A Sense of Purpose Helps

A very real aid to mental health and substance use recovery is having a sense of purpose. The opposite of having a sense of purpose is having no sense of purpose - no reason to get out of bed in the morning, nothing really going on to motivate me to put forth any effort to embrace life. Major depressive disorder can make it seem as if I have no purpose, or as if my purpose isn't really worthwhile or valid. Active addiction takes away whatever sense of purpose I might have and replaces it with the purpose of obtaining and using alcohol or other drugs. So when I begin recovery, and continue in recovery, having a sense of purpose  helps me keep moving forward when there are forces within me that would like to see me move backward.

I think there is a difference between having a purpose and having a sense of purpose. Having a purpose, to me, is more finite. It's having a goal, which is concrete and observable. It's a destination - I'm going to become a millionaire, or I'm going to travel to New Orleans. Having a sense of purpose, on the other hand, gives me a guide about how I'm going to show up today - what my attitude and behavior is going to be. Having a sense of purpose doesn't guarantee that I'm going to reach a specific destination. It's more like, "I'm going to travel in a northerly direction and see where I end up." A sense of purpose is the journey itself.

Having a sense of purpose allows me to adjust to what is and live in the now. My own particular sense of purpose allows me to use the gifts I have to help enrich the lives of others while at the same time progressing in my own healing work. This is a fairly broad sense of purpose, and here is one of the ways in which it helps:  I'm currently working in a job that isn't something I want to do for the rest of my life. I inspect parts, and have recently been upgraded to machine operator. Sometimes it's fun and interesting; sometimes, I do the same thing over and over for 8 hours. In the job itself, I get to use my 'gift' of being able to find fault with anything. Under normal (for me) circumstances, I would find this job boring and very hard to do - the pay isn't good, and there's not a lot of incentive to keep showing up other than it's all I have right now. Without a sense of purpose that I can bring to the job, I'd find myself getting depressed and possibly relapsing. However, I'm able to activate my sense of purpose so that my 8 hours a day (not including travel) is not wasted.

My sense of purpose allows me to understand that if I continue to do well at this job, something better will show up for me. Also, I take the time and energy to get to know some of the people with whom I work, and I sometimes ride home with people I work with. I've found that many of the people I work with can relate one way or another to substance use and/or mental health issues. Also, I have plenty of time to practice silent affirmations while I'm at work.

I'm not a person who has a lot of internal motivation. I'm like an actor who can't do a role until s/he knows their motivation. I'm not the most ambitious boy on the block. I have, however, learned that I can instill within myself a sense of purpose that can masquerade as motivation or ambition. It's really knowing that whatever I'm engaging in, no matter what it looks like on the surface, is moving me in a direction that I want to go.

I believe that each moment I move forward with a sense of purpose, I am not only helping others, I am strengthening my own recovery.

Namasté,

Ken