Imagine that you had a great day in recovery.  Take a minute to close your eyes and imagine how you felt at the end of the day – both physically and emotionally.  Savor that feeling for a moment.

What did you feel, and where in your body did you feel it?

Perhaps you felt satisfied at the core of your being.

Or maybe it was pride in your chest.

Or just an overall sense of peace throughout your body.

It could even be that fear showed up – What if I can never do this again?  

No judgment abut the feeling, just notice it.

Now let’s get tactical and concrete for a minute: What does a “Great Day” actually look like at a granular level?  

Consider the following questions:

• What time did you wake up?  How many hours of sleep did  you get?
• When did you first eat?  What did you eat? Was it satisfying?
• What did you do with your time between meals and snacks?  
• What else did you eat throughout the day?  Were your meals/snacks planned out ahead of time, or were they selected in the moment?  Did you bring the food with you, or did you purchase it somewhere?
• What were other elements of your day that made it Great?
• Did anything detract from the day’s Greatness? 
• Did you use social media?  How much, how often?  What type(s)? 
• Did you exercise or do some type of movement?  How did it make you feel?
• What did you do in the evening?
• What time did you go to bed?

Now that you have identified the characteristics of a Great Day, how can you replicate that to increase the likelihood of future Great Days?

The key here is to not be so rigid with trying to control how you feel about the day that you actually make yourself feel worse.

We are just trying to identify key actions and patterns that tend to make your days go better.  Of course, you could do all of these things and still have a not-so-great day, and that’s ok.

Keep working on building the daily systems and infrastructure in your life that will support recovery.  It is work, but it will pay off in the long run.