Intergrading Meditation Into Drug and Alcohol Centers.

Drug & Alcohol Rehabilitation Centers Today

Over the years the industry of Drug and Alcohol Treatment has grown to enormous numbers it is also projected to grow by 31% from 2012 to 2022. Speaking from experience of twenty four years in Recovery the spiritual side of the program has become watered down with a very narrow viewpoint for the 21st century. The rehabilitation center I came out of(1992) was old school mostly medical and emotional with very little attention to the holistic and spiritual side from the get go. Yes, prayer is implemented from the first hour of entrance and yet so much is left untouched. Thank goodness for AA meetings and sponsors.
 Addiction no matter what the ism is, boils down to dis-ease with oneself, hence the phrase it is a disease. The facts  are that most addicts come broken and lost, empty and feeling apart from not a part of the world.  A pattern of bad habits, bad choices, and well the spiral continues to the rock bottom point.  

The industry today is big business, from the courts, to the centers. to the sober living houses, long gone are the half-way houses of old. This is the 21st century and while it has kept up with the medical and psychological sides, it lacks still on the holistically spiritual side which is truly having the individual tune into his or her body, mind, and spirit as a center of three. This century has brought forth the holistic concepts of homeopathy, holistic healing, Reiki, EFT tapping, Yoga, Herbs and natural organic eating, energy and sound therapy, and my favorite Meditation just to name a few that have really come to the forefront of awakening and tuning into our truest selves. 

When entering a rehabilitation center, most people are at their lowest in all three centers, body, mind, and spirit. This is the point to which many if these were implemented at the beginning of the journey it would allow old habits to be quickly countered with new healthy loving habits and also create a earlier practice motive. Early recovery demands early methods of meditations. 

How Meditation Helps Recovering Alcoholics

However, at the root of every meditative practice is a quest for detachment or inner calm. In this sense, meditation fits nicely with recovering alcoholics’ central goals, i.e. establishing distance between themselves and their desire to drink.

It’s this psychic distance between wanting to have a drink and actually doing so that is so useful to recovering alcoholics. When students enroll in meditation classes, either through an alcohol rehabilitation clinic or an independent meditation schools, they learn to view their own impulses from a third-person perspective. In so doing, there’s a potential to cultivate peace and contentedness without resorting to alcohol or substance abuse.

Relation to Rehab

Many alcohol and drug addiction treatment programs have included meditation in their overall treatment plan. It’s not used in place of other therapies.  Instead, it provides powerful additional support for addicts in recovery. Part of the value of meditation is that those in treatment can practice it even after the initial recovery period is complete.  This makes meditation a valuable tool they can use to stay sober for the rest of their lives.

Research supporting Meditation for Addiction

A growing body of research supports meditation as an effective addiction recovery technique. For example, one study found that recovering intravenous drug users felt meditation was one of the best therapy tools to help them overcome their addiction [1]. Researchers who examined incarcerated substance abusers found that those who were taught how to meditate had lower levels of relapse and more positive outcomes after release than those who received only conventional recovery treatments [2].

Research suggests that meditation also helps people with alcoholism and drug addiction when it’s incorporated into a practice that includes physical exercise. For instance, yoga sessions that include meditation have been shown to be an effective part of addiction recovery [3]. In another study, recently-abstinent cocaine addicts who learned Qigong, a Chinese practice that incorporates meditative techniques, reported fewer cravings and other addiction-related symptoms than those who received a placebo treatment [4].

Meditation is not only for the spiritual

With all the talk about higher powers and Buddhist or Vedic meditation, a person couldn’t be blamed for assuming that meditation as a part of alcohol rehabilitation is a specifically spiritual endeavor. While it’s true that the world’s best known traditions of meditation all have a spiritual bent, there are just as many secular takes on meditation as an act of mindfulness rather than prayer.

What is Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy

“…mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), brings together the latest understandings of modem science and forms of meditation that have been shown to be clinically effective within mainstream medicine and psychology.”

- Mark Williams,The Mindful Way through Depression

Since this sort of thinking circumvents any talk of faith or otherworldly intervention, it gives scientists a chance to have an empirical look at the benefits that meditation can play in addiction recovery. One study conducted by the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Wisconsin found that mindfulness meditation can play a role in preventing relapse.

