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“The reality is that there are plenty of trustworthy people in the world rebuilding their lives. It was a very gradual process for me to open up and talk about what was really going on in my recovery. The more I started to take risks by talking to others, however, the more I had an opportunity to exercise boundaries. As I asserted new boundaries, I started to gravitate towards people with integrity, warmheartedness and decency.”
― Christopher Dines, Drug Addiction Recovery: The Mindful Way

“Emotionally wounded addicts have an extremely difficult time with intimacy and with trusting themselves and others. They have a deep desire to trust, but their emotional scars and traumatic memories haunt them whenever an opportunity to trust another person arises. Naturally this can lead to a very lonely existence.”
― Christopher Dines, Drug Addiction Recovery: The Mindful Way

“Being gentle with ourselves in an organic way allows us to find refuge and access serenity. Gentleness helps us to learn from our mistakes without being hard on ourselves. We can learn from making a mistake without attacking ourselves.”
― Christopher Dines, Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles

“People pleasing and putting others first literally diminished my mental, emotional, spiritual and physical well-being. Overwhelmingly, most emotionally wounded people demonstrate this trait. Many of us have been programmed to put others first; to be of service to others before we serve ourselves.”
― Christopher Dines, Drug Addiction Recovery: The Mindful Way

“Spiritual and emotional recovery are possible because the human brain is a living organ that we can transform by making new choices and being in non-shaming recovery-based environments.”
― Christopher Dines, Drug Addiction Recovery: The Mindful Way

“Understanding why we are afraid to grieve is a prelude to transforming our lives. Getting in touch with our deepest fears and airing them in a safe space can be incredibly liberating.”
― Christopher Dines, Drug Addiction Recovery: The Mindful Way

“To be gentle with ourselves requires a willingness to be exposed and perhaps be hurt. As I have already suggested, there is nothing weak or ‘cowardly’ about gentleness, especially when we are relearning to live in this world by minimizing our ‘numbing strategies’ so that we can practise super self-care. When we face our fears, we are acting courageously. Courage happens in the mundane. If we observe people in our local community, we can see courage being practised all around us. Just turning up for life every day requires courage, especially when we are prepared to be present.”
― Christopher Dines, Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles

“Guilt is imperative if we are to create and sustain a decent code of ethics and a sound moral compass. Guilt can help us to listen to our conscience, enhance empathy, and therefore have fulfilling relationships. Without guilt, we would live in an extremely dark world. However, misplaced guilt often triggers us to be over-apologetic and people-please. Many people repeat the word ‘sorry’ without needing to, while still others feel guilty for their very own existence. Emotionally wounded, shame-based people often feel that they are constantly ‘getting in the way’. This stems from a sense of feeling unlovable. To ask for one’s own needs to be met often results in a feeling of guilt. I call this misplaced guilt. Similarly, a person may feel guilty even if they have been abused or harmed by others. Misplaced guilt or excessive guilt stifles people’s chances to live happily and peacefully.”
― Christopher Dines, Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles

“Meditation is a powerful practice which can help us to heal our emotional pain. To observe our thoughts and feelings requires willingness and gentleness. We cannot be rigid and harsh on ourselves and hope to feel serene. We have to be willing to go easy on ourselves. The only way to be present and gain the benefits of mindfulness is to love ourselves unconditionally. This is a gradual process.”
― Christopher Dines, Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles

“Overcoming love addiction is possible, just as it is possible to transcend co-dependence and rebuild a healthy relationship with ourselves and others.”
― Christopher Dines, Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles

“The more we uncover who we are not and discard our disempowering unconscious behaviours, the more closely we can be in sync with our true, authentic selves.”
― Christopher Dines, Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles

“My very best thinking led me to a therapist’s office weeping and pleading for help regarding my alcoholism at the age of 19. I thought I could ‘manage’ my alcohol addiction, and I failed miserably until I asked for help. My older friends in recovery remind me that I looked like ‘death’ when I started attending support groups. I was not able to give eye contact, and I covered my eyes with a baseball cap. I had lost significant weight and was frightened to talk to strangers. I was beset with what the programme of Alcoholics Anonymous describes as ‘the hideous Four Horseman – terror, bewilderment, frustration and despair’. Similarly, my very best thinking led me to have unhappy, co-dependent relationships. I can go on. The problem was I was dependent on my own counsel. I did not have a support system, let alone a group of sober people to brainstorm with. I just followed my own thinking without getting feedback. The first lesson I learned in recovery was that I needed to check in with sober and wiser people than me regarding my thinking. I still need to do this today. I need feedback from my support system.”
― Christopher Dines, Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles

“Many people in recovery find that they feel spiritually grounded when in regular contact with the great outdoors. Others feel a deep serenity after lighting a candle in a church or temple or by chanting a sacred mantra. The point is that, unlike a typical religion that lays out a non-negotiable ideology, spirituality is expansive and deeply personal.”
― Christopher Dines, Drug Addiction Recovery: The Mindful Way

