“Do not let the memories of your past limit the potential of your future. There are no limits to what you can achieve on your journey through life, except in your mind.” ― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
My mind used to be a very ugly place. I spent about eight years stuck in the cycle of addiction. Addiction is said by many to be a disease that centers in the mind. Anything my mind said to be over that stretch I took to be the total truth. It’s fair to say most of that chatter was horribly negative.
My Background
What people may not know about addiction is that you are a complete slave to your mind, what it says, goes. That is why people with addiction do some horrible things, because their sick mind will rationalize and justify everything. Slaving away to my mind isolated me to the point where I felt like I was in my own world completely.
I hit rock bottom in March 2015 when my father unexpectedly died of a heart attack at age 60. He was my best friend and I still miss him terribly. After his death, I sought help because I was hopeless and my mind was convincing me I am wasting my time because it is my destiny to be a failure. I thought it was absolutely not possible to get my life in order.
What Happened
It’s amazing what hopelessness did for me, it put me in a spot where I was finally willing to listen to others who were trying to guide me.
It was when I went to get help in May 2015 where I met several people who taught me about meditation and positive affirmations. They also made it very clear that I am not what my mind tells me, I am what my heart tells me. It made total sense, when I looked deep within my heart, I truly thought I was a great person and loved myself.
Every morning I would tell myself these specific things:
- “You are doing great.”
- “Dad would be so proud right now.”
- “You are going to do your best today and that’s enough.”
- “I love who I am becoming.”
These were verbatim what I told myself each morning, I can’t begin to describe the difference it made in my day in no time. Mornings were and still are when my mind spreads the most poison into me, it’s where my mind is always the loudest and most negative.
Meditation and affirmations without a doubt changed my life.
Starting my mornings with those practices gave me an energy I never thought would be possible for me to contain. Before I knew it, I had confidence in myself about building a life just after experiencing the lowest moments in my life.
If there was some kind of responsibility I had to do for my recovery, instead of putting it off and procrastinating like I usually did, I took everything head on and dealt with it immediately. It felt amazing.
I joined a great program from my facility that introduced me to plenty of other people who were in the same boat as me and were also just coming out of the darkness. A group of us starting sending each other gratitude lists every night and the results between that and my morning ritual completely changed my life.
As you are reading this, acknowledge how simple these actions are, they don’t cost any money, they don’t take up a lot of time. Something like a gratitude list and getting quiet in the mornings and feeding yourself some positive affirmations are the simplest yet most effective things I have ever done.
I am now four years sober and still practice daily affirmations, I just feel incomplete without it. I can’t believe the time I spent in life under the spell of my sick and horribly negative mind. Find some time in your day to get quiet and tell yourself you are worth it. It will change your life.
Daniel Wittler is a writer from New Jersey in recovery, he has been sober for 4 years. He also writes for www.stodzyinternetmarketing.com. Dan enjoys sharing his experience to show that absolutely anyone can get sober provided they are ready to take action.
Image courtesy of Fares Hamouche.
