Latest / Recovering Out Loud / Perception in Recovery : Pain Is Inevitable. Suffering Is Optional

Transcript

Perception in Recovery : Pain Is Inevitable. Suffering Is Optional · Recovering Out Loud

• 0:00
  Do you ever wonder why two people can go through the exact
• 0:05
  same event in recovery, exact same trauma, and one grows from
• 0:10
  it while the other one relapses? Why is that same situation
• 0:14
  different outcome? Or even at a different point in
• 0:18
  your life, you can go through something more tragic, more
• 0:22
  difficult than you did a different time when you relapsed
• 0:26
  and stay sober through it this time.
• 0:29
  What's changed? Why?
• 0:31
  Well, today we're going to talk about one of my favorite things
• 0:34
  recently to talk about, which is perception.
• 0:36
  Everything is perception in life, in recovery.
• 0:41
  It's the way I look at things. I have a distorted view.
• 0:45
  I'm looking at things through glasses that are upside down,
• 0:48
  backwards, green, yellow, anger, sadness, shame, whatever the
• 0:55
  mood of the day is. And that's what we're going to
• 0:58
  talk about today. Recovery isn't just about
• 1:00
  stopping substances. It's about how we interpret
• 1:03
  life, the filter by which the outside world comes in and how
• 1:07
  we interpret it. Our perception determines our
• 1:09
  emotional reactions, our decisions, whether something
• 1:12
  feels like a set back or a lesson.
• 1:15
  And here's a hint for you, if you focus on the lessons
• 1:18
  learned, you'll never fail. You can't fail because
• 1:21
  everything is a growing opportunity.
• 1:22
  Everything is a lesson. Easy to sit here and talk about,
• 1:26
  way more difficult to conceptualize, and when you're
• 1:28
  actually in it, to go through it and see it like that.
• 1:34
  Early recovery feels brutal because our deception is
• 1:38
  completely distorted still, not because life suddenly got worse,
• 1:42
  but because you took away my medicine, my drugs, my alcohol,
• 1:46
  people, places, things, whatever.
• 1:48
  If everything feels harder while you're sober or more boring, it
• 1:52
  might not be reality, it might just be the lens that you're
• 1:56
  looking through. But for real guys, this one is a
• 1:59
  game changer for me. Especially because the more I
• 2:02
  focus on how I'm viewing things and that maybe I'm wrong and
• 2:07
  first thought wrong, the more I live like that, the happier I am
• 2:11
  in recovery, the easier it is to get through situations which
• 2:15
  used to bought baffle me and now I can take them with Zen with
• 2:19
  ease, let it roll off my shoulders.
• 2:21
  And that doesn't mean that it's not hard, it just means that
• 2:24
  it's not ruining my life anymore and determining my decisions and
• 2:28
  my outcomes. So addiction versus recovery
• 2:30
  perception. Addiction narrows perception.
• 2:33
  Everything becomes personal. Everything feels urgent right
• 2:36
  here, right now. Everything feels unfair.
• 2:38
  It's happening to me, right? We're getting self involved.
• 2:42
  The addicted mind interprets discomfort as danger, emotions
• 2:46
  as emergencies, and delays as denial.
• 2:52
  For example, somebody doesn't text you back.
• 2:55
  I'm terrible at this, by the way.
• 2:57
  Sorry to everybody who's listening, I'm so bad at texting
• 2:59
  back. I answer in my mind before I
• 3:02
  actually answer on my phone and then I never end up answering on
• 3:04
  my phone at all. In saying that, I just
• 3:06
  remembered that to text one of my friends back after this
• 3:09
  podcast. Hopefully I remember if somebody
• 3:11
  doesn't text back, my perception might be they don't care about
• 3:14
  me. If I feel anxious, my
• 3:17
  perception, the story I spin again, remember we're movie
• 3:19
  projectors projecting our movies onto the screen around life.
• 3:24
  My version of the truth is constantly being projected onto
• 3:26
  the screen. I feel anxious turns into in my
• 3:30
  brain, something must be wrong. I'm failing, I'm a failure.
• 3:34
  I'm, I'm uncomfortable turns into I need release now.
• 3:37
  This is never going to end. I need to get out of it.
• 3:39
  And that's why we go and pick up when we don't check that.
• 3:42
  So the recovery shift is recovery.
• 3:45
  You don't get sober and then discomfort gets removed.
• 3:48
  I'm sure a lot of you know that by now.
• 3:50
  It, if anything, it gets harder, it gets louder.
• 3:52
  The voices, the anxiety, everything gets turned up
• 3:55
  because you took away my medicine, my solution, my
• 3:58
  liquor, drugs. Alcohol was but a symptom of my
• 4:02
  disease. My disease is me.
• 4:03
  I'm wrapped in self all the damn time.
