to suggest the question, “How can I bring love to this situation?” regardless of the circumstances. This sounds easy when the situation is one you enjoy, but it’s another story entirely when circumstances challenge our values, our boundaries, and our sense of safety.
At Avive la Vie, mindfulness is integrated into the program, and exercises for relaxation and re-regulating stress are practiced every day. This ensures your ability to utilize these skills in real life once you return home.
Body & Mind Integration
Your body holds profound wisdom and useful information for you, once you learn to truly listen to its signals.
In the West, we are taught to keep our focus on our linear, cognitive mind, trying to comprehend everything with our heads. We learn that the mind trumps the body. We try to use our minds to solve everything. Think of personal growth books: how many insist that if we simply change our negative way of thinking to positive, everything in our lives will change?
If a positive mindset alone changed our lives, a lot more people would be healthy and happy! It’s not that we can’t change negatives to positives, but simply changing words just doesn’t do the trick. That method actually puts us at odds with what we truly believe, and increases stress and anxiety.
Research shows time and again that this concept we have grown to accept (that mind trumps body) is indeed false. In reality, your body holds the answer to your woes. You know far more than you realize about what is deeply true and in alignment with your core values. It’s just that you were taught to turn those signals off in order to be someone’s concept of polite or appropriate, positive or presentable.
An essential aspect of healing the underlying reasons for addiction is bringing the body and mind back into an authentic relationship. It’s about observing yourself with loving curiosity, honoring what is real and true for you. A fully holistic approach means being present with what truly is happening, inviting all of the parts of ourselves to the party.
Conscious Breathing
Through conscious breathing, we train our minds to be in the present moment. Conscious breathing occurs four times a day, usually in a small group setting led by a team member. Each conscious breathing session lasts for fifteen minutes.
Conscious breathing is a form of breathing meditation where we use the breath to become aware of how your mind tends to jump rapidly from one thought to another. The simple discipline of focusing on the breath and breathing mantra will bring you back to the present moment every time the mind wants to pull you away from the richness of the present moment.
Many things will arise in the mind during the fifteen minutes of breathing, and initially, the resistance from the mind can be strong. You’ll know you’re winning when you can sit and breathe through a fifteen-minute segment and deal with everything that will arise in your conscious mind.
You will notice that after each conscious breathing session, you will experience reduced anxiety and stress and you will feel more centered and grounded. Long term goals of conscious breathing are cultivating the ability to have your full attention on the present moment and being a better observer of your thoughts.
This is a powerful tool to incorporate into your life and self-care routine to support your recovery far beyond the duration of the program.
Essence versus Performing
At Avive la Vie, you will be encouraged and supported to develop your spiritual life, whatever that means to you. We honor all loving and healthy paths, and instead of focusing on a specific religion, we use words such as “essence” and “inner life.”
Essence, in this context, points to that which is untouched, undamaged, and un-traumatized in you. Your essence is the purity that is innate in you, just as you were as newborn baby. It’s the real you that has always been there, even when you thought you lost who you were.
Your essence is of vital importance. You are deeply beautiful. We will help you rediscover your essence. After finding your essence, we move on to tackling the idea of performance. We are raised in a world of performance, where what you do is emphasized far more than what you are; and where other people’s standards become our imposed standards.
You Are Enough
In our program, we see our clients struggle with the tension between who they are versus who they were told they should be. This conflictual way of living paves the way for life that feels more like a mess than the life you dreamed, doesn’t it?
When we are in a state of performing for others, we are not connected to our intrinsic nature, because we are essentially living for others instead of being true to ourselves. This sense of being alone can bring tremendous anxiety, because of the disconnect between the inner and outer and the process of denying oneself to seek approval from others.
We want to help you choose to accept yourself and to fully be yourself. The key is to surrender to the idea that who you are IS enough. To live freely, it’s essential to find freedom from performing. You have everything inside you to be whole and complete just as you are.
The work ahead is to decommission the old structure of the actor seeking praise, including all the underlying attachments, fears and habits that have kept the performance going. It’s a big job, and it pays big dividends in authenticity and freedom for the rest of your life.