One in the Spirit: A Week’s Summary #1
Starting the Day
How will you start your day? Are you thankful for the relationships in your life? Starting the day with gratitude for your partner or the awareness you have for a romantic bond in your life is a way of starting the day with a glass half full. Be mindful of the tendency for our most treasured relationships to be taken hostage by unrealistic expectations, that our partner could be the sole answer to all of our needs. Self-examination and spiritual guidance helps us to focus our energies so that they promote personal well-being and healthy romantic bonds.
Similarly, our expectations of the world around us and our ability to get the “job” of living done can become overwhelming when we do not stay focused on a greater purpose in life. Recovery wisdom encourages us to focus our energy on being of maximum service to the God of our understanding and our fellows in recovery. Taking your partner’s hand in prayer will help you to focus your attention on “being” rather than “doing.” The choice to grow and change in life by demonstrating the courage and acceptance that defines us as partners could lead us to an understanding of a greater purpose than completing life’s tasks.
Making a commitment with your partner to devote time to reflection together actively shifts your priorities toward the relationship. The tasks and To Do lists will always be there, but taking the moments to reinforce your relationship with your partner and your Higher Power will strengthen your resolve to achieve your shared goals. When you and your partner are devoted to spiritual time together, you will find yourselves more resilient to life’s potholes.
You have made a commitment to share a bond with your partner at the start of your day. By keeping your loved one close to your heart, you will be able to rely on that love during the day, and the confidence it brings will give you great support and a secure grounding. When you start the day by renewing your spiritual bond with your partner and then reflecting on that shared meditative moment during the day, you nourish and energize your relationship.
The love that you cultivate in your partnership can bear emotional fruit that others find appealing and want to emulate. Couple communities strengthen our own relationships. Allow yourself to be of service to other couples. Share the love and empathy that you have with your partner with other people in your life. By giving of yourselves, you increase the amount of positivity you have in your lives.
How will you start your day?
This brief introduction to the benefit of a “Shared Program of Recovery” will unfold in greater measure with your exploration into One in the Spirit: Meditation Course for Recovering Couples, Leadem & Leadem, LCCS, 2011.
About the Authors
Elaine and John Leadem are the co-founders of Leadem Counseling & Consulting Services, P.C. (LCCS) and share a combined tenure in the addiction treatment field of over 69 years.
They have authored and published a variety of titles designed to aid recovering addicts and their treatment providers in developing a comprehensive set of therapeutic resources from meditation guides for recovering couples to course material for developing individualized relapse prevention plans.
John’s personal mentorship by Vernon E. Johnson, Ph.D., the author of I’ll Quit Tomorrow and the pioneer of addiction intervention, led to the development their unique three-phase intervention model after 40 years of providing direct addiction intervention services. The model has been used in over 500 interventions and is easily adapted to a variety of substance addictions and other clinical problems. It is especially suited to work with process addictions, such as sex addiction, because it is designed to help the sex addict rise above the shame and accept help because each of the IT members are pointing the finger at themselves first.
© Copyright, John Leadem & Elaine Leadem, 2017
You are free to copy this article for future reference, to post it on other web sites and to share it with family or friends. If you would like to have permission to include it in a publication of your own you can request written permission by contacting the authors at www.leademcounseling.com.
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