For me, there is something very powerful about creating my own tools or borrowing tools from others and modifying them into structures, view points, formats or styles that work for me. Sometimes, it's not even the use of 'my tool' that matters so much as it is the act of creating and editing a tool for myself. I find making or changing tools is very therapeutic for me.
Tactics for Coping with Urges
Coping with urges to overcome a habit is not easy. One way to help cope? Plan ahead! Here's a worksheet that might help you.
-- Coping Tactics for Urges (PDF worksheet)
Here is a presentation slide that I put together that tries to convey which types of coping tactics I used the most as I recovered from each particular habit that I wanted to change.
-- Utilization of Coping Tactics (PNG image)
Feelings Wheel - Know Thyself
Being buried under unhelpful (destructive) habits for a very long time; I became very rusty at identifying, processing and self regulating my emotions. I needed help (fast) to identify how I am actually feeling and then regularly practicing handling them. But first, I must know my emotions.
A feelings wheel is a truly beautiful thing for helping me figure out exactly where I am at on my emotional continuum. I cannot recommend enough how important it is for me to know how I am feeling before trying to do anything at about it. Self regulation means feeling and then, knowing those feelings first, before acting.
-- Feelings Wheel (PDF image)
And here is my stoic feelings wheel poster: Stoic Feelings Wheel (18x24)
50 Forms of Connection
Johann Hari gave a TED talk about addiction way back in 2016. In it, he says something that has been repeated countless times by many people in recovery: "The opposite of addiction is connection". This is usually (not always) repeated in reference to the community that people experience in recovery. That is, getting users out of isolation and back into connections with people is seen as crucial to recovery. This always struck me as being an idea with true value but, it also seemed incomplete to me. Why?
Because human beings form a mutlitude of connections in all sorts of tangible and abstract ways. Thus, I put together this "helper" document that lays out 50 different forms of human connection. The idea here, is not to diminish the value of human connections, they are important of course. Rather, the idea is elevate other forms of connection up to the same level as human connection. I did this because for every person that I encounter in recovery that is very focused on human connections, there are others who are 'timid', 'restrained', 'introvert'; and they may or may not be very connected through many other diverse and important things - their focus just may not be on the human connection aspect so much.
And so, my 50 forms of connection document came to be. Enjoy! 50 Forms of Connection (PDF)
Hierarchy of Actions
This tool is an extension of the Hierarchy of Values which is itself a derivative of Maslow's Hierarchy of Values. This "Hierarchy of Actions" is a way to map the five categories of human needs onto a list of "things to do"; five actions for each of the five categories gives me a wide range of activities to engage myself in. 25 individual actions assists in building life balance. Life balance itself provides resilience against upsets that happen in one area of my life by ensuring that I *already* have ongoing "fall back" activities that buttress my confidence and motivation. If one category is sapping my 'health', I still have four other categories keeping me strong.
Here it is: Hierarchy of Actions (PDF)
Can you pick five things to do regularly (or improve on existing ones) in each of the five 'need' categories? Enjoy!