Dr Aleksandra Zgierska coordinated the study, and she says the practice of mindfulness as a means of staving off cravings is nothing new – it’s just that most of the evidence of its effectiveness was anecdotal until recently. Now, backed by clinical research, meditation as an alcohol rehabilitation tool is garnering mainstream attention.

To integrate this holistic healing and many of the others into mainstream  rehabilitation centers would only prove to add one more useful tool on the road of recovery. To be so archaic in this Dawn of Aquarius Time seems to be counter productive to the generations walking out of today's center's without every tool possible to their complete recovery and cure of this dis-ease. 

HOCUS POCUS FOCUS!!!!!!!!!

There are defining points that occur or have at least for me. I get the most of the lessons, and visions, and definitely the signs of things contrasting and expanding. I have always seen them in a pattern sense of knowing. I see patterns and am good at looking at them to find what is actually true. Take a Kaleidoscope and when first glancing at the piece through the glass you see a magnificent placement  of lines, and angles, and shapes and colors all vibrating at their own purpose and combining all these elements you get a glimpse of extraordinary a bliss of unexplainable geometry. It's captivates us at that point, and we stop there seeing only the surface of the patterns. I know, stay with me, though follow the pattern of the writing and it will lead you to well....that's the ending and I won't blow it now.

I began with one digital art piece I created long ago, it now was the maze of kaleidoscope that would bring me one step closer to my source, the source, our collective source but also it opened a new dimension of vibrations I have never known, a new level of knowing perhaps, these are all very sloppy words to convoy a feeling that in truth now words can adequately describe. As, I stared at the design I felt a leaving a expanding of my seeing it was as though it was a liquid I could easily move and slide back in and out again, it was amazing. There among the BIG PATTERN, the tiniest of kaleidoscopes appeared one after another in perfect timing and they lined up perfectly to what I call the spiral connection of life the vibrations that connects each of us to the source of all beginnings and endings. There I sat, dazed and hypnotized by this rhythm and movement. It required so much focus and openness to all matter, vibrations, heartbeats you get the idea. So after about an hour of this intense wild viewing and just being devoured in the beauty I began to appreciate every single line, angle, color, and in turn it brought more and more to the surface for me to take in and feel so so many vibrations of everything.

As the day went on so did the kaleidoscope of my perception and focus, it was sheer magic I saw micro mini patterns in big macro moments when everything was hustling and bustling I moved slower, yet swifter, with ease and peace. I stopped and took a breath and in a instant, something came in and somehow it started to contract pulling out of sight and touch..I again stopped and took notice, it was my vibration which had changed the pattern not the art of the image it continued in it's vibration leading it's purpose it never lost it's focus or changed it's feeling it simply does what it does because it is natural and connected to a source of all things. It accepts this. I needed to learn this, as this is the next level in my kaleidoscope journey. I felt a downward decline in my vibration and it sunk low and slowed way down, in the moment I stopped to breath, I soothed my feeling of lowness and started to raise it slowly with focus, and good thoughts, memories, reminding myself there is great love for me here, things are always working out for me, and you know what I got back to that place again. I am vibrating on the inner most level of the sources kaleidoscope of this life, to stop and smell the roses cause they are pretty fucking awesome. Appreciate everything that comes and goes for it really was meant just for you and one for me..it is the natural design.

I finally closed down the day, I called this the HOCUS POCUS FOCUS meditation, lesson, call it what you need to but I will use it everyday, every moment it is a magical place to be. I am happy to be back and you know I write just for me and you, I don't care about views, or page hits, or advertising monies. I write this to share and really just have a voice somewhere in this legacy of social media and internet epitaphs. I write for us dear sisters, so I can put it out there and rise to the sisterhood of this moment.

Years of Meditation ..summed up in 5 Minutes of Writing.

Sisters have you ever done something over and over through the years, practicing and honing a skill or a hobby something. then only to realize that after years of mastering or so the Ego says, we find when asked about it we can sum it all up in a 5 minute conversation.

