Break Down of a G2 - Emotional Self-Care Green Lights for Accountability

recoveryBox the mobile iPhone app for addiction recovery uses a system called your "Lights" just like a traffic light.  Green Lights are your good lights meaning go!.  Yellow lights aren't necessarily bad activities but they are the ones that can lead you into some sort of temptation either by being with a person, being at a place or possessing an item that could lead to relapse.  And Red lights do mean an instance of relapse.

If you remember, G1 Green Lights focus on Physical Self-Care during addiction recovery.  These are the healthy daily activities that you do to actually take care of your physical body.  I wrote about how you need to take care of those physical needs first in order to even have a chance of thinking straight and making good choices.

Today I want to focus moving past the physical self care into activities that start to become a little more challenging for us to do.  It's the G2 category of the Green Lights.  G2 lights are the second tier of green lights and  focus on the emotional and treatment activities.  These are the activities that we do to start building connection and make us vulnerable.

Today's green light is G2 - Emotional Self Care.

Emotional self-care is a huge part of recovery.  Most addicts will tell you that they can't even name the emotions they feel even if they are letting themselves have that feeling.  This is where a G2 light comes in.  These are activities for treatment that deal with identifying/acting/dealing with emotions and how that relates to our self-care.

There are tons of resources out there for dealing with emotions so I'm not going to actually go into counseling..as I am not qualified to do that.  But as you work out emotional self-care in your treatment for your addiction recovery, this is where you would add a light for that.

Some example include journaling, reading, spending time with others.  Perhaps for you it's as basic as even identifying your emotions each day or being vulnerable with someone and telling them how you feel.  Those are activities that indicate you are taking care of yourself.

Now these emotions might not always be pretty or even easy to identify but I can speak from experience and say that it is freeing to finally be able to label even the ugly emotions.  For me, I do count identifying an emotion as a G2 because during my journey I needed to identify what those emotions were and to expand my vocabulary.

Perhaps you can easily identify the emotion you are feeling (great job..you are ahead of most addicts in that case) but you need to deal with the emotion in a healthy way.  So perhaps your G2 Emotional Self-Care is more advanced and needs to deal with reacting properly to the emotion.

Or perhaps you just don't allow yourself the time to connect with others or yourself.  Go to coffee with friends and just have a conversation..and it doesn't have to be heavy hearted either.  Read that book you have been wanting to but putting off.  Allow time to take care of yourself from a mental perspective.  These are all G2 Emotional Self-Care activities.

Work with your counselor and accountability partner/sponsor to build a list of activities that you need to work on for G2 - Emotional Self-Care.  I believe that this Green Light is such an important part of addiction recovery.  Identifying emotions and taking care of one-self emotionally is very tiring but it's also healthy.  Once we begin to do this as part of our lifestyle, the heaviness begins to fade and it become part of who we are..and that's a good thing.

Don't have recoveryBox yet?  Download it from the app store now and begin your journey to freedom.

Connect with others on Facebook and "Like" the app page.  Feel free to tell others about how recoveryBox app is part of your journey for your addiction recovery.  And don't forget to count that as a G2 - Emotional Self-Care activity too!

Random Resource ThuRsday - "I'm No Angel" by Kylie Bisutti

Today's Random Resource ThuRsday is a book titled "I'm No Angel" by Kylie Bisutti.

In the book she talks about the fashion industry - and the motivation behind it. Let's face it folks - we know sex sells.  If it didn't, pornography and sex trafficking wouldn't be such the problem that it is.  But why is it that viewing the Victoria Runway show, or bra commercials during early morning TV shows is considered OK?  Kylie has written about how it's not OK and her decision to leave it behind.

Below is the description of the book..I highly recommend the read. Great book even for young girls to read. Very tough choice and her decision should be applauded.

In December 2011, 21-year-old Victoria’s Secret model Kylie Bisutti stunned the fashion industry when she chose faith over fame and fortune and made the switch from supermodel to role model. 

In I’m No Angel, Kylie shares her story—from her early years struggling to make it big in the cut-throat world of modeling, her “big break” winning the Victoria’s Secret Angel competition, and the disillusionment and spiritual warfare that followed, to the moment she realized that she could no longer reconcile her career with her Christian beliefs, surrendered her life to God, turned in her Angel wings, and dedicated her life to preaching a message of modesty and inner beauty. 

Along the way, Kylie talks about her personal struggles with inadequacy, low self-esteem, and her near-constant quest for approval in a world where you can never be thin enough, pretty enough, or sexy enough. She helps readers understand that true beauty lies within and that real fulfillment comes from knowing, loving, and serving Christ.

If you have a problem with a pornography addiction, please check out recoveryBox, the iPhone App. It's a complete toolset to help you break your addiction.  Like Kylie, break free from a world where sex defines who we are.

What makes up a "Green Light"??

Since recoveryBox iPhone addiction recovery app is build for the purpose of being accountable to yourself and to others, it would help to understand well what does it mean to be accountable?  I mean what does accountability really mean?

Not getting too fancy, I'll say that being accountable means taking responsibility for your actions.

For starters, there are all levels of being accountable to both yourself and to your sponsor/partner.

