We’ve attempted to find joy “out there” through love relationships, career paths, drugs, and much more.

The solution is within.

“Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakes.”

― Carl Jung

I'd like to share three aspects of healing with you in this post which have been essential for me on this inner adventure: Recover! Heal! Launch!

I hit some painful walls before starting the recovery and healing path. I’m far enough away from the big pain now to be grateful for the wake-up call. Initially, I was fortunate to find 12-step recovery which helped me get through the massive denial fairly efficiently and effectively. Over these years, I’ve wandered around and hit some other course-correcting walls, and have found some great solutions that have helped me come more fully alive.

We all want joy and peace. Most of us go about it the wrong way until we hit enough conflictual situations. It usually takes the form of relationship pain, job problems, addiction issues, financial insecurity, or legal consequences.

There is more than just “getting sober” or stopping the unhealthy behavior - much more. I’ve developed this framework called Recover! Heal! Launch! for anyone who wants to avoid the dead-end paths to “enlightenment.”

We cannot find recovery and sobriety by “swearing off.” We cannot find healing by ignoring our wounds. We cannot launch into success by simply setting goals and hammering away at them. We have to look deeper.

Carl Jung wrote, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.”

Yes, at first it seems like bad news - to look at the darkness. But Jung doesn’t mean “bad” by his reference to “darkness” - he simply means it is dark. We must get a good flashlight if we want to grow.

Here’s a framework for sustainable transformation:

RECOVER

Dr. Jung was a significant force in the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous. After centuries of trying to arrest addiction through bleeding, shaming, and other punitive interventions, the simple spiritual procedure of connecting one experienced recovered human with another has become the only thing that works sustainably.

Jung’s vast studies of the psyche are embedded in this movement founded in the mid-1930s. Dr. Scott Peck referred to the founding as  “...the greatest event of the 20th century.” There are 3 million plus members of the AA fellowship alone, and millions more in approximately 40 other programs for other drugs, codependency, food, love, sex, work, and a long list of other addictions.

Many say “The program didn’t work for me.” Well, it doesn’t work for anybody. But, in my considerable experience, it is effective for everyone who works the program in its entirety. 100% success rate.

The process of finding joy, peace, and a satisfying existence has to start with sobriety. Not just abstinence. We were trying to find a spiritual feeling and found that these attempts were counterfeit. True “sobriety” goes way beyond stopping the drug or behavior. We must look deeply and find a true connection with ourselves and the world before we can start a sustainable healing process.

Here’s a link to a few of the community-based programs for recovery

HEAL

As we reclaim our normal chemistry through active recovery, we can now begin healing the damage. When we were young and like sponges for everything, we developed the course for the rest of our lives. Some of that trajectory was influenced by trauma - mild or severe. 

Those of us with severe trauma know we have been deeply affected. Others think we are “from good families” and therefore have nothing to address. The influence of enmeshment - caregivers projecting their unresolved issues on children - is massive.

Like recovery from addiction, recovery from trauma requires a particular kind of support and facilitation. We must find groups and healers who have done their own inner work to guide us. The work is grief work, which most of us avoid like the plague. It is required for freedom, and the river of grief leads to the ocean of joy we seek.

Of course, this is a big topic. I’ve written extensively about it in the Stop Doing Sh*t You Don’t Want to Do: A straightforward guide to letting go of unresolved trauma available at bobbeare.com and here is a link to programs for healing trauma.

LAUNCH

We’ve all tried the relentless goal-setting process. Corporate sales are based on this. Corporations know that attaching money to goals will force employees to hit their numbers. Ask any person who has done this for a while just how miserable that process can be.

If our goals are not attached to a vibrant personal vision (beyond money or stuff) misery will ensue. Now that we have cleared some of the mess from our addictions and coughed up some of the hairballs of trauma, we have a chance to see our authentic path.

Visioning, inner child work, and taking action on our vision-driven goals - can now take us to the life we formerly saw as impossible.

The Recover! Heal! Launch! framework is not a quick fix. It is a complete lifestyle change for most of us. But it does have an order to it: 1. Start our recovery from dependency, 2. Heal our trauma, and 3. Launch our vision. For support on all of this go to my resource page for recovery and trauma programs and start the Recover! Heal! Launch! Video Program in our premium membership.

AN AFFIRMATION

Today, I am recovering - getting support to let go of self-medicating. I am healing - getting support to heal my buried pain. I am launching - beginning to see and act on my true vision.

With warmth and support for your recovery, healing, and big launch!

Bob

To keep your healing alive, engage with this community, and support my efforts to rally this movement of healing:

1. Get my new book - Stop Doing Sh*t You Don’t Want to Do! Get it here. Write an amazing review here. The Audiobook is now available on Audible, Spotify, Google Play, and Libro! (Free if you subscribe to Premium).

2. Resources. You can go here for recovery and healing resources.

3. Premium. Subscribe to Premium here for videos, worksheets, webinars with Bob, and more.

   

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