" It's all relative" a lesson I have come to understand clearer and clearer with each passing event. Time is such a peculiar energy, we don't really know it's full scape of meaning yet we whirl it around as if we have MASTERED it somehow? Quite ironic. Is this something we use to our advantage or our illusion of having control? Or is it a part of the greater whole, the natural order and it merely simplifies the playing field so we may at least have a shot at grabbing a piece of the puzzle ?

Seventeen years of meditation, and using it daily right, wrong, up, down, whatever it took to just spend five minutes of quieting the mind. In time of matter, that's a lot of five minutes. The cosmos, perhaps sees it differently in ways our view just unable to grasp until it's TIME>> so many plays on the word, so many values of dimension is it all Relative??

So here is the best explanation on the theory of RELATIVITY in this sister's experience. " Grab a hot pan and a second can seem like an hour, Grab a hot woman and a hour can seem like a second".

There are about five things that cover this multiple years of wisdom, worth all of two cents on a good day, that one will probably finishing reading within the five minute conversation. Is it all relative?

1. No two meditations are the same. Different strokes for different folks but all us have the power with in us. Mindfulness is the point of the exercise how one gets there are many paths, breath, visual, guided, affirmation, mantra, all true paths. The point is to be in the present moment, without judgement and observer of the time passage.

2. Three essential values:
    Consistency, Interest, and Openness...

Stubborn and consistency fit very well together here use them as one word. Call it ones "never zero" approach. No matter what, practice everyday, even if for five minutes or minute if that is what is available. DO IT period.
Doesn't matter what is happening, bored, tired, angry, sick, BUSY, depressed. Just sit. This is the way ones brain gets wired into meditation it is a consistent connection.

Keep the energy alive. Make it a passion, a learning, value, but keep it going it will pay off.

3. Things will CHANGE:

Everything is temporary including your feelings and the state of matters as they appear. There it is as they appear in that MOMENT OF TIME, hold on now, it will slip to a new perspective very shortly, everything is in constant change, one's DNA changes every thirty seconds imagine every thirty seconds, one is changed completely by natural order and of course one's actions and mindset. Point of value, the mind is becoming FLEXIBLE> All changes are subject to choice by one person and so what the changes are is dependent on the individual. IT will change.

4. Buddha Wave

In the beginning it is stated that even five minutes is good, and it is however, like everything it has to continue to grow and strengthen. So it only makes sense to find the meditations that challenges one's own journey at any given time. The stronger the quieting of the mind is the better the results of one's life journey.
Focus on the breath. the value of it is underestimated by far, it is the one thing that is consistent in sustaining one's life-force as long as it is moving so are we. This is mindfulness, the body and mind states as one observes, and delves into making the experience grow and mature. Time is also used in the concept of expanding and contracting and in the end is that not what life really is. Contracting when things come together, and expanding as things fall apart. One's heart will follow the mind, and the mind will follow the body, so the spirit, soul, essence is free to guide.

5.I am not my MIND>

The one thing learned by this sister is that I am not my thoughts, and my thoughts are not me, and detachment is possible for whatever is going on inside or out I am free.  When one realizes that one is not their feelings or thoughts, is just another temporary consciousness inside going on. It will come, play, and stay awhile but it will pass, the attachment is what makes the difference. If there is no attachment to the situation or the event, then it will pass without harm. It is a choice however, at that moment to attach or not.

Years in meditation and it comes down to five minutes of conversation, and no matter what it focusing and openness allow one to make one's choices of a choice based on to act upon,  to make use of, or simply to let go of. This is true freedom, this is the essence of relativity. It is all relative in the movement and motion of time.

Love Light and Rise each day sweet sisters.

Emotion-cons???? Speak Loudly

We all know what burnout is. There are many categories under this title. Emotional burnout is the very heart and soul of most of the sisterhood on this planet. Go figure, it just seems the normal.We express them everywhere, wherever that little button lives we PUSH IT. What if just for one moment, we truly took a look at the definition of emotion, and do we really ever get to the core of it's existence to truly accept and start to the changes to heal.

