Happy Monday everyone - I hope your week is off to a great start!
I have a little extra pep in my step today here on the Atlantic coast of Canada! The sun is shining, the birds are chirping and our Red Cardinal friend is hanging out in our backyard. I could listen to him sing all day long!
Yesterday in our FREE Seeking Safety group for women we looked at the topic of Self Nurturing. I think that sometimes people get turned off by creating another self care list or examining what they do to to take care of themselves, because we seem to do it a lot. Maybe you are someone who has examined this topic in your life, in the past, and have had great success with it - wonderful!
This session was different for me though, even as the Facilitator. We reviewed the handouts that come with the topic, but then spent some time creating a Self-Nurturing Plan that focuses on INCREASING SAFE self-nurturing activities and then looking at how to DECREASE UNSAFE self-nurturing activities. Interestingly enough when we stive to decrease UNSAFE self-nurturing activities we are really increasing the safe activities which is what will help us with our symptoms of PTSD and keeping us away from the substances and the behaviours that are harming us!
The quote for this session was "Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake." - Wallace Stevens, a 20th-century American poet.
And finally we each made a commitment to ourselves for the following week - one that is able to be accomplished to increase our safety and nurture our recovery. I committed to leaving my cell phone outside of my bedroom between midnight and when I awake in the morning. It's going to a tough one for me! Check in next week to see if I did it! :)
The group has chosen "DISCOVERY" as the topic for next weeks gathering. If you want to join us, please let me know and I will send you the handouts for the session and the ZOOM link to join us at 3pm AST.
I hope you will considering joining us next week - I am striving to ensure our space is SAFE, trauma-informed and interactive. We learn from each other and connection is the cure to addiction, in all forms.
With great love,
Misty xo