Happy Easter

Wishing everyone a Blessed and Happy Easter!

~ recoveryBox

Random Resource ThuRsday - Filtering Software

Looking for other options for filtering software for your computer, visit pornharms.org resource section.

2 of the resources on the page I have already blogged about..but perhaps there is another resource that might work better for your family. Regardless, help protect everyone's eyes!

the Badge Center

Did you know that you can go and view all the badges you have earned during your recovery from your addiction? Yes it is true, recoveryBox is created so that you don't have to use the entire app.  Perhaps you only want to track your sobriety date..well then just track that.  Or maybe you want to track only your triggers and nothing else - then go ahead and do that. But you will earn badges for all of your hard work.

I was reminded of the importance of tracking "Lights" when I went to test the app on a fresh device and the list came up empty. The message really hit home "Recovery is about replacing bad habits with good ones.  Tracking your Lights will help your accountability as well as help you see patterns in behaviors!"

Well, that about sums it up..nice to get a reminder..huh!

Oh yeah..if you want to see all the badges you have earned then go to More Tools -> Badge Center.  And be prepared to be amazed at how well you are doing!

recoveryBox, the iPhone mobile app for Addiction Recovery

www.recoveryboxapp.com

Protecting Your Lights From Other's Eyes

Today's post is more of a housekeeping tip..you want to use recoveryBox, but are afraid that if a child or a coworker uses your device that they might accidentally open the app and there "it" all is.

To password protect your recoveryBox app, go to More Tools -> Settings -> Password

That's all for today!
www.recoveryboxapp.com
Addiction Recovery iPhone App

I Just Can't Remember..HELP ME!

With all the crazy things we have going on in our lives, taking the time to enter our "Lights" (i.e., our daily activities) or remembering to text our accountability partner our numbers can sometimes fall to the back burner.

However, just like those who are training for a race and keep track of data, or wanting to lose weight and watch their calories, those in recovery for an addiction must keep track of what they are doing.  The idea is to replace bad habits with good ones.  If you don't keep track of anything, how will you know you are making progress?  How will you be able to talk with your sponsor about what "really" went on during the week?

I TOTALLY get how it's just not easy to remember.  So, recoveryBox does come with some reminders that you can set up to help take the pressure off a little.   Our solution..we call them Motivators.

To find them, More Tools -> Settings -> Motivators  so easy to find and set up.

You can have daily or weekly reminders.  You decide the time. You decide the day!

recoveryBox will not automatically send your numbers to your sponsor...and that is by design!!  You must take ownership of your recovery. We just try and give you some tools.

To find out ore about recoveryBox, visit our website and download it today!

The Importance of the Sobriety Anniversary - Random Resource ThuRsday

Outsiders may not understand

Check out this great resource and support yourself or someone you care about. 

From Stepanie P @ Hub Pages::

I recently overheard a comment from someone who said “Sobriety anniversary? Who would ever want to celebrate being sober?” And to that I replied, “Well, for someone who was destroying their lives with drugs or alcohol, being clean and sober every passing day just happens to be a big, freaking deal!” People outside AA, NA, CA, and other 12-step or recovery-related programs often do not understand the importance of the sobriety anniversary.

As an addict in recovery, I can speak for many people that sobriety anniversaries are extremely important. They are major accomplishments! I cannot express the utter amazement I experience every passing year of continued sobriety. A customer of mine described her sobriety as a wonder to her that through "one day at a time" she was able to put together over 21 years of clean, sober, happy living.

Sobriety birthdays are events that are nothing like a regular birthdays: it's not something we dread as we get older, but rather it's another year of freedom from addiction. Another 365 days of rebuilding our lives and going from complete self-loathing to find meaning and purpose.

How can others help?

We must absolutely recognize sobriety birthdays both in and outside of fellowship. Sisters and brothers in fellowship, friends, and family should acknowledge the sobriety anniversary. Because it is an indescribably important day in the addict/alcoholic’s life, we can offer our presence at meetings where we accept chips marking another year of sobriety, or we can offer gifts commemorating that special day.

