Life Hacking v5.5.75..short and sweet.

Yep, life hacking.  I was thinking this as I was looking at theme templates on a site that I just bought a theme from for a website I am building and realised that I really don't have to know coding to make a really cool site once I get stuck into it and learn how to "hack" around with various tools that are now available to the general public due to the massive advancement in technology and more specifically, SOFTWARE advancements.  So, instead of learning HTML, CSS etc. (I'll pick that up as I go I am sure) I am concentrating on workarounds that I don't have to go back to school for and get pretty much the same results.  Well, what the heck does that have to do with recovery and or "self help" in this day and age?

Traditionally, most people go through the steps of "recovery" and choose one of just a few main paths or a combination thereof : 12 step programs, psychotherapy/talk therapy or a combination of those coupled with medications.

That's kinda like going to the website theme template place, ordering the cool looking theme on display in all its glory and expecting your own version of it to look just like the one they are putting up to grab your attention!  Believe me, it won't look that way for sure unless you know something other than just being able to change the pictures inside it, use their limited menu of colours ( I hate when autocorrect says I spelled colours wrong..colors is wrong! ;)  and not have the scratch for a graphic designer do up the bits that really make it POP!

So what to do?  What if your just starting out and you can't afford a graphics guy/gal?  You improvise until you can, and many times, you will find out that you don't need the traditional person that does that job by combining a few other tools that are now available to get the same end result.  On the surface, nobody will know that you used some cheesy online graphics program to manipulate the graphics instead of using Photoshop and, after you do a few sites, hey presto, you can either use some of the money to get educated yourself, OR just hire that person you needed.

In recovery, you also don't have to do JUST "what the Dr. ordered" either.  There are lots of "Life Hacks" that you can use and implement that will speed up your journey and also open your mind to new ways of doing things-which, by the way is half the battle, turning on the Neuroplastic ability of your brain to make new pathways and new thought processes that will, in fact make you into a completely new person!

No longer is psychology and the inner workings of the human mind/psyche the proprietary realm of psychiatrists, doctors and scientists (many of whom are also in need of some life hacks themselves but are stuck doing the same thing over and over...)  that study how the body and brain effect one another (psychoimmunerologists (sp?)  Yes, I will have to use Grammarly on this later...or not, I write in conversational english where anything goes ;)

Face it, the old ways obviously did not work and you may have been through this a few times already. Remember that saying that only people in multi-level marketing schemes used to hear at all their Ra-ra meetings but is now commonplace due to meme proliferation on facebook?

 "The definition of insanity is doing something over and over again the same way and expecting the outcome to be different each time."

Whoever came up with that one was a genius for sure!
Hmm, I just had a thought: from where I am sitting, in my comfortable chair in my room that is part of a residential treatment program, most of the people I know here have been through this process numerous times.  Like, more than a few.  So, if that is the case, it means they did have some success, but it did not last and they are back for round...whatever it is.
I personally didn't make the decision to go through the pain of asking for help with changing myself only to go back and do it all over again.  I have done that on my own too many times. No more "over and over again" for me. NO SIR!  Now that I'm "in the system" and have assistance from a wide range of traditional resources, I am also going to keep on implementing "life hacks" to assist in doing it just once, in a new and fresh way.

That's why its called "Self-Help".  Reading books on the subject will arm you with the knowledge to get somewhere, BUT, until you start HACKING AROUND in your own head and shaking stuff up in there, you will inevitably end up with the same tired old template website version of yourself that really hasn't changed much except on the surface.  So, start hacking around and exploring new methods of treatment.  Maybe go and see a tarot card reader or visit an energy medicine practitioner that also has a medical degree.  Help comes in so many flavours now that its possible to sample them all and then build your own self help system literally from scratch!  You have the old framework available in a template version.  Now get to it and hack around and build yourself a nice custom Life-Site of your own!

In wellness, gratitude and thankfulness to be alive RIGHT NOW.  Today is a new day, and there is so much to do.

Update:  Here is a site I just built.  After a bit of practice of course!

www.livingfromheart.ca  - Kate, the owner of the site, did the graphics and all the content.

I just set it all up and built the backend bit.


EM