• 4:06
  I need to get out of self. I'm wrapped in everything is
• 4:09
  happening to me. I'm the center of the universe.
• 4:11
  When the bus is late, he personally attacked me and
• 4:15
  ruined my day. It's all about me.
• 4:18
  So recovery doesn't remove discomfort, it reinterprets it.
• 4:24
  Discomfort becomes information, growth and evidence you're doing
• 4:29
  something new. So when I go out into the world
• 4:33
  and I don't know, I was at the Raptors game last night and
• 4:36
  there was this guy that we're coming from the floor of the
• 4:39
  court, clearly had a lot of money wearing super expensive
• 4:42
  designer clothes. And he just had that face that
• 4:45
  look like he hated everybody. I don't know, this is this is
• 4:48
  the story I spin up in my head, right?
• 4:50
  Judging people. For you it might be a little
• 4:52
  different, but he walks right in front of me and doesn't even say
• 4:56
  sorry. It's nothing, just completely
• 4:58
  ignores me and cuts me off walking to the the bathroom.
• 5:01
  I believe we're going to in recovery.
• 5:04
  So in addiction I see that and it sits in my head.
• 5:07
  If I don't do anything about it and you don't say something to
• 5:10
  the guy and then get punched out or get into a fight, get kicked
• 5:12
  out of the Raptors game in active addiction.
• 5:15
  If I let it go, which is not often an addiction.
• 5:18
  I usually act and do stupid things.
• 5:20
  If I let that go in addiction, it's in my head all night and
• 5:24
  I'm festering this resentment about how this guy's a piece of
• 5:27
  shit and he wronged me and I'm going to say this to him and
• 5:30
  he's going to say that and then I'm going to embarrass him in
• 5:32
  front of his girlfriend or wife. And this is how it's going to
• 5:34
  go. And I'm planning and plotting
• 5:36
  and I'm stuck in self when I could just burning energy
• 5:40
  foolishly when I could be of service to somebody else or just
• 5:44
  present with my family. Anyways, that didn't happen last
• 5:46
  night because I've been practicing mindfulness.
• 5:48
  I know how my brain works. I start to get these thoughts
• 5:52
  and I noticed them, and so the recovery lenses, there's that
• 5:56
  discomfort. I really hate this guy right
• 5:58
  now. What is that about?
• 6:00
  I should probably check that. You know what?
• 6:02
  He seems like a nice guy. I don't even know him.
• 6:05
  I love him. These are the new thoughts that
• 6:07
  I'm replacing with, right? We can't just remove behaviors
• 6:10
  and we have to replace them. It's addition, subtraction by
• 6:14
  addition. We are adding new behaviors, new
• 6:17
  plans, new formulas, new routines, methods that we are
• 6:22
  learning and we are implementing them into practice.
• 6:25
  But you have to practice it. You can't just turn the switch
• 6:28
  on and then you become spiritual and you know you're helping
• 6:30
  everybody every day. It's a practice repetitions.
• 6:34
  So the key line of this is the problem isn't the pain.
• 6:37
  Pain is inevitable. The problem is the suffering,
• 6:41
  the meaning that we attach to pain.
• 6:44
  Pain times resistance equals suffering.
• 6:48
  OK, think about that for a second.
• 6:50
  Pain is coming in. Pain is inevitable.
• 6:51
  Suffering is optional. Pain times resistance.
• 6:55
  So my inability to let it go, my fight, equals suffering.
• 7:01
  You decide how much you suffer. What a beautiful thing.
• 7:03
  Recovery is fucking amazing. Again, it takes practice.
• 7:08
  So we're going to talk about emotional sobriety again
• 7:10
  quickly. Perceptual maturity.
• 7:12
  Emotional sobriety equals perceptual maturity, meaning I'm
• 7:16
  an adult. My I'm mature in my perception.
• 7:20
  I am not taking everything personally.
• 7:21
  I'm actually trying to take nothing personally.
• 7:24
  And I'm going to try and understand that person's
• 7:26
  situation. Maybe he had a rough day.
• 7:27
  Maybe he's driving to his wife to see his wife in the hospital
• 7:31
  and that's why he's racing around.
• 7:33
  I'm not sure emotional sobriety is the ability to experience
• 7:40
  feelings without believing the story you're telling.
• 7:43
  Stop believing the lies in your head.
• 7:48
  We are reprogramming in recovery, right?
• 7:51
  We're reprogramming, we're unlearning, we're discovering,
• 7:54
  we're uncovering, discovering and discarding old ideas.
• 7:59
  Chuck C New pair of glasses I Recovery is giving me a new pair
• 8:03
  of glasses. I don't have to flip out on life
• 8:06
  anymore and see things negatively.
• 8:07
  I can see the good in people, places and things.