Emotions control one's thinking, behavior, and actions. Emotions cause illness. Emotions also reflect in the physical body just as the body affects your feelings and thinking. Emotions that are not felt and released look at that sentence again, there are two parts, and one must follow the other. Balance and Cleansing.

What are Feelings and Emotions?

  John D. (Jack) Mayer says, “Emotions operate on many levels.  They have a physical aspect as well as a psychological aspect.  Emotions bridge thought, feeling, and action – they operate in every part of a person, they affect many aspects of a person, and the person affects many aspects of the emotions.

  Dr. Maurice Elias says, “Emotions are human beings’ warning systems as to what is really going on around them.  Emotions are our most reliable indicators of how things are going on in our lives.  Emotions help keep us on the right track by making sure that we are led by more than the mental/ intellectual faculties of thought, perception, reason, memory.

These are just examples of how people define the word. Interesting perspective on both takes.
One cannot control their emotions, it is an illusion. We must feel all them, positive and negative, and then must release them as they are only there in that moment. Everything is temporary including emotions. The energy in each of these "feelings" is a good indicator of exactly what is going on inside us. It is a wake-up alarm alerting one that there is something amiss. If one sits and feels and follows this energy of emotion it will truly take one to the core issue, patterns that have sustained all this time and what a load one has been carrying, but that is where the healing must begin.

Sisters they are so many signs to show just how repressed and deep those emotions go we must pay attention to our bodies and truly get to be comfortable with it's amazing engineering .

TOP FIVE SIGNS:

1. FATIGUE
2. Depression with no related cause.
3.Blowing up over minor incidents
4. Pretending something doesn't matter when it really does matter.
5. Lethargic "who cares" attitude.

How many hmm's got you wonder?

Ways to Identify the feelings?
1. Listen inner self's thoughts and dress
2. Nothing is too small of matter if it hurts it matters
3.Record for 2 months what makes you feel strongly.
4. Keep a journal of your dreams (they reveal a lot)
5. Positive emotions draw them in
6. Listen to the gentle whispers of your soul
7. Use your guides, universal divine, feminine divine, angels, magic.

RELEASING THEM TO THE UNIVERSE-HEALING BEGINS.
1.Speak one's truth- the core of the experience of the feeling.
2.Transmutting emotions- emotional meditation experience. Letting go through the breath different degrees of breathing based on emotion or feeling.
3.Releasing Resentments-even the tiniest will fester. Be thorough.
4.The power of prayer or offering
5. Meditation with heart of the Universe. Once you have relaxed, feel your heart, be with your heart.  Then go out into the Universe, and visit the stars and the spaces between the stars, until you find that sacred place, the Heart of the Universe.  Approach it slowly, respectfully and with humility.  Then ask that the love of the Universal Heart be more deeply connected with your heart, and that your heart be filled with the love of the Universe.  Stay with this for as long as you can.  Feel the love of this Universal Heart.  Once you feel your heart has received the love it needs at this time, thank the Universal Heart for sharing its love with you and slowly open your eyes and come back into the present moment.
We need to ask!

6. Shifting your perspective.
7. Detach from it
8. Know your fears.

Watch the button pushing they are always directing one's true inner core self. Feel it, Release it, and rise in all your glory sisterhood.

Take A Breath ...You are still alive.

There is a breath meditation that takes the time to really fall in love with your breath with your life, with your moment. It is the BREATH MEDITATION.

The breath and the body are interconnected, as is seen from the fact that the breath is calm when the body is calm, and agitated or labored when the body is agitated or labored. The heavy exhalation made when feeling exhausted and the enthusiastic inhalation made when feeling energized or exhilarated establish the same fact.

The breath and the emotions are interconnected, as is seen from the fact that the breath is calm when the emotions are calm, and agitated and labored when the emotions are agitated or out of control. Our drawing of a quick breath when we are surprised, shocked, or fearful, and the forceful exhalation done when angry or annoyed demonstrate this.

The breath and the mind are interconnected, as is seen from the fact that the breath is calm when the mind is calm, and agitated, irregular, and labored when the mind is agitated or disturbed in any way. Our holding of the breath when attempting intense concentration also shows this.

