Episode 35 Holly Whitaker Hip Sobriety Creating a Life you Don’t Need to Escape From Is it normal? Every time we log into our social media accounts, we see the smiling faces of our friends, families, and colleagues. We see people’s successes and celebrations. Maybe we even post a few of our own, carefully curating…

Episode 34 Practice and Habit Building in Early Recovery Finding Motivation and Crushing Resistance Our habits shape our destinies. We are what we repeatedly do. Your brain is lazy. That’s not a personal indictment. My brain is lazy, too. In fact, all of our brains are lazy. Evolution engineered us that way for energy efficiency,…

Episode 33 dr. charles flores, ph.d legalizing marijuana an integral exploration of a complex reality “Pot is not a crime!” I remember the rallying cry. That message, among many others, decorated the sea of poster board signs as thousands of people gathered outside the Colorado state capital building in support of marijuana legalization. For years,…

Episode 32 dr. charles flores, ph.d breaking the chains of addiction and recovering your life Dr. Charles Flores, a true pioneer and trailblazer in the Integral approach to treatment, has facilitated healing and recovery for people with a wide array of addictions, from drug and alcohol abuse, to behavioral and interior neurochemical addictions, including sex…

Episode 31 waking up to what? spiritual practice and finding your purpose “What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.” – Abraham Maslow In the depths of addiction, there’s never enough. Almost by definition, addiction is the attempt to fill a craving that’s impossible to satisfy. The addict is…

Episode 30: Sometimes Life Sucks (and that’s okay) Embracing Challenges in Recovery I have a confession: I was always bothered by the word “surrender”. Every time I heard it in a twelve-step meeting, I winced. Doesn’t struggle mean that we care enough to keep fighting? Doesn’t releasing our control mean we’ve given up? Not at…

Episode 29: When Others Don’t Want us to Change The Dynamic Self, The Addict Self, and the infinite self Recovery changes us. Thank God. Our ways of being the world, our coping mechanisms, and our relationship strategies were killing us, and we needed to make some radical shifts. So with the best of intentions and…

Episode 28: Going Home Resentments, Challenges, and Opportunities All our relationships are complex and nuanced, but perhaps none more so than our relationships with our family. And unless we learn how to navigate this inherently thorny terrain, we jeopardize our continued sobriety and unfolding evolutionary growth in every dimension of the AQAL map. No matter…

Episode 27: Relationships A Catalyst for Growth and Recovery Here’s a theory to consider: The modern-day salute was adapted from the practice of medieval knights who, as a gesture of mutual respect when passing one another on the battlefield, would lift the visors of their helmets in greeting. It’s a romantic notion. It may or…