The Providence Projects adopts a holistic approach to helping you recover from addiction. Meditation and mindfulness therapy helps you to heal physically, mentally and emotionally and provides benefits that you can carry over to every aspect of your life. By practising the art of being still, present and non-judgemental with yourself, you give yourself the time and space for healing.
It is a valuable skill to heal from the trauma of addiction and teaches you to forgive yourself. We look forward to sharing these techniques with you.
What Is Meditation Therapy?
Meditation therapy is a simple but powerful technique that aligns your body and mind. It improves your focus and concentration and helps you to develop an innate sense of self-awareness. Through a combination of deep breathing exercises and connection, you can slow yourself down and learn to know yourself. This is an amazing skill to learn in addiction recovery because it helps you to reprogram old patterns of thinking and change the way you respond to stressors. It calms your mind, which may be hurt and exhausted as a result of substance abuse. It is the essence of being kind to yourself and gives you a chance to stop, reflect and heal on the most fundamental level.
What Is Mindfulness Therapy?
Mindfulness therapy is a process of learning conscious awareness of the ‘here and now. By training yourself in mindfulness therapy, you can learn to live in the present without worrying about the future or experiencing regret about the past. Mindfulness plays an integral role in addiction treatment because it teaches you how to cope with your inner voice. Your inner voice might be judgemental or resentful; it may second guess your decisions and hamper your need to move forward. By practising mindfulness therapy, you do not shut your inner voice down. Instead, you learn to hear and acknowledge it, let it pass, and then return to the activity you want to focus on. Mindfulness will teach you self-acceptance and self-love.
Looking Beyond the Physical Aspect of Addiction
Abusing substances changes your brain chemistry and dysregulates stress and emotional responses. The act of using substances has a detrimental effect on your mental health on a physiological level. But sometimes we forget the self-talk and destructive thinking patterns that reinforce these behaviours. You may feel angry or disappointed or as though you want to give up on yourself for engaging in addictive behaviours. You may feel guilty if you experience cravings or want to bury your negative experiences somewhere deep down where you think they will never be found. Subconsciously, you might think you deserve the adverse effects your substance use has had on your life and grudges. These patterns can hamper your efforts at staying clean.
In the same way that you would forgive another person for hurting you or doing you wrong, you also need to give yourself that same level of understanding and forgiveness. But, if you have negative feelings towards yourself, this will be very difficult. Mindfulness and meditation can help you learn to make peace with yourself, the most important relationship you will have.
Types of Meditation Used in Addiction Rehab
When you sit down to meditate, you will sit in a cross-legged or lotus position to align the energy flowing through your body. This position opens your posture up to receive good energy or life force. Your hands are rested on your knees and can be open or held in a mudra to break down any barriers or resistance to meditation.
Guided Meditation
Guided meditation is a journey that you are taken on by a facilitator. It helps you to visualise new scenarios and takes you outside of the limitations of your own mind.
Mindfulness Meditation
Mindfulness meditation teaches you to learn to be present with your own thoughts and body without judgement.
Transcendental Meditation
Transcendental meditation is a practice that reduces stress and encourages inner peace.
Mindfulness Techniques to Ease Recovery
Learning to just ‘be’ sounds so simple, but we all have to learn it’s a technique. Finding the time and space to still take practice and refinement. These mindfulness techniques can help you with self-love and self-care after rehab.
Breathing
Sometimes we take breathing for granted because it’s an automatic function, but becoming mindful of your breath is extremely soothing and healing. It teaches balance as you align your in-breath with your exhalation.
Observation
The ability to simply observe without judgement is another mindfulness technique that plays an integral role in maintaining sobriety and abstinence. When you judge yourself, you introduce negative emotions.
Awareness
Heightening your self-awareness teaches you to stay in the present moment and not get swept away in the past or the future.
Listening
We often listen with the intent to respond, but real listening teaches us not to judge.
Gratitude
It’s so easy to get stuck on the negative things in your life. By practising gratitude and appreciation, you stay focused on the positives and are affected less by the negatives.
Long-Term Benefits of Meditation and Mindfulness
Meditation isn’t a new-age fad. It is backed by scientific research and its benefits extend beyond the mental, to improve your physical health too. The longer you can maintain your meditation practice, the greater the benefits are. On a physical level, meditation can lower your blood pressure and improve your heart health.
Long-term recovery requires managing your stressors and triggers, and meditation can help you with this. Meditation helps you get better sleep and improves mood disorders like anxiety and depression. Studies have shown enhanced brain activity in the regions associated with happiness, self-awareness, and relaxation when you meditate. Daily meditation practice can boost cognitive function and working memory. Meditation boosts antibodies, which also improves your immunity. Staying healthy and managing your physical health is an integral component of sustaining long-term sobriety.
Our Promise to You
Here at the Providence Projects, we focus on helping our clients achieve their sobriety goals. To do that, we use evidence-based approaches with the full support of our medical team and addiction specialists. We treat you holistically, and our meditation therapy programme allows you to repair the damage done to your mental and physical health in a non-invasive way. The art of meditation is empowering. It teaches you self-mastery and gives you greater control of yourself, especially when you leave rehab. It is an integral complement to your rehab programme and can be done in parallel to psychotherapy, group therapy, and medical interventions
