The First Thing You Recover Is the Present Moment

What Happens When You Stop Managing Yourself?

In the last article, we explored the shift from self-management to self-awareness and how becoming more aware of your inner experience begins to return your attention to the present moment. That raises an important question: what actually happens when you stay present with an experience that you would previously have tried to change, escape, regulate or control?

For many people in recovery, the original addiction eventually gives way to other strategies for managing internal distress. The strategy may look healthier or create fewer obvious consequences, but it can still serve a familiar purpose. Attention moves toward something that helps create distance from an uncomfortable internal experience.

One way to discover whether this is happening is through a simple experiment. For a short period of time, stop using the strategy and notice what begins to emerge.

You may discover why the strategy became so important in the first place.

When the Strategy Is Gone

As attention moves away from whatever has been helping you manage yourself, you may begin to feel the distress underneath it more directly. Fear, insecurity, tension, restlessness, sadness, shame or some other uncomfortable experience may begin to emerge.

This can feel unsettling, particularly when you have spent years developing effective ways of responding quickly when these feelings arise.

There is another possibility available in that moment. You can bring your attention directly to the experience itself and become curious about what happens when you simply notice it.

You might recognize an emotion, notice tension somewhere in your body, become aware of a thought or feel an urge beginning to build. As you remain present, you can allow yourself to experience what is happening long enough to discover something about your own capacity.

You May Have More Capacity Than You Realize

One of the discoveries that can occur is surprisingly simple: you can be with the experience.

The internal distress may still be present, but your experience of it can begin to change as you stay with it. You may notice that the intensity feels different when it is experienced directly, because your attention is now focused on what is actually happening rather than being consumed by the urgency of trying to manage it.

You may also begin to recognize that you have more capacity today than you thought you did.

Perhaps you have more capacity than you had several years ago. Perhaps your recovery has already strengthened that capacity in ways you have never fully recognized because your attention has remained focused on managing yourself.

That realization can bring a sense of relief.

The experience that once seemed to demand an immediate response may begin to feel more manageable simply because you are discovering that you can remain present with it.

The Beginning of Self-Trust

This is one way self-trust begins to develop.

You experience an emotion and discover that you can be with it. You notice an urge and recognize that you have enough capacity to observe it. Something uncomfortable happens inside and, instead of immediately tightening around the experience, you remain present long enough to learn something new about yourself.

Over time, experiences like these can begin to build confidence.

You start to recognize, I can handle this.

That confidence comes from experience. Each time you remain present with internal distress and discover your capacity to be with it, you gather more evidence about what you are capable of.

This can also reduce the sense of panic or urgency that may have accompanied difficult emotions in the past. The experience itself becomes more familiar, and your confidence in your own capacity begins to grow.

Discovering What Is Right With You

Many people enter recovery carrying a painful assumption that their addiction says something fundamentally wrong about who they are. Years can then be spent trying to become better, do better and demonstrate that change to themselves and others.

The experience of staying present with internal distress can begin to challenge that assumption.

You may begin to discover something that is deeply right with you.

You have the capacity to experience difficult emotions. You have the ability to remain present with discomfort. You can notice thoughts, sensations, urges and impulses and allow them to be part of your current experience.

That capacity is also something that can be developed. Like other skills, it becomes stronger through practice and experience.

This is one of the ways deeper recovery becomes something you experience rather than simply something you understand.

What Happens Next?

Did you know that you had the ability to be with and hold the internal distress your addiction was trying to manage?

And now that you are beginning to discover that you have the capacity to be with that distress, what happens inside?

That question takes us into the next part of deeper recovery. Because once you begin to recognize that the capacity is already there, another question becomes important: What gets in the way of accessing it?