Spirituality in addiction recovery is a powerful strength. In our first article on this topic, we explored how connection and a meaningful way of living can emerge from a psychological, secular, and nonreligious perspective. Now, we’ll go deeper into themes of meaning, purpose, and the journey of finding yourself.
The Self Recovery program embraces a unique approach designed not only to support sobriety but also to guide you toward deeper personal transformation and a fuller, more intentional life. This is the very heart of one of the program’s core classes — a powerful invitation to embark on a transformative journey that I’m excited to share with you. Enjoy!
On Finding Meaning and Purpose
I’ve never met anyone who decided to sit down and think about their purpose and came out with an answer. It’s not something we can just try to do. We find purpose in the same way we find a way of living – we move through life in a way that’s curious and open to discovering what moves us.
You can’t figure out, just by sitting and thinking, that your calling is to be a musician. Instead, someone figures that out first by picking up a guitar and loving it, then jamming with friends and loving it, then playing with people more and more and getting curious about music theory. Eventually, that person comes to discover that they love performing and puts a lot of their life energy into that. There’s no way they could have known just by sitting and thinking.
“So do you just go through life and wait for your purpose to hit you? Sort of yes, sort of no. Yes, you do just allow yourself to go through life and experience different things. But no, because you still need to listen closely to yourself in order to recognize when you’re right in the middle of your purpose.”
Let’s Illustrate This With an Example
Let’s look at an example of a guy going out to find a girl. First of all, if he sets out that evening determined to find a girl, he’ll probably get more desperate or awkward and actually either ruin his chances or end up with a bad match that he forced. That’s true of our purpose too – if we try to find a purpose quickly, we’re more likely to scramble and end up picking something that’s not really the best fit.
Next, let’s look at what happens if the guy goes through life just waiting for a girl to find him. True, he may be patient enough to find a girl he’s a great match for, but he’s got to be aware enough to recognize when he finally finds the girl of his dreams.
So the best balance is to patiently go through life, but keep your mind open, and check in with yourself to see if what you’re doing is a purpose you love. If it feels good, follow that. If it doesn’t feel like your purpose, keep moving on.
Finding Purpose Is Rarely a Clean Process
The next very important point is that finding your meaning and purpose in life is usually not so clear. What you call an interest might be your own way of saying purpose. Or if you say, “I love to (blank),” those might be the words you use to explain your purpose. And purposes can change several times over your life.
When you were younger, having lots of friends might have been your purpose. Later, it might have been being close with a partner or just a few friends. And later, it might have been to get an education and start a passionate career. We hear people talk about their life purpose as if it’s just one thing and stays the same. In reality, it changes—and there can be several.
I’d like to think my purpose is to love my family, but I’d also like to think that following my dreams with my career is also my purpose. That’s fine. Nobody said you had to pick just one purpose to have forever. Break out of the idea that it has to be that way.
It’s much simpler than that. Just go out and be you, notice what makes you tick, and spend more energy doing those things.
If you had this exciting hope that I’d tell you your purpose in a simple article, I’m sorry. But if you notice that hope, ask yourself what that tells you. Are you desperate to find purpose? Are you waiting for someone else to decide your purpose? Do you trust another person’s suggestion of what to do with your life more than your own idea?
If you’re waiting to find your one purpose in life, you’d better get comfortable waiting. Odds are, you’re already doing some things that are your purposes. The trick is being open to that and feeling valid in what you already know. Your purpose might be right beneath you already.
On Finding Yourself: Significance Through Self Expression
Trying to find yourself implies that you either lost yourself or still haven’t figured out who you are. As with most psychological issues, the root cause is usually in childhood. If we’re able to express ourselves and get good feedback when we do, it’s quite easy to figure out who we are and how to relate to the world around us. We lose this natural development when we don’t allow the process to happen.
If we aren’t feeling we belong in our family or with peers, we naturally learn to give up more and more of ourselves in order to stay close with them and belong. If you felt like listening to music really loudly, but your friends liked it quiet, it’s only natural to give up and listen at a soft volume to make sure your friends like you enough.
