This includes addressing the mental, physical, and spiritual elements of addiction. Whenever you find yourself feeling irritable discontent bored with your life or depressed it is likely that you may have skipped meditation or prayer. In these situations, I feel spiritual malady further from God than normal and then I wonder who moved me or God and the answer is always me. It is strange paradox, the more you focus on helping others, the more you discover how much you matter. People in the rooms refer to this as a ‘god-sized hole’.
- The huge burden that humans bear is the ability to contemplate our own annihilation—death.
- This is frequently referred to as “falter (or freeze) and faint” physiology.
- On page 62 the text explains that “Selfishness-self-centeredness!
- My last blog post took us back some 4 billion years to set a foundation for deconstructing illness and disease.
Heart intelligence: Turning towards the divine
It is this notion that the fellowship of AA was founded upon, and how millions of recovered alcoholics equate their success in overcoming a seemingly hopeless situation. The only solution to a spiritual malady is a spiritual awakening. Now, the mental obsession is how our minds have been conditioned to crave alcohol and preferred illicit substances.
Final Thoughts on Living the Spiritual Life and Recovery
We became selfish and self-seeking, ever thirsting for more, and this lust warped us on every level. But we were never satisfied, because but the living presence of God can quench our parched souls. Most of us hate to deal with negative thoughts or emotions—it just doesn’t feel good. We will compartmentalize thoughts and stuff emotions away. These are our thought suppressions and emotional repressions that also bias the system towards threat physiology. The idea is to look for a spiritual solution to an addiction problem, as this type of issue affects more than someone physically.
Take Your First Step To Recovery
We accumulate threat and trauma codes throughout a lifetime that bias the system towards threat and trigger threat physiology easily. When we are under threat, we create a bias towards negative, selfish, aggressive and prejudiced thoughts. When being chased by a tiger it is helpful to think “danger”, react quickly, judge without contemplation, defend and protect one’s self. It is not a time for deep thought, nor bonding and sharing, or you’ll be sharing a meal with the tiger and not in a good way. Threat brings about adaptive physiology and behaviors that prevent sociality and spirituality, but serve us well in a defense.
It is a reality of my powerlessness and unmanageability and enables me to see why I so desperately need to seek a Power Greater than myself. And unless this malady is recognized, and a course of action (the Twelve Steps) is taken to enable God to remove it, the root of our alcoholic illness can lie dormant and burn us when we least expect it. Thankfully, the “spiritual malady” is no longer a “missing piece” of Step One for me. What that means is that all that is required is the belief in a power greater than yourself. There is no church you must attend or strict practices you must adhere to in organized worship of said higher power, it is a completely individual and personal experience.
Spiritual awakenings don’t necessarily happen the way we might expect, along a timeline we prefer, or in a form obvious to us. Spiritual awakenings often evolve so gradually that they are almost imperceptible. And only when our eyes, ears, mind, and heart are fully open, are we positioned to discern, receive, and appreciate them. Here at California Detox in Laguna Beach, we can help you unpack the physical, psychological, and spiritual aspects of alcoholism.
Right now, on this inventory step, all we’re doing is identifying our part in any damaged relationships. We won’t actually act on this step until we get to Principle 6. For right now, just ask yourself who might be on your amends list. So let’s take a look at the questions we can ask ourselves to help us build our spiritual inventory list. We’re going to look specifically at four areas of our lives. Spirituality is the aspect of recovery that I think most often gets overlooked.
- For instance, Oldfield offers what I consider a continuum of human functioning, with “fully aliveness” on one side of the spectrum and “sin” on the other.
- Writes, “For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead.
- We won’t actually act on this step until we get to Principle 6.
- As addicts we can become so focused on the outward form our addiction takes – whether that booze, drugs, sex, overeating, etc. – that we overlook its deep roots at the core of our being.
It revitalizes our connection with our thoughts and emotions, pushing us to contemplate our spiritual growth and the need for positive change. I enjoy all the articles but I would like to say that the image suggesting a boy is holding a gun to his head about to suicide is a bit intense. Many people reading this article will have had someone commit suicide. I think it is a little too intense of an image for people who are in trauma and trying to get better.
What You Need to Know About Spiritual Illness and Disease
- But seriously, that’s the kind of deep relationships you can build here in CR; as deep as family.
- Depending on your answers, you’ll be able to determine what type of spiritual healing modality you need.
- I honestly feel like part of me has died with my little Dean.
- So long as we make an active effort to address our spiritual malady every day, we will find relief from it, one day at a time.
The first dark twin is what I call spiritualized resistance. I also highly recommend that you check out our article on Soul Work, which goes into great depth on ways of reconnecting with the soul. So the question isn’t how to “heal” your soul (because the soul is Divine and incapable of being fractured – you can experience this while meditating), but how to find your soul.
What is Authentic Spiritual Healing?
Thank you for this week’s article and the assistance to guide my angst back onto a peaceful track of resolution with my reality. You are merely instructed to be open to the idea that you are not the end all be all, that there exists out in the universe something that is greater or more powerful than yourself. However, you choose to interact with that higher power is also up to you. Whether you seek to engage in formal prayer, informal mental conversations, or merely by doing good and putting positive energy into the universe, there is no right or wrong way to pray to your higher power. Once you open up to this idea and implement that spiritual connection, you will experience your long-awaited spiritual awakening, the answer to that pesky spiritual malady we suffer from as alcoholics. If you’re not ready to talk to friends or family members, reach out to a support group or supportive person.