Mindfulness, Meditation, Yoga
 

I'm not sure if this is right forum for this.

I was wondering if anyone uses mindfulness practices like meditation, and yoga (not just the physical practice to connect with breath but also the philosophy) in their recovery.

Thanks Path forward for starting the forum, I want to learn about it. I have just started meditation and am very interested in mindfulness.

Hope to hear and learn from those who practice it.

I hope this thread will get some good posts.

If you're interested, I really like this magazine. It's not too "out there". It's very easy to understand and relatable to daily life. You can also sign up for free from their website for daily emails.

https://www.mindful.org/magazine/

I also have a therapist who focuses on mindfulness stuff with me.

Meditation is great. I find a benefit even after just 5-10 minutes. A lot of people think mindfulness is just meditation, but there's a lot more to it. I view it more as "awareness" and living in the moment vs living from the monkey mind.

A Mindful Path to Addiction Recovery by Lawrence Peltz was the first book I read after I quit using: Mindful Path To Addiction Recovery

For me, mindfulness was and is the key to increasing awareness, abandoning automatic thinking and doing, turning my mind into an ally, embracing self-compassion, and learning to quiet the mind, allow thoughts to be thoughts and urges to be urges... and so much more. Enjoy!

I will look that up! Thanks for mentioning it. I don't know why more addiction resources don't mention mindfulness, especially since addiction centers in the mind.

I am finding that it's helping me to increase awareness, too. Just the other day I was aware that a feeling I was having wasn't passing and I was stuck in it. And I was completely aware that I was "eating my feelings". Next step: learn what to do now that I'm honing the skill of awareness. It's very helpful.

I'm still having automatic thinking stuff but awareness is slowly building.

My mind is not my alley! LOL. Too many anxiety and depression automatic thoughts. I guess I have more work to do there. I will check out the book.

With meditation I am learning to just let thoughts be thoughts and let them come and go without my attaching to them or trying to run away from them.

Self-compassion--well after a few years of AA making me feel like a horrible, selfish, self-centered, person I have a ways to go with that one. For example, my group made fun of the "assets" and "liabilities" worksheet some groups do. And all credit for recovery was given to God, none to us. No chips on anniversaries because that's self-centered. So anyways self-compassion, self-kindness, self-love--all that stuff was frowned upon. Self-forgiveness was okay.

PS - This thread I started here is getting more traffic:

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/alcoholism/435556-mindfulness-meditation-yoga.html

there's a good online Mindfulness course here:

https://palousemindfulness.com/

which covers meditation & some yoga.

a few SRites did the course at the start of 2018, thread here:

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...-week-one.html

When I was in outpatient treatment, the best of every day was the mindfulness session just after the morning shares. We'd spent 20 minutes or so, staring at whatever (there was a candle on the floor that you could use if you wanted to) or just closing our eyes, and listening to the counselor guide the group and where we were. I found it very relaxing and cleansing. I didn't continue with it on my own, but in the earliest weeks and months it was fantastic.