Today I'm just going to talk about what a G1 Lights are.  It's called "Physical Self-Care" but what that looks like for everyone is different.  The premise behind Physical Self-Care is simple..you MUST first take care of yourself physically before you can even think about the "next stuff".

And these taking care of yourself activities are good things..hence why they are green..meaning go go go and go some more. See, it's really simple, green lights are good.  You want to fill your day with lots of green lights all day long and as many as you can get.

Think about it, ever notice how when we are sleep deprived or hungry our judgement goes out the door.  I am not going to even pretend to be a medical doctor and tell you all about it..I don't think I need to.  I think you already know what I'm talking about because your yourself have experienced it.  Right?!?  I have.

So each day we need to be responsible for taking care of ourself physically by doing certain activities. And yes these basic activities make up our G1 Green Lights.  Yes the app does have some pre-canned examples that you can use right out of the box such as eating meals, sleeping, exercising, etc.  BUT, you can customize that list by adding what is important to you. Perhaps taking a shower needs to be on your list?  Or putting on makeup?  Dunno...because  only you can decide with the help of your counselor.  (want a hint?? to access the list hit the comments field...it will allow you to select from a list)

So start thinking about what should your G1's look like!  Make a list and work with those who are keeping you accountable and see if they make sense.

Next post is going to be about how to actually enter those comments to begin building your list for each Green category.  Then I'm thinking we will touch upon how flexible the app is for entering your lights...stay tuned for lots more to come.

Feel free to download recoveryBox iPhone addiction recovery app from the iTunes store.

Random Resource - Home Run Movie

Sometimes a good movie comes along that stands as a reminder that God's gift of grace is always within our grasp and that freedom from an addiction is ours -  if we want it.

My husband and I saw Home Run this weekend.  It was very well done and spoke about broken lives due to addictions - alcohol, lust, drugs, eating disorders, and more. But the power of the movie came when the main character Cory came to see life differently.  While attending a Celebrate Recovery program, he realized that we all have broken lives and must deal with our problems - and that Christ is at the center of our healing.

I don't want to give away too much of the plot so I'll stop there, but I encourage all to watch this movie. For those who are in recovery for an addiction, it's a reminder of how we can encourage others while on our own journey, and for those who haven't taken that step yet toward freedom - well, let this movie show you that yes, you can be free.  Our God is a God of second chances!!

Home Run, it's in movie theaters now..to find where you can view the movie locally or to learn more about the movie, visit the Official Home Run movie website.


www.recoveryboxapp.com
Addiction Recovery Mobile App

recoveryBox Update! Custom Addiction and Red Lights!

We have gotten a lot of great feedback from users about various addictions and how to better meet their needs.  We did add a few generic addictions that we thought would benefit a lot of people, however, there were some presented to us that just didn't fit the addictions listed.  And so, we heard the requests and added a great new feature.

CREATING CUSTOM ADDICTIONS AND RED LIGHTS!

You create custom addictions at the same place as the addiction list.  More Tools -> Settings -> Manage Addictions.

It's pretty easy to add you own custom addiction and red lights.  When you look at the entire addiction list, you will now see that your custom addiction is at the top. We thought it just made more sense from a user perspective.

Add details about the addiction here.

 

Create custom red lights. Even give the red light a priority.

Want more information about recoveryBox, the Addiction Recovery iPhone Mobile App?

Check out our the website for more information and begin your recovery journey today!

Look for a New Version..Coming Soon

We've heard you and listened.

Coming Soon .. The ability to create your own Red Lights to customize an addiction that represents your personal needs.

And there might be a few more goodies too. Coming soon!!

The Preferences

Wondering Exactly How the Preferences Work?  

It's very simple..say perhaps you are the type of person who doesn't enter today's "Lights" as they happen but you like to enter then the day after.  Remember, use recoveryBox any which way you want..just use it to help break the addiction.

OK, so you are entering yesterday's date..and you are finished creating a G1 - Green Light.  Then you want to enter a G2..but the date reverts back to today's date.  Well, the default behavior is always today's date in the hopes that you will track "lights" real-time.    BUT...if you want to keep the date (as your default behavior) on the date of the last date you entered..then go to More Tools->Preferences and turn on the "Retain Date"; That setting will always retain the last date you entered.

And now it's obvious what "Retain Category" and "Retain Number of Lights" is right??

These options were asked to be included by the pilot group who were truly tracking their daily "Lights" and it became obvious that we don't all use recoveryBox in the exact same fashion.



"Enable Comments" is all about having any comments you enter for Yellow or Red Lights as well as Triggers be included in the Text/Email communication piece that gets generated for your accountability partner. Not everyone is comfortable with having a text or email with private thoughts being sent out into the world wide web..but perhaps only want a count for the Yellows or Reds. It's about maintaining your privacy as well as making it flexible for the user. Turn it on for comments to be included in the email/text or turn it off to keep that private.

And lastly, "Accountability Preference" is the default setting for the communication generated.  You can always select what you want on the screen, but why not have one less key stroke and have a default?!?

If you have any questions about any of the preferences or any other part of recoveryBox, don't forget to send support an email.  They will respond quickly..trust me..I know!

recoveryBox, the iPhone App for Addiction Recovery

www.recoveryboxapp.com