We all inherently know that the world is a bit too hard when we’re alone in it. So we have a tendency to give up some of who we are in order to have secure connections. But every time we do this, we lose ourselves. That’s not a moral failing or giving in to peer pressure; it’s just what humans do to survive.
If, when you were upset or cried, your parents didn’t come to your side and comfort you, you would’ve quickly learned to stop expressing anger or sadness to make sure they were still there to protect you. Or if you were praised for doing things your parents wanted, but not for skills or activities of your choosing, that’s another pathway to start to slowly lose who you are. It’s easy for any of us to learn to detach from our wants, needs, and emotional states to make sure we keep friends and family close.
If you understand that, you can also understand that not knowing who you are is just a natural response to how you might have grown up. Not finding yourself has actually been a healthy adaptation so you could keep people around you happy. But if you feel empty or feel like a fraud or a small child still, that’s the cost of giving up yourself to keep other people around. It’s the cost of fearing rejection.
Finding Yourself
The key now is to recognize whether you need to stay adapted to certain people or not. Are the people in your life the people you want to fear rejection from? When you’re 5 or 15 years old, you don’t have too many choices of family or friends. As you get older, though, you have more choices.
If you’re used to adapting to people around you, that’s fine. But start paying attention to who you’re adapting to. If they aren’t healthy people, you’re probably giving up a lot of who you are to stay close to them. You’re probably living a sort of lie, trying to please others at the cost of being true to yourself.
Now’s your chance to find healthy people that stay close to you even if you experiment with your own interests and wishes. If you turn the music up, will they still hang out with you?
Being Heard, As You Are
The healthiest version of you is the one that learns it’s OK to be heard and noticed around things you choose to project and share with the world. This comes from a fuller expression of ourselves. While not everyone will love and accept that, the ones who do will emerge.
It’s a scary thing to do, but really the only way to be. Yes, that does sometimes mean a friend you have right now loses interest, but what you get over time is a friend who found you and wants to be with you because of who you are and what you express.
If you turn up your music, some people will leave, and some people will come over. It sorts itself out.
Like the other spiritual questions about life, don’t think so hard about who you are.
You already are you. Your mind and body are right there waiting for you to find them and let them be. You don’t actually need to find yourself; you just need to finally listen to yourself and not suppress who you already are.
And the more consistent you are in allowing yourself to exist as you are, the more chances you have of attracting the right people and opportunities into your life. No more giving up yourself to belong in circles you never wanted to be in.
When You Stop Hiding, The Right People Stay
If you start giving more time to practice something you enjoy for yourself, people will get to know you as that person, and people who appreciate that will find you – even when you’re not trying to meet anyone. When you enjoy what you’re doing, you’re more likely to keep at it, and that steady effort is what helps others notice and connect with you over time.
If you develop into a career that feels right at this time in your life, you’ll automatically be more noticed at work, at meetings, at conferences, or by clients. Being mindful and dedicated to expressing yourself is also very attractive to friends, family, and romantic partners. It lets you enjoy life more fully and also connect in more honest and true ways.
If you can start to connect to other people as your true self, they actually become your mirrors and anchors that help keep you true to yourself. So rather than losing yourself to keep the people around you, the people around you actually help you stay true to yourself.
Don’t give yourself a hard time if you’ve valued the safety of being accepted over your personal growth and self-expression. Just pay attention to what’s happened.
Of course, there’re times and places where it is indeed healthier to value being accepted over your own personal expression. It might make sense for you to avoid topics of politics or religion with family members or old friends who you connect with more around shared history than your personal interests.
The Courage to Be Seen
It’s scary to show ourselves when there is a real life risk of turning people away. However, there’s also greater reward in reaching a significant connection because it is more meaningful. How nice does it feel to share your actual beliefs and find someone who appreciates them? Now you’re alive. Life gets lighter. Life gets fun.
The fear of rejection is only a fear if you’re not willing to live without that person in your life. But if it’s someone you’re willing to get through life without, there’s nothing to fear but your own ideas. It takes immense courage to find yourself.
