"As you value-nurture, new and more accurate beliefs about yourself should be heard and internalized, given consideration, and reinforced by the achievements and accomplishments of your life."
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Episode 183 -- January 13, 2022
Your Steps for Nurturing Your Value in Recovery
Now that we are in recovery, we can reflect on who we once were while in the throes of our addiction. How have we changed since then—mentally, physically, and emotionally? It's important to acknowledge and celebrate our progress and improvements, because even the smallest wins can change our attitudes. We can learn to be our own cheerleader as our identities expand beyond our addictions.
In their book Six Essentials to Achieve Lasting Recovery, Dr. Sterling T. Shumway and Dr. Thomas G. Kimball offer guiding principles as keys to long-term recovery. These principles are grounded in the wisdom of Twelve Step recovery and reinforced by research, personal stories, and exercises.
The following excerpt describes the process of "value nurturing," including two examples of how developing this practice can help us believe good things about ourselves. Seeking the validation of others may have contributed to our substance use. Our confidence and self-worth in recovery must start from within. Verbalizing and internalizing the value of our accomplishments can help us rediscover and reclaim our identities with kindness and empathy.
This excerpt has been edited for brevity.
Recovery should bring a core identity shift, a shift where you become capable of saying and believing something different than you did in the past. This process of rehearsing the positive messages in your mind and heart is what we refer to as "value-nurturing." In the process of value-nurturing, there is a constant effort to consider your accomplishments and rehearse them over and over in an effort to drive them to a deeper level. This deeper level is where we begin to believe the messages and do things for the right reasons. The value-nurture occurs when you consider the meaning of your accomplishments and then assess your own thoughts and feelings about your achievement.
A good example of value-nurturing is illustrated in Sterling's story about being the top honor graduate.
On the occasion of my graduation, my wife asked me, "What's it like to be honored as the top graduate student at Texas Tech?" After my first response, which was to joke it aside as luck or some mistake by the university, this question provided me the opportunity to develop my own internal discourse as to why I deserved to be the top graduate and how it made me feel. It really didn't matter what everyone else thought about my accomplishment. What really mattered was whether or not I could see and feel the value my achievement had for me. Had it not translated into an internal belief in myself and caused my identity to shift, it would have been as if it never happened. For me, the shift occurred when I was able to respond to my wife's question in a way that celebrated my accomplishment and nurtured some hope in my own heart that "perhaps" the honor was deserved.
Tom has seen this value shift occur with his own children when nurturing their academic accomplishments and achievements.
When my children receive good report cards, I praise them, then I ask, "What's it like to be so smart?" In their young eyes, I can actually see the shift from the external compliment I am giving to their own internal evaluation. At one moment they are looking for external praise and validation from their dad, and in the next moment they are really considering how this accomplishment makes them feel and what it means to them. It's an amazing thing to have them look back at me with a smile and say, "It makes me feel good, Dad, and it's really cool."
In summary, the key to value-nurturing is when the individual begins to verbalize and internalize the value of his or her accomplishment. When Tom's child says, "It makes me feel good, Dad, and it's really cool," it's clear that his child has developed an internal discourse as to why getting good grades is important to them. Over time, this becomes part of the child's core identity as a person. Similarly, with Sterling the value-nurture occurred when he was able to consider that the honor he was given was deserved, as opposed to the old message, rooted in addiction, that he wasn't very smart.
As was the case with Tom's kids, children may have a parent or friend (key person) who can offer the praise and follow it with the value-nurture question. However, some of you may not have or may never have had a supportive key person in your life. The value-nurture process may have to be something you do within yourself. Without supportive others to offer the praising comments and ask the value-nurture question, you will have to ask the questions and consider the answers on your own.
Value-Nurturing involveslearning to do important things for the right reasons. In other words, once a positive action is occurring consistently, you then work on getting that action to occur for the right reason—because you feel good about doing it and it fits with your recovery perspective. Feeling good about your actions and yourself is the goal of value-nurturing.
A possible sequence for value-nurturing is outlined below.
- When something has been achieved, consider the benefit of what you just accomplished or what the person you are value-nurturing has accomplished.
- See the positive in what they or you have accomplished.
- If you are value-nurturing for someone else, praise that person. If you are value-nurturing for yourself, praise yourself by considering the positive things you have done.
- Continue the positive praise when accomplishments are reached. Begin to ask the value-nurture question of yourself or of the person you are value-nurturing: "How does it make you feel inside when you do that?" or "How does it make you feel when you are so successful?"
The value-nurture question allows you or the person you are nurturing to begin to formulate personal reasons for engaging in a particular task or behavior. Over time, this nurtures new and long-lasting behaviors and changes identity from the inside out. Remember, this is a process that needs to be engaged in over the long haul.
As you value-nurture, new and more accurate beliefs about yourself should be heard and internalized, given consideration, and reinforced by the achievements and accomplishments of your life.
Early in the process, you establish a general identity, such as "I am a good person!" As you move forward in the hope of recovery, you begin to cope differently and develop a track record of accomplishments. You begin to understand your unique gifts and talents, and you develop a very specific and unique identity. With this specific identity, you will begin to find a place of self-acceptance where you believe that you are "a good person capable of great things."
While you move forward in your recovery, your identity will grow to encompass other more broad categories of life. You will see yourself as more than just an addict in recovery and will achieve and accomplish other things. You will see your value in other more important roles as mother, father, husband, wife, or friend. As you excel in these other roles of life, your identity will become positively complex. A good visual is a tree that grows and branches off in many directions. As the tree grows, it becomes more expansive and is more capable of surviving. Similar to the tree, the trunk, or foundation, of your recovery will support your growth in all areas of your life.
About the Author:
Thomas G. Kimball, Ph.D., L.M.F.T. is an associate professor at Texas Tech University and the associate managing director for the Center for the Study of Addiction and Recovery. He teaches family dynamics of addiction at both the undergraduate and the graduate levels. In addition, he is the clinical director of the outpatient program and co-facilitates multi-family groups at The Ranch at Dove Tree— an inpatient alcohol and drug treatment program.
Sterling T. Shumway, Ph.D., L.M.F.T. is a regents' professor in the Department of Applied and Professional Studies, Addictive Disorders and Recovery Studies Division (ADRS) at Texas Tech University. He currently serves as the program director of the Addiction and Recovery Studies Program. In addition, he has a private therapy practice where he sees individuals, couples, and families and also co-facilitates multi-family groups as the family program director at The Ranch at Dove Tree.
© 2012 by Hazelden