The numbers become real motivators

During my first year of in recovery, I remember watching people in the program celebrate their anniversaries and this actually made me envious. I often thought bitterly , "if that person can do it why can't I?" and this became a huge motivator for me. So as the months passed and I accepted more chips, the challenge became greater and I had finally reached my first year. That number "1" became a motivator in itself because I didn't want to break it and have to start over again.

After a few years of sobriety under my belt, sometimes the idea of remaining clean and sober became somewhat abstract; however, breaking the number was not. There were times when I thought, "I'll just have a little this one time, no one will ever know..." but then I couldn't stand the idea of starting over. What's more, I would feel hypocritical if I would have ignored that one occasion and pretended it never happen. The competitive part of me and I'm sure for many others in recovery believe it is healthy and an example of how the program is a system of interlocking motivators.

Narcotic Anonymous Key Chain with 25 Years Clean

Source: http://www.serenityisforever.com

My personal touchstone

When I first entered recovery, I started making my own jewelry bearing the Serenity Prayer as a touchstone, something to re-direct my thoughts whenever I needed to, especially during those early days of sobriety. On my fifth sober birthday, I made myself a special reminder with a big 5 on it that wore close me. It became a constant reminder of how far I'd come. It was something I could touch or look at in the mirror at any time.

I'd been offering serenity prayer jewelry and gifts, but it never occured to me to offer the anniversary piece because it was only relevant for one year. Then someone in the program reminded me of the tradition of passing your number along to another sister or brother in recovery whenever they reach that birthday. I now offer several types ofgifts customized for sobriety anniversaries for both men and women . I invite to stop by and view my artwork at www.serenityisforever.com.

Random Resource ThuRsday - Spiritual Self-Care

Tuesday we posted about Spiritual Self-Care the last of the green lights in recoveryBox.  So that was a quick how to get it into the app and why it is listed as a G3 (third of the self-care items).

I thought for today's Random Resource ThuRsday I would bring a different flavor to spiritual self-care.

First how do we take care of ourselves spiritually?  Below, is a site I came across when I was looking up spiritual self-care.  I was thinking about God and all he has created. Then that lead me to thinking about nature which lead me to thinking about plants..and this lead me to ...

Using Flower Essences to Establish and Maintain Spiritual Needs.  This is from The Desert-Alchemy's website and I found it interesting.  They talk about spiritual needs on man levels including having a Higher Power, Meditation, Contemplation and yes, flowers.  Please read as I think you will enjoy.

to Read more from that site, visit http://www.desert-alchemy.com.

The Core Issue

Spiritual Self-Care

An exploration of flower essences to establish and
maintain support for your spiritual needs

spiritual self-care

1. the activity we engage in to find and nurture a sense of connection to a Higher Power and deeper meaning for our lives

How do we take care of ourselves spiritually? Spiritual self-care is the activity we engage in to find and nurture a sense of connection to a Higher Power and meaning for our lives. Just as it is essential to nurture your body with food, it is necessary to nurture your soul with spirit.

There are many spiritual paths and spiritual support systems. Some of us may find that one particular spiritual path feels right and helps us find meaning and understanding for life. Others may find spiritual meaning through an eclectic blend of different spiritual traditions. Still others may blaze their own path.

Regardless of where you find spiritual meaning, a certain amount of effort and discipline are necessary for establishing and maintaining spiritual nurturance.

Higher Power

Perhaps spiritual self-care begins with feeling connected with a greater energy source, with God, a Higher Power, GodSelf, or Universal Oneness. All of us have a vital life force within that animates and brings meaning to life. When we feel this presence, we are connecting to our Higher Power. A Way to the GodSelf Formula helps us experience this connection.

When you are moving along nicely in your life you don't usually think as much about your Higher Power. Yet, when times become challenging, when you most need support and reassurance, you often lose a sense of connection to God or your Higher Self. It is not uncommon to feel as if you have been cut adrift and you are not sure of how to proceed in life. You may even think that you just cannot go on. Saguaro Cactusflower essence helps you find that the inner wisdom and strength that you seek is located right within yourself, and you can go on for one more breath, one more hour, or one more day.

