Addiction and mental health treatments can be enhanced by adding self-love therapy.
While self-love may sound selfish it is far from it. Often people find it easier to accomplish self-love with the aid of a therapist or counselor to coach them.
What is self-love
When we discuss self-love we are not talking about ego or narcissism. We are talking about self-compassion and self-acceptance. It is about your well-being and happiness. Being compassionate to you, forgiving yourself, and taking care of yourself leads to happiness. That happiness will lift your mental mood.
Self-love begins with self-care. Self-care is taking care of you physically. It begins with nutrition. Eating a diet that is healthy with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables combined with protein and good fats. Good fats are the omegas. You can find them in a variety of food from fish to nuts.
Add exercise to the healthy diet and it will elevate your mental mood even more. Exercise outside in the sunshine improves your mental mood but remember to use sunscreen.
Sleep is vital to healing your body. You need to try to get eight hours of sleep a night. When you sleep your body repairs itself. Good sleep also improves your mental outlook. Try to set a schedule where you go to bed at the same time each night and wake up at the same time each morning. The human body does best when it is on a cycle of sleep and waking hours.
Finally, each day choose three things you will do for yourself for self-care and do them. The accomplishments will also make you feel better mentally. Things like cooking your meal, hiking, or a beauty treatment are all good self-care activities you can accomplish.
Adding the remaining steps of self-love
We are all our own worst critics at times. But those who experience mental health issues and addiction are constantly critical of themselves. Always thinking negatively about their selves as a person until it becomes overwhelming and they cannot think of their self as anything but negatively.
You need to learn compassion for yourself as well as others. If you can show yourself compassion then you can have compassion for others. Why compassion? Because compassion leads to forgiveness and when you can forgive yourself you can forgive others. Forgiveness is a key to letting go of the past hurts and moving forward.
When you have gotten to this point self-confidence has begun to show. Why is self-confidence important? Self-confidence will allow you to try new things; including promotions at work or a different job entirely. You will also find that you do better at surrounding yourself with positive people.
The best part is the longer you practice self-love the easier it becomes and the more positive you become. At 449 Recovery, our therapists can help you with your treatment plan. Contact us today 855-735-7449
