Reclaim Myself : A Handbook for Holistic Recovery **PART II**

By Chaim Durst and Dustin Gilman-Stienstra

Part II covers: *Trust *Focus*Addiction *Labels I begin Part II by discussing trust. In that chapter, I cover four forces that impact my trust the most: fear, anger, hope, and self-love. Even though I have behaved in an untrustworthy manner and fear I will continue to do the same, I can implement daily exercises to resolve those misgivings. I fear I will relapse, I fear pain will snuff me out, and I fear that others will abandon or betray me. I outline the tools I use to resolve these and other fears that erode my trust. I then discuss methods I use to resolve the roots of my anger. Anger, like fear, is a warped filter that prevents me from seeing objectively. I conclude the first chapter of Part II by discussing how hope and self-love allow me to trust myself and others. The second chapter of Part II is about focus. I can't change how I feel. I can change what I focus on, which will, in time, change how I feel. As is evident from the importance I put on visualization techniques throughout the book, I rely heavily on my imagination to help me manage physical and mental crises. That is especially so when it comes to shifting my focus away from destructive emotions, thoughts, and sensations to more life-affirming ones. In that chapter, I cover the numerous techniques I use to shift my physical and mental focus. In the third chapter of Part II, "Addiction," I approach the topic as I do pain. I discuss what I can do to prevent addictive tendencies from becoming full-bore, how I can abort them once they do, and what I can do after I've safely navigated a bout of addictive behavior to prevent future onsets. I cover addiction head-on only after I am halfway through the curriculum because I feel that understanding the causes, as I attempt to do in earlier chapters, will help me find lasting solutions to addictive behavior that manifest as a result. Approaching addiction in this manner encourages me to keep my focus on "First Things First." The last chapter of this part is: "Labels." Labels play an integral role in my long-term illness, disability, and addiction. I have used numerous labels to avoid taking responsibility for how I behave and think, and I have accepted the labels others imposed on me, allowing those to disable and destabilize me. Over the years, I have found this topic to be an especially robust one for group discussion. Many of my students also struggle to resolve life-long labels they've worn.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1729342035
• ISBN13: 9781729342039
• Release Date: October 2018
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 202 Pages
• Weight: 1.21 lbs.
• Dimensions: 11.0" x 0.5" x 8.5"