Embarking on the journey toward recovery from addiction is challenging for addicts as well as their family members and loved ones. Incorporating both prayer and meditation into the recovery process can help ease your path and open up new ways of loving yourself and the journey you are on.
The Importance of Prayer and Meditation
As you are embarking on the journey toward addiction recovery, you have already made one of the most important decisions of your life – to step away from drugs and re-join your community. Choosing a faith-based rehab program is another conscious decision to let the Word of God guide your path to recovery and make prayer an integral part of your day.
Aside from prayer, establishing a meditation practice can help give you the tools you need to nourish your mind, body, and spirit throughout rehab and beyond. Prayer and meditation are healthy and proactive ways to establish or maintain a conscious connection with a higher power.
Establishing a regular meditation practice also introduces the concept of mindfulness into your journey. At its most basic, mindfulness refers to the ability to be present in the current moment, without the need for drugs to cover up or enhance aspects of that moment.
Pray to Reach Out, Meditate to Reach In
Prayer and meditation each have their role to play in your recovery and your efforts to connect with God.
A simple way of thinking of the differences between the two is to imagine prayer as a way to reach out to that higher power. Meditation, on the other hand, is a way of reaching inward and connecting your mind, body, and spirit.
Praying is an excellent way to affirm your belief and ask for help. Joining a faith-based recovery program means that your faith either remains intact or that you are looking to re-establish it. Praying allows you to strengthen or forge that connection. Many addicts suffer from overwhelming feelings of guilt at the thought of damaged relationships, for example. What better time to ask for forgiveness than during a daily prayer?
Meditation plays a different role in your recovery. Drug addiction, including alcohol, changes the way messages are transmitted in your brain. In fact, some receptors may completely shut down. As you detox from the drugs, those parts of your brain will become active and signal their craving for the drug you were addicted to. Meditation allows you to reduce the intensity of those signals and recognize them for what they are, a stage of your recovery.
Increase Meaning and Purpose
Most addicts have found that their lives have been governed by the need for their drug of choice. Without that craving to dominate the day, their lives may initially feel unstructured or even empty. Prayer and meditation have the power to add meaning and purpose to basic daily tasks. Both also help establish a healthy routine that is essential to successful recovery.
Learning to Love Yourself
Spending time meditating means spending time with yourself, exploring your emotions and your state of mind, and accepting them for what they are. In the beginning, this may seem like the hardest part of your day. But the benefits are endless as you learn to love yourself once again.
Many addicts come to loathe the person they are and use drugs to cover up those feelings. Meditation and mindfulness allow you to recognize the emotions you’re experiencing as an integral part of yourself and your journey to sobriety.
Consider a Faith-based Rehabilitation Program
Overcoming addiction is one of the hardest journeys you will ever embark on in your life. A faith-based rehab program is built on the strongest guiding principle you could ever wish for, the Word of God. Prayer and meditation are two powerful tools that help you on your journey and allow you to (re-)connect to your faith by reaching in and reaching out.
To learn more about faith-based rehab with S2L Recovery, contact our team today.
