Resources
From Nada To Prada
Susan’s memoir takes you on her meteoric rise to the top of an affluent suburb only to become unintentionally addicted to drugs. Losing nearly a decade to addiction, where Susan was in and out of probate court, rehabs, and the criminal justice system, she finds both hope and success in Joe’s 5-tier process leading her out of the gutter and into the middle class once again. The 5-tier process is perfect for people who find the 12-step programs to be too much or not enough at all. It’s a story of redemption in so much as Susan can be both the villain and the hero in her own story. Once again successful, Susan is sharing her experience, strength, and hope so you too may break the chains of addiction. Be the hero of your own story and Break the Chains once and for all.
The Dictionary of Missing Time
The Dictionary of Missing Time chronicles one woman’s sobriety journey and her many self-discoveries along the way. Reflecting on substance-abuse and narcissistic-relationship recoveries, this memoir provides new expressions as a means to form a common language and many insights into the human condition.
Resources
Tier 1: Self-Awareness
Begin your journey with a deep dive into self-discovery using VIA Mindfulness and Character Assessments to identify and harness your unique strengths.
Tier 2: Focus
Shift your perspective from limitations to possibilities, setting clear goals and envisioning the path to becoming your best self.
Tier 3: Relating
Enhance your relationships by transforming perceptions, replacing negativity with constructive challenges, and fostering empowerment.
Tier 4: Actions
Embrace the discomfort of change, taking incremental steps to build momentum and move closer to your aspirations.
Tier 5: One-on-One Coaching
A 6 month or 1 year commitment to one on one coaching to gain and maintain forward momentum. Progress can be
non-linear with step back and after 2 steps forward. One to one coaching supports the individual to internalize what they have learned and take the actions necessary to live the life they deserve.
Taming the Unmanned Fire Hose
Mindfulness is Medication for the Soul
“Spring is nature’s way of saying, ‘Let’s party!’” ~ Robin Williams
When Spring is in full bloom, it brings longer days, more sunshine, and with it renewed energy. With the extra sunlight, my ideas are unleashed. I feel like an unmanned fire hose, my creativity exploding in all directions.
Spring can bring more energy, motivation, and — if you have bipolar disorder — an increased risk of mania and a recurrence through self-medication. Here’s how to protect your stability with mindfulness, connection, and creativity.
This particular winter was colder than normal and I felt as though I’ve been hibernating since Thanksgiving. While this is a welcome change, it can pose challenges for those with bipolar disorder, like myself, the underlying condition to my addiction issue, that is currently in remission.
The seasonal pattern of bipolar disorder is well-documented, with shifts in mood often aligning with changes in weather, making living outside of Cleveland, Ohio challenging to say the least.
Many people with bipolar disorder experience worsening depression in winter. Just as winter gives way to spring, depressive symptoms can sometimes transition into mania or hypomania. Spring often brings increased motivation, more socializing, and a natural energy boost. But for individuals with bipolar disorder or other neurodivergence, this surge can lead to excessive activity, sleeplessness, impulsive decisions, and other complicating issues to your sobriety.
In my opinion, mania is far more destructive than depression. With all the extra energy you can get into a year’s worth of trouble in a week. Coupled with self-sabotaging behaviors from financial trauma, that’s exactly how my credit debt escalated.
Now that I’ve been working on my financial trauma from childhood and valuing savings over a trip to the mall, my finances have fallen into line. But, I have a tight budget and no credit cards. Just like pills, I never found one credit card to be enough, and now there is “extra time” to manage the addictive tendencies. There is extra energy and just more hours to manage your sobriety, which can be daunting in early recovery.
As I have bipolar disorder and an addiction issue in remission, I look to help my health without any medication. It’s not in remission while shopping, it’s just been transferred. To get back on track, I needed an activity. The answer for me was crafting, more specifically quilting.
Quilting as a mindfulness technique helps to regulate my nervous system. The left-right hand eye coordination takes the focus of my thoughts into being present in my body. The creative release helps to heal and provide an outlet for this extra energy and is more rewarding than low value activities.
Creativity is the antidote to anxiety.
The extra energy is also providing motivation for spring cleaning. Both help to shake out the funk of winter and get back into a routine. Routines are very important when you have these underlying conditions. Taking your medication at the same time every day is part of your self-care routine. Quilting is self-care as it regulates my nervous system. Nervous system dysfunction is a common, if underlooked health issue. Hobbies, mindfulness activities, creative exercises, and social engagements with authentic connections are all holistic self-care activities.
It’s now mid-spring and I’m feeling the energy boost. I haven’t quilted in months and a recent trip to a quilt show had me even more motivated. I have about material to make thirty quilts, so it’s time to use it all. My way of thinking about materials and money had changed to very frugal once my budget was in place.
I had a lot of financial issues to work through, and although my mother and father did the best they could, I definitely absorbed their bad spending habits, another way that generational dysfunction escalates as it travels down the family line.
I, against logic, had ordered new fabric to make a quilt for my bed. I pulled open the package. The textures, the color, the thread count of the fabric, it was all so soothing. I had been struggling with anxiety and quilting is my mindfulness technique. The fabric softens the never-ending hallway of chronic stress.
In the movie eighties movie, Poltergeist, the spirits in the house stretch out the upstairs hallway so that the end is never reached, like the upper limits of infinity. We don’t know when or where it ends.
Chronic stress and dysfunction feel the same way. There is no end in sight. The stress flares up your nervous system putting you into a fight or flight response. Stay too long and you end with nervous system regulation.
My PTSD feels like constant nervous system dysregulation. I spend time with hobbies, directing my focus to the task at hand. The left-right coordination seems to bring my body into balance. My hobbies serve as mindfulness activities that soothe my soul, calm my nervous system, and bring me into the present. The opposite of addiction is connection.
I feel connected to myself, to my work, and to a community. Picking out the pattern, finding just the right fabric. The fabric is soothing to the skin.
Quite by accident I had purchased a viking sewing machine when I had a manic spending during my manic episode while I was dating Frank and I put it to good use. Quilting had updated my background operating system.
I lacked an integrated self. It was fragmented by childhood trauma. My inner child was wounded and quilting was helping it to heal. By merging the creative side of my brain and the scientific side of my brain, it created a unifying system that has improved my executive function, my problem-solving skills, my emotional intelligence, and my social skills, all the while I get to express my creativity and produce a work of art.
Being present and mindful is truly a gift of sobriety. It’s all natural medication for the sou
