Diving into shark invested waters is dangerous. Human strength is no match for a JAWS style attack. That’s why deep sea divers use shark cages. The strong bars protect them from becoming a Great White’s lunch.

Addiction recovery requires a different kind of personal protection. And that is staying true to your values and honest about how you really feel.

Your core values and your ability to identify your feelings are like a protective enclosure.

When you ground yourself in what truly matters, that safeguards you. You get less tempted by addiction. You get direction and emotional stability by staying aligned to your values.

Your values and feelings give you strength when addiction is tugging you in a bad direction.

When we to truly commit to our actual values, we free ourselves. Our addictive tendencies lessen the more we commit to embodying our highest selves and being honest (at least with ourselves) about how we really feel.

Do I really need to look at a list?

If you can name them on your own, great. Personally, I find looking at lists of values and feelings to be a helpful prompt.

How do I pick them?

For core values:

First, quickly read over all of them. Then go back through and write down 10 values.

For feelings:

Image by Toni Cuenca on Pexels.

The point is to step away from your intellect.

Feelings, for the purpose of this exercise, are limited to some key ones. When asked how we feel, it’s common to say something like, “I feel like so-and-so doesn’t respect me.” Or “I feel like you are judging me.”

These of course are not feelings. These are observations and accusations. A feeling would be far more simple. For example, I feel sad. I feel mad. I feel disappointed.

This is key. Practice identifying how you really and truly feel without judging, name-calling, criticizing or diagnosing yourself or others. You might be surprised how often you do this, like conjugating verbs, without thinking.

When should I do this?

Core Values:

Early on in recovery, I recommend looking at your core values monthly. As the months and years go by, as long as you stay consistent with identifying your values (which may or may not shift or time) becomes second nature.

Feelings:

Look at your feelings daily –even hourly. These pesky rascals are full of information and frequently not the MEANING we assign to them.

Learning how to identify and feel your feelings is a big deal. It’s a big part of why we escape into addiction.

Early in the recovery, feelings are the scariest of monsters.

There are two main reasons for this. First, these are feelings you learned to push down for good reason. They were inconvenient to your caregivers, so you made the rational choice not to express them, as they only cause more pain. And secondly, early on, feelings FEEL like they might kill you if you fully let yourself experience them.

As you grow and mature in recovery, you learn new ways to handle overwhelm. You learn to approach feelings with skill, confident that you will be better off by feeling them, than not. You will see that not only do they not kill you, they have wisdom. The tricky part that takes time to cultivate is figuring out just what the heck that wisdom is.

Yea, but…

 HOW is writing some words down going to do me a lick of good?

I get that this can sound like an empty exercise. Like, I’m asking you to cut shapes out of construction paper and glue them on a paper plate or something.

Validating yourself goes a long way to getting calmer. 

Even if it seems silly. It’s a great skill to have because there will always be times when even your great support network is out of reach.

Example 1

You’re home alone on a Saturday night, but, you wish you were out doing something fun and social. And at the exact same time, you don’t want to go anywhere. There might be people there!

So you find yourself drinking, or mindlessly scrolling your phone. What can be done? How do you break out of this routine?

Well, pause for a moment. Close your eyes, take a deep breath and slowly exhale. How do you feeeeeel? Like really?

Likely some variation of: lonely, frustrated, sad and bored.

Oh, no. Now what? This sucks.

Now you get to contemplate what it might actually take for you to shift out of this. What makes you not lonely? When aren’t you frustrated? What could provide hope for you?

The answers might not come immediately, but you’re strengthening your awareness. And bringing into focus that which you can control or take action over.

This might seem like a nothing-burger to you. 

Like “oh boy, more awareness that I am sad. Gee, thanks.” But actually, yes, overtime this helps you build compassion for your situation and starts to motivate you to take action because you are finally parsing out what you can and can not control.

Without this, you stay in reaction.

You just keep looking for a way to fill the void, numb the pain, distract away. And so, nothing changes.

Example 2

Building off the “tragically home alone” on a Saturday night scenario, now let’s examine this situation from the standpoint of your values. What if your core values include: Kindness, self-respect and compassion?

In that case, could you be kind to yourself when you ask what’s stopping you from making weekend plans? Perhaps some compassion for possible feelings of social awkwardness? Maybe appeal to your own sense of self-respect to do the work to find a resolution for yourself?

Image by Stas Knop on Pexels.

Appeal to your higher-self and you will find your own unique answers.

Perhaps you genuinely do not enjoy crowds but, you would like to do something with one or two other people. So you can take action and join a Meet Up or be proactive about finding out what’s happening in your town next weekend and then plan it and do it.

Feelings of Contentment:

Feelings of Discontentment:

45 Values:

Religions have days of worship. Exercise regiments demand daily sweat fests. College degrees have course requirements. Addiction recovery has you feeling your feelings and valuing your values. It’s doable. Even enjoyable, at times.

Summary

• What you value and how you feel are important. They provide guidance to your most authentic self.
• Love addicts have core values and true feelings, but struggle to identify them, particularly in moments of stress.
• It can be very helpful to look at a list of values and feelings,  especially when you first start recovery.
• Pick 10 values that resonate and write them down, then pick 5 from, then narrow it down to three.
• Love addicts need practice at identifying their honest feelings. It’s crucial and surprisingly challenging.
• The addict brain does NOT want you getting in touch with your values and feelings. It wants you dead. Intense, I know.
• I recommend reviewing your values frequently in the first 6 months to a year of recovery.

• I recommend you check in on your feelings hourly or more in the first     6 months to a year of recovery.
• A commitment to feeling your feelings and valuing your values helps you understand what you can and cannot control with reduces feelings of despair.
• The goal is to build emotional resilience that will help you overcome inevitable addiction cravings.

So, dive in. Enjoy your days with pluck and verve, Sponge Bob style. Even if you fall deep in the ocean of addiction temptation, you’ve got back-up.

Sure, IMAGINATION helps but, the key is staying very real about what you value and how you actually feel. Avoiding this only empowers an addict mindset, the meanest shark of all.

Next Steps:

Want help feeling your feelings and valuing your values? Let’s talk.

Dive deeper into values with this article.