Is it time to up your BALM recovery program?

Just this week, I received three testimonials from long time BALMers about how much the program has helped them help their loved ones and themselves. These family members report the ability to support their loved ones’ healthy behaviors, the ability to have BALM® conversations as needed, and the increased ability their loved ones appear to have to make their own good decisions in the moment and long term. If there has been relapse, these BALM® family members say they are contributing to reversing the slip and getting back into sustained recovery.

If you have been BALMing for awhile, you may notice that many parts of how you behave seem forever changed:

• Your awareness is sharper, your ability to observe what is going on around you is clearer than before.
• You ability to notice your inner emotional landscape is consistent, and you see your own foibles and errors with less judgment than before.

Yet, you may not be feeling as strong in your BALMing as you would like to, whether your loved one has been struggling, or doing well. Perhaps you find yourself being short with others, replacing your BALM® learned ability to listen, watch, and document with blurting out complaints and judgments quickly in an unkind tone.

Perhaps you see your inner peace, foundational to sustaining these changes in an actionable way, wavering over time and you are not sure how or why that could be.

If you find yourself seeing reality, both inner and out, yet not soon enough to stop yourself from reacting instead of responding, there are usually three areas of BALMing to examine and consider intensifying:

1. Your practice of Step One:  “Be the Peace You Wish to See in the World.”
2. Your practice of Principle Five:  “Keeping Your Focus on Yourself and Off of Your Loved One Will Help You Both.”
3. Your practice of Principle Six:  “Your Primary Task is to Be A Loving Person.”

In my own life, I notice that when my daily practice of prayer and meditation is reduced, I have less energy to take care of myself and less of the patience required to be loving with others in my life. And when I pay less attention to self care than to what others ask of me, I have less to give. Finally, if I forget that the first phase of being a loving person is about being loving to myself (by taking time to develop and sustain practices that will help me take spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional care of myself), my love of others could manifest in enabling or denial, both of which are dangerous to myself, my loved one and my family.

What is it like for you?

This week in the Daily BALM®, we are looking at Self-Care, which starts with a daily practice of peace, moves through good hygiene, getting sleep, eating healthy, and letting go of our own addictive behaviors, and results in the ability to be loving in an aware, non-enabling way.

The people around us are less of an issue in our lives when we reduce our own issues.

Of course, active Substance Use Disorder can require quick action on the family’s part. If that is the case in your family, work on that and your own challenges with the help of your BALM® coach and other professionals.

Is it time to upgrade your BALM® practice?

Here are a few ideas to get started:

Wake up each day and start by going within rather than picking up your smart phone:

1. Ask your Spiritual Source/the Universe/God/Inner Wisdom to guide you on your path throughout the day.
2. Decide which breathing or meditation practice works for you and commit to a daily practice
3. Spend five minutes breathing, reading BALM® – The Loving Path to Family Recovery or another book or article that inspires you to a deeper grounding in your family recovery.

Open up your Fast Track to Recovery Workbook.

1. Go to Principle 5 and retake the self-care assessments you took when you first came into the BALM®.
2. Once you see the areas of self-care you may be ignoring or pushing aside, decide on one or two to focus on.
3. Rebuild your self-care one day at a time and watch it pay off in your life.

Join us on both Daily BALM® Programs this week as we look at Lesson 5 on Monday at noon ET and hear an expert interview on Wednesday evening at 9 pm ET.

See you then!

And until then, Be A Loving Mirror

If you would like to purchase Bev’s new book mentioned above, BALM® – The Loving Path to Family Recovery CLICK HERE