WEEKLY MEDITATION
Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.
-Wayne Dyer
Successful recovery from addiction is a process of consciousness more than anything else. In the beginning, there may be a necessary emphasis placed on abstinence from specific substances or behaviors, but ultimately, beyond the particular path taken into addiction, the road out is always a study in consciousness. Addictions themselves were an attempt to manipulate the internal experience of our emotional reality and so, too, must our recoveries from them. As today’s quotation suggests, when we are able to change our outlook on life, life, itself, changes too. This change refers first to our subjective experience of life. Addictions are always used as a shortcut toward a more comfortable subjective reality, and successful recovery from addiction must be a functional continuation of this important search. Part of our recovery process must be to recognize our inner messages about the world and ourselves. Only then can we begin to challenge these assumptions and learn to choose the inner messages that govern our lives. When our default inner messages have been discovered and challenged, only then will the way we look at things truly change.