Whether you are in the midst of a life crisis or experiencing a time of peaceful growth, there are a few practices that can help you on your spiritual journey, no matter what the path you are following. Two of them are meditation and contemplation.

Meditation

One common thing that many folks say is that their key to balance and inner harmony is meditation. If you have a daily meditation practice, even if it is for fifteen minutes a day, it can be amazingly effective. Meditation is so simple that you might think it couldn't possibly help.

Every day we clean our teeth, yet how many of us clean out our minds on a regular basis? Meditation is sitting quietly and detaching from your thoughts, even if just for a few minutes or even a few seconds.

Meditation can also be body movement with complete focus on the present moment that moves you out of your thoughts. Some people experience this state when they exercise and "get into the zone." Many Olympic athletes do this, and their performances have a quality that entrances those who watch.

Meditation is a simple, natural part of life. Scientists have found that children naturally meditate. Every hour or so a child's eyes will glaze over as his or her gaze turns inward for ten to thirty seconds. The child is present, yet detached, and usually will not respond right away if you speak to him or her. This is a natural phenomenon.

As we grow up our society teaches us to be more engaged in doing or accomplishing, and we lose this natural tendency. We learn that we should constantly focus on everything outside of ourselves, and we forget how to look within. If we sit in meditation for just fifteen minutes a day, we can recapture the feeling of refreshment and restore a sense of harmony to our lives.

Those who meditate on a regular basis say that their lives seem more manageable. After meditating you feel refreshed, you are able to detach from worries and concerns and you are usually restored to a sense of balance.

There are many different challenges to being able to meditate. One flower essence, Rainbow Cactus, can help you if you have difficulty in detaching from what your mind thinks. When you meditate, you do not stop thinking, you just allow your focus to go beyond your thoughts. Rainbow Cactus helps you move from one state of consciousness to another.

"We have a natural ability to go within ourselves to different levels or planes of consciousness. When we know to what plane of consciousness we want to go, this flower essence helps us arrive there.
"During normal daily awareness, we listen to our minds and function from this perspective. This is one level of consciousness. When we meditate, we go beyond what our mind thinks. This is another level." [1]

Rainbow Cactus can be an excellent support for moving easily into "observer consciousness", where you detach from what you mind thinks and simply observe. When you allow your thoughts to be background music instead of the main attraction, you slide easily into meditation.

Queen of the Night Cactus is another flower essence that helps with challenges to meditation. This night-blooming flower provides a flower essence that supports you in turning your focus within. Queen of the Night takes you deeply inside, through the inner corridors of darkness, to find that we are connected to all of creation through sensing and feeling.

This essence awakens you to feminine qualities of receptivity, subtlety, intuition, psychic impression, and deep feeling. It helps you find a state in which you can easily meditate. It can help you value your inner, intuitive self, especially if you have been taught that rational logic is more important than intuition.

When we meditate, some of us may fear losing control. As you let go of focus on your thoughts, you may have a feeling of falling, or of moving to the unknown. Sacred Datura is the essence of choice to help us let go, or surrender, into meditation. It is through letting go that we attain everything. It helps us to feel safe and protected as we let go of the known or familiar. This flower essence helps us to find comfort in formlessness. It supports us in dissolving our ideas about reality so that we can widen our experience of life and ourselves.

Another challenge to meditation is fear. You may find yourself afraid that you will be overpowered or taken over by dark forces or something that you don't know if you meditate. Scorpion Weed is the essence to use for these fears. This great flower essence can help you find that the strength of innocence and direct confrontation overcomes fear and paralysis. It supports the restoration of trust in your essential goodness and light.

If you want to begin or renew a meditation practice, you can take four drops of each essence in a glass of water, and then sit for ten minutes. At first you may just hear your mind thinking all of its thoughts. That's normal. When you meditate your mind does not stop thinking, but you learn to go beyond your mind's thoughts, to just observe them and not be engaged by them. Even if you sit and listen to the thoughts in your mind for ten minutes each day, congratulate yourself. This is how the practice begins. After time, the desire to meditate will arise spontaneously. In the beginning it takes effort to commit to sitting, but after some time it will come naturally.