• 8:11
  I can see the God in people, places and things.
• 8:14
  Feelings are real. Conclusions are optional.
• 8:17
  Love that feelings are real, but they are not reality.
• 8:21
  Conclusions are optional. Stop spinning stories in your
• 8:25
  head, Anthony. So feeling lonely doesn't equal
• 8:29
  I'm unlovable. Feeling anxious doesn't equal
• 8:32
  I'm unsafe. Feeling bored does not equal.
• 8:34
  Life is meaningless. That is essential in recovery.
• 8:38
  Just because you were bored does not mean it'll last forever.
• 8:42
  One. And two, that your life has no
• 8:44
  meaning now. You're just at a stage, a season
• 8:46
  in your life that has fear in it.
• 8:50
  Boredom is fear. I haven't found my passion yet
• 8:52
  or I'm not getting excited about things because I'm used to
• 8:56
  dopamine level being on 10,000. Just stick it out.
• 9:00
  This too shall pass, friend. Emotions are whether not facts.
• 9:05
  They're passing through like trains at a train station.
• 9:08
  Recovery teaches us to observe instead of react.
• 9:11
  So just be an observer. Observer of consciousness,
• 9:15
  Thoughts, sounds, actions, people, places, things.
• 9:19
  Just because something feels true doesn't mean it is.
• 9:22
  Question your emotions or thoughts.
• 9:25
  What is this about? Why is this happening now?
• 9:27
  Where did that come from? It works.
• 9:29
  Perception creates triggers. So triggers aren't events.
• 9:35
  Triggers are interpretation of events, memories.
• 9:39
  A bad day isn't a trigger. The thought I can't handle.
• 9:42
  This is a trigger. I'm not going to.
• 9:44
  This is never going to end. So the event turns into a
• 9:48
  thought, turns into a feeling, turns into an urge, and then
• 9:52
  into an action. Consequence event.
• 9:54
  Not consequence, circumstance or event.
• 9:57
  Same thing. Something is happening, then
• 9:59
  there's a thought. Oh poor me, I can't believe this
• 10:02
  is happening right now. That guy just cut me off.
• 10:05
  What a Dick. There's a feeling I hate him.
• 10:07
  I'm angry, I am scared, I am anxious.
• 10:11
  Then there's an urge. I don't like this feeling.
• 10:14
  I want to escape it. And then there's an action.
• 10:16
  I can go and tell the guy to fuck off, or I can leave it
• 10:19
  alone and let it go, or I can go pick up drugs and alcohol.
• 10:23
  You decide. Most people try to control the
• 10:25
  urge. This is the problem when we try
• 10:27
  to force it away or push it away instead of just riding it.
• 10:30
  Urge surfing Recovery teaches you to question the thought.
• 10:34
  What story? So I want you to ask yourself a
• 10:35
  question. If think of something you're
• 10:38
  you're dwindling about, you are. That's the wrong word.
• 10:41
  Again, think of something you are ruminating about in your
• 10:44
  mind that keeps coming up. Whether it's a fear and anxiety,
• 10:48
  a resentment towards somebody. Think about it What?
• 10:51
  And ask yourself this question when it comes up.
• 10:53
  What story am I telling myself right now about recovery, about
• 10:57
  life, about my boyfriend, girlfriend, my boss?
• 10:59
  What story am I telling me? Is this true?
• 11:02
  And what story am I telling myself?
• 11:04
  And then bounce it off somebody? I'm very good at justifying my
• 11:07
  own truth in quotations. When perception changes,
• 11:10
  cravings lose authority. Victim perception versus
• 11:14
  responsibility perception. Oh, love this.
• 11:16
  Let's talk about being a victim. Any victims out there?
• 11:20
  Former victims? No.
• 11:22
  Same. I was never a victim.
• 11:27
  Everything is happening. Poor me.
• 11:29
  It's they're doing it to me. Victim.
• 11:34
  Let's be honest and careful here.
• 11:37
  Victim perception. Sounds like this shouldn't be
• 11:40
  happening. Shouldn't.
• 11:41
  If you use the word should or shouldn't in recovery, run.
• 11:46
  No, I'm kidding. Notice that those are dangerous
• 11:47
  words. I should be here.
• 11:49
  I shouldn't be here. I should be this.
• 11:51
  This way, the expectations smash that.
• 11:54
  If they changed, I'd be OK. If my husband just cleaned up
• 11:58
  after himself, I'd be OK. If I had the car, I'd be OK.
• 12:02
  If I lived in a better house, I'd be OK.
• 12:04
  If they would stop doing this, I'd be OK.
• 12:06
  I can't stay sober because of blank.
• 12:10
  I'd be sober if it wasn't for my damn husband who's drinking all
• 12:13
  the time around me. What's your part?
