The Art of Paying Attention to the Troubled

No man is an island. Everybody needs a listener, a comforter, and someone who can assist him in life, and being that somebody that many people trust with their secrets and problems is more satisfying and rewarding than anything else.

The art of paying attention is not just about being with the troubled person physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, as well. It is not only hearing his words but actually listening to them. In a California detox center, the four basic rules of paying attention include the following.

1. Learn to listen deeply. The art of paying attention involves stretching out your mind and heart and focusing on the other person with all the intensity and awareness that you can command. Focusing is not only about hearing the words the other person says, but feeling his emotions, as well.

2. Teach your ego to hold its breath for a while. All of us are self-centered in our own little ways. However, paying attention comes with setting our hungry ego aside and teaching it to stop striving for the spotlight for a while. Remember, during this time that somebody asks for your help and guidance, you are not the actor playing the lead role but the support guiding the lead actor play his part successfully.

3. Practice patience. Paying close attention is not a matter of offering snap judgments. Often, it requires waiting, listening, and standing by until the person you are paying attention to works out his own salvation.

4. Be concerned. There's no use in paying attention – or pretending to pay attention – to a person unless you honestly care about him and you are willing to share his pains and problems. Professional counselors must maintain an air of detachment and impersonality, but must also care. The troubled person must sense that care; otherwise, nothing can be accomplished. This capacity to project concern lies at the heart of all deep and lasting human relationships, and the marvelous thing about it is that once the unhappy person feels that somebody cares about him, he is often able to begin caring more about others.

The golden coin of attention is to learn to pay it graciously and gladly, and the dividends will come pouring back to you. For more information about recovery programs in a California detox center, visit http://www.paxhouse.org/Residential-Treatment.html.

Effective Ways to Manage Anger

Anger management is a part of drug treatment programs in some rehab centers in California. This is included in their program list, because victims of drug abuse and addiction may feel angered most of the times due to their condition.

Here is a list of some things, which may be done to avoid and control anger as suggested by rehab centers in California.

1. Use simple relaxation tools such as breathing deeply and creating relaxing images in your mind. For example, breathe deeply from your diaphragm. Picture your breath coming up from your "gut." While doing this, slowly repeat a calm word or phrase such as "relax," "take it easy." Use your imagination to create relaxing imagery inside your head.
2. Change the way you think and react. Instead or cursing and swearing, why don’t you just say to yourself, “It is very frustrating, but hey, it will not do any help if I get angry.”
3. Do not justify your anger by making yourself feel that there is no solution to the problem. Avoid the words “never” or “always”.
4. Believe that every problem has a solution. Focus on finding the solution than frustrating over the problem.
5. When angry, do not say the first words you think of. Slow down and think carefully of your responses and listen carefully to what the other people is saying.
6. Use humor. It can ease the tension and the anger itself. However, do not use humor to just “laugh off” the problem instead of facing it more constructively. Also, do not resort to sarcastic humor because it is not a way of dealing with anger. Instead, it is just another poor way of expressing anger.
7. Change your environment if it causes the irritation. Find alternatives.
8. Maintain a hostility log to monitor and learn about the things that cause you anger.
9. Learn to forgive. Forgiving the person who caused your anger removes your reason to be angry.
10. Get it off your chest. Tell a friend. Or tell the person who caused your anger but calmly, politely and constructively.

For more information about anger management and how it helps patients in rehab centers in California, visit http://www.paxhouse.org/CA_Drug_Treatment.html.

Lifesaving Tips for the Desperate

Many individuals, when faced with life’s trials and difficulties, resort to drug and substance addition, thinking that these illegal substances can solve their problems and even save their life. On the contrary, resorting to this bad habit can even cut their life short when the negative effect of drugs takes over their body, mind, and health.

Here are some lifesaving tips as suggested by a California rehab center.

1. If you find yourself down in the valley, remember that the next sets of your journey must of necessity lead you up the mountain, possibly even to the top. No matter how far we slide, there comes a time when we want to climb back up again.

2. Never keep your troubles to yourself.  Let go to a sympathetic friend or a support group. This sort of mental catharsis will do you good. Explaining to another how you feel will help you obtain a perspective of yourself. In other words, it will get you outside yourself so you can see yourself objectively. It may even aid you in appreciating how much you have been exaggerating your misfortunes.

3. Your life, what you think of it, what to do with it, depends not so much on what is but rather upon your reactions to it. In short, life is primarily a point of view. Reality – what happens in the world outside of you and over which you have precious little control – is one thing; the way you look at reality is quite another.

4. Finally, ask yourself if "getting down" has taught you anything? If, thereby, you have learned to conserve your resources, your health and strength, or if it has made you more practical and given you more common sense, or if it has made you feel more tolerant, understanding and forgiving of others, or if in other way it has improved you – well, that will thank your stars for the opportunity that was given you. To profit by experience has always been considered the hallmark of a truly intelligent person.

Hence, instead of wasting your life with substances that wouldn’t do any good to your body, simply face your problems head on and solve them the best way you can. For more information about California rehab, visit http://www.paxhouse.org/CA_Drug_Treatment.html.