It can be helpful, but not essential, to sit for meditation at the same time every day. If you want, you can extend the time you sit to fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, and then half an hour. Don't worry that you will spend too much time meditating. Before you sit for meditation, tell yourself how long you want to sit. You will naturally come back from meditation in precisely that length of time.

Within a few days or weeks you will find that you naturally want to sit for meditation. It will become easier to let go of your thoughts, and you may find that as you let go, you begin to experience "nothingness." As you go deeper into the "nothingness", you ultimately experience great bliss and joy.

Contemplation

Another important part of spiritual self-care is contemplation. When we contemplate, we review an event or a question and we study it with our minds and hearts. It is a way to help us to find higher meaning with the daily events of life. The word contemplation itself shows us its meaning: "con" means with; and temple is the root of "templation". It means being with the temple within you, or seeking inner spiritual wisdom.

When you contemplate, it is like meditation, only you invite your mind and your heart to be equal and active partners. You may contemplate especially difficult or challenging events in your daily life. Or, you may contemplate the especially easy things that happened in your day. Through contemplation you invite the truth of your heart to show you a deeper meaning to the mundane events of life.

The Saguaro-Queen Formula is an excellent support for contemplation. It contains two important flower essences that help balance cognitive function with intuitive listening: Saguaro Cactus and Queen of the Night Cactus.

Queen of the Night Cactus can help you pull your focus inward, to counter the compelling outer focus that your life brings. If you fear or distrust your intuition Queen of the Night can help you to cultivate a new relationship with intuition, which is an important part of contemplation.

Saguaro Cactus helps you recognize and listen to your inner wisdom. It can support you in translating your intuitive impressions into words and understandable concepts. It helps you recognize that true wisdom and the answers you are seeking reside within you.

For those who love to rush off into new life situations without contemplating and making wisdom from what we have experienced, Periwinkle can help. This flower essence inspires you to review and integrate an experience so that you may discover its inherent wisdom, before you rush off into a new event or situation. Periwinkle helps you extrapolate wisdom from experience so you have a greater foundation as you move on into new aspects of living.

Purpose

Perhaps the biggest question we attempt to answer in life is our purpose for living. When you have a sense of a higher purpose, the daily events of life become rich with meaning. When you feel that your life has meaning, you experience a greater sense of well being and confidence. You also can more easily let go of blame, regret, guilt and many of the things that leave you feeling anxious and stuck.

Connecting with Purpose Formula is a composite essence that helps you recognize your purpose. The chapter about this flower essence, on page 366 of The Alchemy of the Desert - Second Edition book, describes an exercise you can use along with the flower essence formula to help you define your purpose.

When you are clear about your spiritual ideals and want to integrate them into your daily life, Cliff Rose is the essence of choice. This essence helps keep you connected to your source and bring that quality of energy into manifestation. It helps you actualize your spiritual perspective in mundane situations.

Spiritual Support

Spiritual support is available in abundance if you ask for it. The tricky part is remembering to ask. The Giving & Receiving Support Formula is excellent for helping you remember to ask. It also helps you if, after asking for support, you tend not to allow yourself to receive it.

When you want to consciously have the boundless support of the angelic realm, you can use Invoking Celestial Guardians Formula from our Angelic Awareness Kit of flower essences.

It is helpful to have the support of people following the same, or similar, path by being involved with a spiritual community. Churches, meditation centers, and other spiritual groups can provide support through regular meetings and rituals that celebrate life events. For those who may be timid to join a group, Community Spirit Formula can be of special support. This essence can help you feel more comfortable being part of a group without giving up your individuality.

Nature can be a powerfully gentle ally in helping you recognize spiritual support. To consciously develop a deeper relationship with nature, you can use Deepening Inner Union Formula.

