I Love These Skills!

I had begun to feel distressed, depressed and generally dissatisfied in the past couple of days. Now, I suppose considering that I'm 48 and living in a transitional home and my only asset is my 1998 Toyota, you might think I have good reason to feel distressed, depressed and dissatisfied. And I guess you would be right. But, here's what I know. I know I won't work my way out of this situation if I sit and wallow in those feelings.

I had a DBT skills class tonight at the outpatient treatment facility and I realized why these feelings have been cropping up and making life not much fun. I had stopped practicing radical acceptance; I had begun to fight against the way things are, to be judgmental about my situation and basically to feel sorry for myself. So I did that for about a day and a half and then I caught it and I practiced the skill and the feelings changed.

I'm attracted to DBT for many reasons, but I think the main reason is because so many of the skills are things I had already practiced in my efforts to remain sober. I hadn't been able to form them into a coherent whole and wasn't always very consistent with them, but mindfulness was a great teacher for me in learning to observe my thought processes and realize that I'm not my mind, my mind is a tool for my self.

I think I'm finally starting to put all the pieces together here for a holistic personal recovery program. The pieces include nutrition, exercise, meditation, community support, self-awareness (which is where DBT is phenomenal) and, of course, abstinence.