Traumatic Experiences Community Daily check-in Wednesday December 5th 2018

Hi all! Happy Wednesday!!

Not every day in recovery is about improving and climbing. Maintenance is a really undervalued skill. Without a good foundation of coping skills, how can we improve? Being able to tread water, to endure through especially tough days, to just survive, that is good enough sometimes. Some days all you may be able to do is just survive it, and that is ok. You are not a lesser or weaker person because you don't improve every day. Every improvement is a big step that takes a lot of energy. Any new habit you make, before it becomes automatic, takes conscious thought and therefore a lot of mental energy every time you work on it. On hard days, even "basic" tasks like personal hygiene can be a real struggle. This is normal in recovery, you are not weak, you simply have depleted resources.

Sometimes I imagine recovery is like a simulation game. Like a city builder. You start off with only a couple resources and you build really slowly at first. You're constantly having to juggle, what am I going to sacrifice so that I can save up for this big purchase etc. I find recovery can feel like that. We're constantly calculating our emotional, mental, and physical resources to make sure we don't fall into the red (a spiral) in any one domain. Sometimes in sim games, you have to wait a bit for projects to end so that the money or resources will recuperate. There is no shame in needing to wait for resources to replenish as a human being. It can take time and feel very frustrating, but going into emotional and mental debt can have consequences.

My questions for you are:

What have you done or plan to do today for maintenance?

What maintenance strategy have you been neglecting and want to get back into?

Are there any maintenance habits that can act as warning signs that you might be starting a spiral if they become harder to do?

How can you be kind to yourself today if things don't "feel better" enough to feel like improvement?

As an example, I plan on focusing on hygiene and relaxation techniques today. I don't feel the need to necessarily tackle any big challenges today. I just want to maybe make some lists to see what does have to be done so it's not all floating in the air overwhelming me with uncertainty, and focus on staying calm. That is enough for today. That is success in recovery.

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