We had another impactful gathering tonight. After checking in with each other about what was currently going on in our lives for the first hour, we were then joined by Sarah Crawford who skillfully guided us through the notion of “Self-Care” and the role it plays in our effectiveness as parents, partners, family members, co-workers and shared stewards of our community at large.
Sarah gently and lovingly had us sharing with each other at a deeper and more personal level than we have shared before. We talked through our own self-care practices, our beliefs and myths about self-care and spent some time talking about our individual barriers we have that prevent us from practicing more self-care. The obvious point was, in the end, that the more we work through our barriers preventing us from self-care, the more effective we can be to be present to our loved ones who struggle with substance abuse and recovery. Most interesting, and perhaps the point of our time tonight, during our hour and a half with Sarah, we never talked about our loved one’s struggle with substance abuse or recovery until the last 10 minutes of our exploration of self-care. Maybe, the often quoted theme from Al Anon: “If you do what’s good for you, you will be doing what’s best for the addict” was the underlying and implied message of tonight’s gathering.
If you would like more information about the meeting or the information we went over, please don’t hesitate to give me a call. My phone number, e-mail address and a confidential e-mail submission form are all on the Contact page of this website.
Jamie
The Daybreak Project 