Breath, which exists on all planes of manifestation, is the connecting link between matter and energy on the one hand and consciousness and mind on the other. By sitting with closed eyes and letting the mind become ease fully absorbed in observing and experiencing the movements of the breath we enter into the consciousness from which it arises–the eternal Witness Consciousness.

font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The practice of Breath Meditation

1) Sit upright, comfortable and relaxed, with your hands on your knees or thighs, palms up or palms down or resting, one on the other, in your lap.

2) Turn your eyes slightly downward and close them gently. This removes visual distractions and reduces your brain-wave activity by about seventy-five percent, thus helping to calm the mind.

3) Your mouth should be closed so all breathing is done through the nose. This, too, aids in quieting the mind. Though your mouth is closed, the jaw muscles should be relaxed so the upper and lower teeth are not clenched or touching one another, but parted.

4) Inhale and exhale slowly and deeply three or four times, feeling the inhaling and exhaling breath moving in and out through your nostrils.

5) Now breathe naturally and ease fully, keeping your awareness on the tip of your nose, feeling the breath as it flows in and out of your nostrils. (Some people become more aware of the half-inch or so at the end of the nose, others the very end of the nose, and others remain more aware of the nostrils. Whichever happens naturally is the best for you. So whenever this book says “nosetip” it applies equally to these three areas.) Do not follow the breath in and out of your body, but just be aware of the breath movement sensation at the tip of your nose.

6) Keeping your awareness on the tip of your nose, breathe naturally and calmly, ease fully observing the sensation of the breath moving there throughout all your inhalations and exhalations. This enables you to enter effortlessly into the Witness Consciousness that is your true nature.

7) Do this for the rest of the meditation, letting your awareness rest gently on the breath at the nose tip and feeling the sensations of the breath moving there. After a while it may feel as though the breath is flowing in and out the tip of your nose more than the actual nostrils, or you may not feel the nose at all, but just the breath moving at the point in front of your face where the nose is located. That is perfectly all right, but the focus of your attention should be only at that point–not somewhere else either outside or inside the body.

8) Let the breath be as it will. If the breath is naturally long, let it be so. If it is short, let it be so. If the inhalations and exhalations are of unequal length, that is just fine. Let the breath be natural and unforced, and just observe and experience it.

In time your breath will become more subtle and refined, and slow down. Sometimes your breath can become so light that it almost seems as though you are not breathing at all. At such times you may perceive that your inhaling and exhaling are more like a magnetic pull or flow in and out instead of actual breath movements. This occurs as the subtle life force (prana) that produces the breath switches back and forth in polarity from positive to negative. It is also normal for your breath awareness to move back and forth from more objective to more subtle and back to more objective.

Sometimes the subtle breath is silent, but at other times you will inwardly “hear” the breath making sounds as it moves in and out. These will not be actual physical sounds, but very subtle mental sounds. They may be like the sounds made by forceful or heavy inhalation and exhalation–except softer–or they may be quite different. Whatever they may be, just be calmly aware of them while staying centered on the nose tip and breath.

The breath is a kind of barometer of the subtle energies of body and mind. Sometimes it is very smooth, light and easeful, and at other times it feels heavy, even constricted, or clogged, sticky, ragged, uneven, and generally uncomfortable and somehow feels “not right.” When this occurs, do not try to interfere with it or “make it better.” Rather, just relax and be calmly aware and let it be as it is. If you do this, the problem in the subtle energy levels which the breath is reflecting will correct itself and the breath will become easy and pleasant.

9) In Breath Meditation we only focus our awareness on the breath at the nose tip/nostrils, and not on any other point of the body such as the “third eye.” However, as you meditate you may become aware of one or more areas of your body at different times. This is all right when it comes and goes spontaneously, but keep centered on your nose tip and your breath.

10) Thoughts, impressions, memories, inner sensations, and suchlike may also arise during meditation. Be calmly aware of all these things in a detached and objective manner. Let them come and go as they will, but keep your attention centered on the tip of the nose and your breath moving there. Be indifferent to any inner or outer phenomena. Breath Meditation produces peace, awareness and quiet joy in your mind as well as soothing radiations of energy in the physical and subtle bodies. Be calmly aware of all these things in a detached and objective manner–they are part of the transforming effect of meditation, and are perfectly all right–but keep your attention centered in your breath. Even though something feels very right or good when it occurs, it should not be forced or hung on to. The sum and substance of it all is this: It is not the experience we are after, but the effect.