• 12:16
  Maybe you shouldn't stay there if he doesn't stop drinking
• 12:19
  around you. And you've asked him several
• 12:20
  times. I don't know.
• 12:22
  What is your part? Responsibility.
• 12:25
  Perception. Sounds this is happening now
• 12:26
  What? What's my role here?
• 12:29
  Boom. What is my role?
• 12:30
  What's my part? Where am I to blame?
• 12:33
  Nobody likes that word blame. But I don't, you know, whatever,
• 12:37
  what's the next right action here?
• 12:40
  Responsibility does not equal blame.
• 12:42
  Responsibility equals power, freedom.
• 12:46
  The moment I stop asking why me and start asking why, what's
• 12:51
  now? Recovery begins.
• 12:53
  So move from why me to what now? Acceptance is the answer to all
• 12:58
  of my problems today. Daily practices that shift
• 13:02
  perception. So we're getting into the
• 13:03
  practical stuff here. Practical tools.
• 13:05
  Pause and label. I'm feeling anxious versus
• 13:07
  something is wrong. 2 Separate facts from meaning.
• 13:11
  What actually happened? What meaning did I add?
• 13:13
  What story did I tell myself here?
• 13:16
  3 Delay interpretation. Don't decide what something
• 13:19
  means in an emotional state. Don't make any decisions in an
• 13:22
  emotional state. Delay 4 Ask better questions.
• 13:25
  What else could this mean? Be curious, not judgmental here.
• 13:29
  Very important, Walt. Walt Whitman, great quote.
• 13:32
  Be curious, not judgmental. What else could this mean and
• 13:36
  how would a grounded version of me see this?
• 13:40
  How would a grounded version of me see this?
• 13:43
  So pause and label. Separate facts and from meaning.
• 13:46
  Delay interpretation. Ask better questions.
• 13:52
  These are nervous system regulation tools, not mindset
• 13:55
  hacks. OK, long term recovery
• 13:58
  perspective. Early recovery perspective is
• 14:02
  raw, loud and dramatic, right? Everything is the sky is falling
• 14:05
  in early recovery. All my problems seem like the
• 14:08
  worst problems any human has ever had.
• 14:11
  That's you spinning a story. We in recovery and as spiritual
• 14:19
  beings do not have problems today.
• 14:22
  We have a bad perception. We are so clouded.
• 14:26
  I am so clouded. I'll speak for myself.
• 14:28
  I am so clouded by poor me. This is the worst day of my
• 14:32
  life. I'm never going to get out of
• 14:33
  this the the stress and suffering I put around said
• 14:38
  circumstance that I have no mental bandwidth to solve the
• 14:43
  problem. None at all.
• 14:45
  I am so wrapped up in self that I will never get out of the
• 14:49
  problem and solve the problem because I'm so concerned with
• 14:52
  how to solve the problem right now.
• 14:54
  I'm so concerned with poor me and I'm going to die and this is
• 14:58
  the worst day ever. I'm never going to get out of
• 15:00
  this. Stop spinning the story in your
• 15:02
  head. Ask for help through your higher
• 15:04
  power. What I do is I think of it like
• 15:07
  going into a movie. When I go into a movie, I leave
• 15:10
  my problem at the door. I watch the movie and I come
• 15:13
  back and I left the problem with the universe, God, whatever you
• 15:16
  want to call it, higher power. Hold on to this God, higher
• 15:20
  power universe while I go and watch this movie.
• 15:23
  I'll come check with you when I'm back.
• 15:26
  You go spend 2 hours in the movie theater.
• 15:27
  You come back with a different perception.
• 15:29
  Now the answer to solve the problem comes it.
• 15:32
  It works, trust me. Peace is not found by
• 15:38
  controlling life, it's found by changing how we interpret it.
• 15:44
  Put on a new pair of glasses. You don't have to change your
• 15:49
  whole life today. You don't have to solve all your
• 15:51
  problems today. In fact, you don't have to solve
• 15:53
  any problem right here, right now.
• 15:56
  You just have to question one story your mind is telling you.
• 15:59
  Just one story. What am I spinning here?
• 16:02
  What am I projecting onto the screen?
• 16:04
  What movie am I projecting today?
• 16:07
  Recovery isn't about seeing life as positive.
• 16:10
  It's about seeing life as accurate.
• 16:13
  Removing the foggy lens, turning the glasses the other way
• 16:16
  around. Accuracy brings freedom and
• 16:19
  peace, Peace of Mind. Thank you for listening today.
• 16:23
  If this episode's resonated with you, sit and question today.
• 16:28
  Is this reality or is this just my perception?
• 16:31
  Please like, subscribe, follow the podcast, I love you all.
• 16:34
  Send me a message on Instagram. Have a wonderful day.
• 16:36
  If no one's told you this yet, I love you.