Spiritual self-care is as important to a balanced life as food is for the body. When we care for ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, we naturally find a sense of peace and meaning for our lives.

Selecting the Most Appropriate Flower Essences

Not every flower essence mentioned above will be appropriate for every person's specific needs. Different people have different issues with spiritual self-care. The process itself of exploring and contemplating your issues is important. It is the foundation for successfully selecting the most beneficial flower essences. Usually, careful self-examination can clearly show you which of the above flower essences are most appropriate for your particular needs.

Though you can use more than one flower essence together, you probably will not need to use all of the ones mentioned here. After contemplating your relationship to this issue, select the flower essences that apply for you, or use an intuitive method to select among them. (For more information on how to do this, see The Art & Technique of Using Flower Essences.) A general guideline is to use four drops at a time, four times a day, in water. However, it is fine to follow your intuition and use them as often as you like. Most people find that they tend to use them more often in the beginning and less often towards the end of the cycle. Unless otherwise indicated, a cycle is usually two to four weeks. [more]

For information on how to clearly evaluate the effects of the essences you have used, see The Art & Technique of Using Flower Essences.

Being Sober ~ It's Good to Be Acknowledged

Staying Sober IS an Accomplishment.  And as humans we desire to have our accomplishments be acknowledged. We want to know that we are on the right track and that our efforts are not in vain. As children we look up to our parents and teachers for praise. As adults we look to our bosses, peers, spouses, friends for that same praise.  Look, even Facebook has a "Like" button so I know I'm not off my rocker writing this.  

And it's not a bad thing.  It's why the AA program as well as Celebrate Recovery has a system for saying great job with their chips.  And so at recoveryBox, it was felt that we need to praise and support those who are using our app and perhaps not attending a traditional meeting of some sort.

We hope you understand how PROUD we are of each and every time you see that screen come up!!  Some will want to keep it private - say between you and your sponsor.  Others will want to share on a social media site like Facebook and Twitter.

Be proud of your hard work.  I know I am!

Spiritual Self-Care Part of Addiction Recovery

Spiritual Self-Care is one of those sticky subjects when it comes to Addiction Recovery.  However, for myself and the friend who recoveryBox was originally built, neither of us would be where we are today without our Spiritual lives.

In the app, Spiritual Self-Care is a G3.  It's the third "level" of the green lights. And the reason that it's the last green light is because you have to take care of yourself physically before you can even have anything left in you to cope with the next level - emotions.  And you have to work on emotions before you can even begin to think deeper about Spirituality.

Yes, these 3 levels of green lights WILL occur concurrently, however you will see a shift.  In the beginning when you are just starting to tackle your addiction, you will notice that you have a few G1's and not many G2's and maybe only one G3 (a quick prayer that goes like this "Oh God, please help me today").

But as time goes on you will notice that when you are really working hard at your recovery that your G3 numbers will increase.

Let's just start with the "how does it work with the app recoveryBox". Select the G3 Spiritual Self-Care from the list.

Next, you will see how it populates the screen.  When you want to record your spiritual self-care activities, select the comments field (where the stop sign is).

Then when you choose "Select From List", it will bring up the self-care items for this light that have been provided.  Remember, you can add whatever makes this work for you. recoveryBox just provides some ideas to get you thinking.  Remember, if you do devotions, twice a day then remember to record it as two G3 Spiritual Self-Care lights. Give yourself credit for all the healthy habit activities that you do each day.

This is just the how to record it in recoveryBox, later this week come back to see the why during the Random Resource ThuRsday post.

Thinking about using recoveryBox?  Check it out here.

Ready to download recoveryBox the iPhone app for Addiction Recovery, then Download it here.

Musical Monday Devotionals

If you are like me and music speaks volumes to you..check out the Daily Devotions in the recoveryBox app.  Monday's devotions are now Musical Monday's where we bring a song whose lyrics are to be pondered. The Holy Spirit works in us in many different ways.

Have you downloaded recoveryBox? Want to know more about how this app can help on your journey to Addiction Recovery?

Visit www.recoveryboxapp.com and download it today!