11) If you find yourself getting restless, distracted, fuzzy, anxious or tense in any degree, just inhale and exhale slowly and deeply a few times, feeling the inhaling and exhaling breath moving in and out through your nostrils, at the same time feeling that you are releasing and breathing out all tensions. Then resume meditating as before. Relaxation is the key to successful meditation practice.

12) Keep in mind that Breath Meditation basically consists of being aware in a relaxed and easeful manner of your breath as it moves in and out at the tip of your nose. That is all!

At the end of your meditation time, keep on being calmly aware of your breath moving in and out of your nose tip as you go about your various activities. In this way you can maintain the calm and clear state of meditation.

The Breathe is the first action in life. The Breath is the last action in life. So every breath in-between remember you are still ALIVE........Pause and smell the roses.

Warrior Spirit Sunday....To all my sisters.

Tis a journey in every moment in every breathe, remember to honor all of it and everything in-between.

Meditation For the Sisters.

We all go through times of despair, and being out of balance. Life is supposed to be that way. What experiences would one truly get if the road of life was straight, no bumps, always smooth and never a up or down twist or turn? Life just isn't meant to be that way.

 The truth is, we are on a road that changes constantly, it never repeats the same way twice. So how does one maintain balance when the surface is constantly moving? There is the first lesson. Everything and everyone is constantly moving everything is in flux. Things come together and fall apart and then they come together again and fall apart. It is constant and every lasting in this time and place. This what being a soul in a meat skeleton is all about. The experiences that we get to participate in all the craziness and absurdity all the love and joy bliss and peace these are all abundant and it is us who must continue to purge and plow through it all with the best attitude we possibly can muster.

How does one have a good attitude? It starts from the inside. Meditation allows us to dive deep within to find the strength the power and the infinite love that surrounds us every moment of our lives. It provides solutions to the internal and the direct result of that is solutions then become available for the external. The true eternal light that resides in all of us requires us to our part, to stay connected to the divine for that is salvation.  No matter what is going on in one's life, there is a meditation for that purpose, just as there are plants for every ailment and light in every dark corner.

Meditation is the key to understanding and loving oneself through it all no matter what. It is about seeing what you are truly made of and also will guide you to the a path of purpose and passion. We are never broken this is what meditation tells us. We simply need a little mending now and then. Meditation brings forth all the pieces that make one unique and just like a patchwork quilt all the pieces will fit together in a natural order and process go with it, flow with the energy and see what beautiful pieces of YOU come forth. Mediation is the road map we are given to navigate this space we occupy for this lifetime the next be something different. Meditation the calming of the mind, and body and spirit, it aligns all three to be in perfect harmony with the cosmos after all that is where we all came from. The line we are all made of stardust is beautiful but true. Meditation does that it allows one to see truth as beautiful that includes the inner workings of oneself.  Meditation creates a new outlook a new path and in that one's attitude is adjusted just by a few simple moments of being still.

Stillness is the key to quietness of heart. Meditation leads the way to this occurrence. To be still and just breathe is a automatic gear for attitude to change like having a car in neutral and then all of sudden it reeves up and you know you can go anywhere and do anything. Mediation brings one closer to that which is and that which is not, and in some cases that which might be. Meditation allows you to manifest everything you need from the highest source by the way that source is in US not out of us. It builds from the inside and leaks out to the outside. The balance in mediation is the Yin and Yang of life. One is Yang most days operating in the big big world, Yin is the moments you stop and breathe and connect to source. Meditation is it's name.

Over the next few days meditations will be posted on a variety of subjects. The invitation stands to try one or try them all, and of course feel free to share meditations that have successful worked. Take a moment and drift away, sit, breathe, check the attitudes and then meditate  it all away. Seek balance in all things and meditation is the first tool one will use and it will be the best tool one will have to walk this path of human existence.