Recovery and healing require lifestyle changes. Usually, a person needs to learn to accommodate a new way of living. Sometimes even seemingly minuscule changes can make a big difference. For example, learning various self-affirmations to lean on in times of struggle or exhaustion may seem small. Yet this “small” tool is greatly beneficial in helping clients transition into their new lives.
However, shifting one’s habits and lifestyle may feel overwhelming, stressful, or exhausting. This is completely normal, and there are ways to make these shifts seem easier. At First Steps Recovery, all areas of one’s lifestyle are addressed. While sobriety and healthy habits are the main focus, smaller lifestyle changes are addressed because of how complex recovery and healing can be.
Positive affirmations are something that can be easily applied to one’s life long-term. Incorporating this habit gives clients something to lean on in times of stress or exhaustion. When things become difficult, that’s when these small habits matter most.
What Do Self-Affirmations Do for Those in Recovery?
Affirmations as a whole are important elements in anyone’s life. When receiving positive and helpful affirmations, a person’s internal environment is uplifted. Providing affirmations for oneself creates a more positive environment internally and allows clients to reach their full potential more free of self-blockages.
Small things matter, even if they are often invisible. These small acts of positivity, whether coming from an external source or oneself, may also be called micro-affirmations. Micro-affirmations are also very personal to one’s situation in healing and recovery. What this means is that it is important for clients to customize their micro-affirmations to their unique healing needs to make them truly effective.
How Positive Thinking Helps
Self-affirmations can also be described broadly as positive thinking, but it is specific to the self and aimed at enhancing one’s inner world. Negative thinking or pessimism can have a detrimental impact on one’s physical and mental well-being. Part of positive thinking is positive self-talk. Self-talk is defined as the stream of unspoken thoughts running through one’s head. Creating a more positive running commentary in one’s head is key for making better life choices and feeling happier.
There are many beneficial health benefits to positive thinking, such as:
- Increased life span
- Lower rates of depression, distress, and pain
- Stronger immune system
- Better psychological and physical well-being
- Positive cardiovascular health
- Reduced risk of death from cancer, respiratory conditions, and infections
- Better coping skills during times of hardships or stress
For those in recovery, self-affirmations can be small acts of positive thinking that keep one’s sobriety afloat.
Some Self-Affirmations to Lean On
Self-affirmations can apply to any situation or no situation at all. Sometimes someone simply needs a positive message for themselves. For specific situations, though, clients may tell themselves, “This is an opportunity to learn something new,” or, “Let’s take a chance/give it another try.” These statements reframe a potentially overwhelming or stressful situation, eliminate judgment, and turn the narrative into something productive.
There are also self-affirmations to lean on at any time. This type of positive self-talk can remind oneself that one is worthy of a sober, healthy life. Telling oneself, “I am worthy,” “I am progressing,” or “I am enough” can be short phrases that keep one steady and stable. After transitioning out of a treatment program and back into one’s own life, things can feel very stressful. These self-affirmations, however, become statements that the client wholly believes and acts on to help them progress with sobriety.
How Does First Steps Recovery Introduce Positive Self-Affirmations to Lean On?
First Steps Recovery helps clients create self-affirmations to lean on by encouraging them through their self-discovery journeys. Mental health and addiction are very complex and extremely unique to the individual. Self-discovery is a key aspect of recovery and healing. As clients become more self-valuing, they begin to lead a more self-directed lifestyle. This type of healing is typically done in a holistic setting. While engaging with holistic therapies, clients may not feel so pressured to perform as they do during clinical therapies. Rather, clients enter a mode of self-discovery where they make progress during each session as they engage with their inner thoughts and feelings.
The Benefit of Individual Therapy Paired With Holistic Services
Holistic services include creative-based, nature-based, and physical-activity-based sessions. The type of holistic care that clients participate in is entirely dependent on what the client responds best to. Holistic care, just like recovery, is personalized and specific to the individual. If a client feels most comfortable engaged in creative expression as they can understand and express their feelings in a more concrete way, then art or music therapy is recommended.
Regardless of the holistic care clients include in their journeys, individual therapy is where clients reconvene with their therapist(s) to track progress and recognize the successes achieved thus far. The combination of individual and holistic care not only provides the whole-person approach to recovery and healing but also helps clients verbalize their efforts and successes. Things learned in holistic care that make clients feel good about themselves are reinforced in individual therapy. From there, clients can start to create self-affirmations specific to themselves and their journeys that are motivating and positive.
At First Steps Recovery we understand that recovery and healing are lifelong, complex journeys. Treating the surface of an addiction or mental health disorder is not enough. Instead, tending to those small root causes and those small lifestyle changes make a big difference in one’s success long-term. Some of these small lifestyle changes include self-affirmations. When other people provide affirming comments or remarks, one’s internal environment is uplifted. However, affirmations can be created internally as well. By using self-affirmations regularly, clients create an inner sense of peace and positivity to help themselves blossom in life. We guide clients in creating this positive mindset with a combination of holistic and individual therapies. Call us at (844) 489-0836 to learn more.
Dr. Curl is the Medical Director and primary on-site provider for First Steps Recovery. He is a Board Certified Internist and Addiction Medicine Specialist having attended the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and completing his residency at Mount Auburn Hospital with Harvard Medical School. Following several years work as an internist and physiatrist (physical medicine and rehabilitation). Dr. Curl completed the Addiction Medicine Fellowship at Howard University in Washington DC and participated as a RAM Scholar (Research in Addiction Medicine). While part of the fellowship, Dr. Curl pursued research investigating the barriers to expanding and improving medication for opioid use disorder. Following his fellowship, Dr. Curl spearheaded the Opiate Use Disorder outpatient clinic and worked in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences within the Howard University Hospital. In 2023, Dr. Curl completed his Board Certification in Addiction Medicine.