“While excellence is a wonderful ideal, perfectionism is a dysfunctional belief system. Many people openly admit that they are perfectionists, which is really an unconscious cry for help. Being a perfectionist is really stating that whatever we attempt to do will never be good enough. This is due to a mistaken belief that we are flawed and unlovable.”
― Christopher Dines, Drug Addiction Recovery: The Mindful Way

“In 2017, I was invited to lead a mindfulness workshop and guide a live meditation on Mingus Mountain, Arizona, to over 100 men and women at a recovery retreat. On the eve of my workshop, I had the opportunity to join in a men's twelve-step meeting, which took place by the campfire in Prescott National Park Forest, with at least 40 men recovering from childhood grief and trauma. The meeting grounded us in what was a large retreat with many unfamiliar faces. I was the only mixed-race Brit, surrounded by mostly white middle-class American men (baby boomers and Generation X), yet our common bond of validating each other's wounds in recovery utterly transcended any differences of nationality, race and heritage. We shared our pain and hope in a non-shaming environment, listening and allowing every man to have his say without interruption. At the end of the meeting we stood up in a large circle and recited the serenity prayer:

"God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know that one is me".

After the meeting closed, I felt that I belonged and I was enthusiastic about the retreat, even though I was thousands of miles away from England.”
― Christopher Dines, Drug Addiction Recovery: The Mindful Way

“Have you heard the saying by the actor Lily Tomlin, ‘The road to success is always under construction’? I like this concept. My spiritual journey has certainly been messy and uncomfortable at times. I had several emotional breakdowns before experiencing an emotional breakthrough. In essence, layers of deep denial and negative thought-patterns had to be unravelled and replaced with new and greater self-awareness.”
― Christopher Dines, Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles

“Jealousy and possessiveness in romantic relationships often destroy trust and mutual respect. Very often a jealous partner is re-enacting his pain from childhood. If he was emotionally and physically abandoned in childhood, he may be prone to jealousy in a romantic relationship. If a teenage girl was betrayed by her first love, and consequently was emotionally scarred, she may develop jealousy regarding future romantic relationships. Jealousy in a romantic relationship is based on control and possessiveness. A person suffering from jealousy unconsciously believes she is going to lose something or someone she does not own. The partner is afraid of losing her partner. She views him as an object, a possession. No one is a possession of another. The idea that we own or partly own our lovers, even if the sense of ‘ownership’ is purely emotional, is a delusion which brings suffering in its wake.”
― Christopher Dines, Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles

“Having personal boundaries is an act of love. When we are able to assert a boundary, we are practising super self-care. We are being honest with ourselves about what is both acceptable and unacceptable to us. When we are honest with ourselves about what we wish to discuss with and disclose to others, we are being authentic and honest. This might seem perfectly obvious but a lot of people struggle with asserting personal boundaries due to co-dependency, people-pleasing and low self-worth.”
― Christopher Dines, Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles

“Most people are trying to change the outcomes in their lives, rather than changing themselves as a person. They want to have meaningful, loving and trustworthy relationships, generate more capital, get physically fit or set up a business, without truly putting in the effort to rewire their brains and change their subconscious programming. This is putting the cart before the horse.”
― Christopher Dines, Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles

“There is a difference between following your instincts and listening to your intuition. Instincts are primitive modes of survival (fight, flight, freeze, sexual urges, hunting and so on), whereas intuition is a much higher manifestation of thought and emotions.”
― Christopher Dines, Drug Addiction Recovery: The Mindful Way

“The power of self-kindness can help us to heal our chronic shame and self-loathing. In a world that is often mean-spirited and cruel, a daily practice of kindness and warm-heartedness can make all the difference.”
― Christopher Dines, Drug Addiction Recovery: The Mindful Way

“Long-term, loving, erotic relationships take a lot of work, willingness, patience, compromise, deep listening and humility. Many people struggle in long-term erotic relationships, especially after the fleeting ‘falling in love’ phase has passed. Very often during the first year in a romantic relationship, euphoric and intense emotions, together with high levels of lust, sweep both parties involved off their feet. Excitement, a boost in confidence, and a carefree mood are felt by the couple. This is often described as ‘falling in love’. The couple will very often disclose sensitive secrets about themselves, yearning to feel closer to each other. They are high on life and engaged in intense, sexual romance. This can last up to 18 months depending on the couple, but more than likely it will fizzle out after just one year. All too often after 18 months, when hormone levels and feelings of lust having reverted back to normal levels, couples come crashing back down to reality. This can be very disheartening for both parties.”
― Christopher Dines, Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles

“Feeling lost in life often occurs when we feel stuck and unable to progress. Feeling lost is often a symptom of isolation, unresolved grief and a lack of presence-awareness. Uncertainty, confusion, shame and excessive guilt often drive a sense of feeling lost.”
― Christopher Dines, Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles

“The problem is that many of us rely on our everyday, repetitive, mundane thought-life (which is mostly memory), and neglect to monitor our emotions and feelings. This is what keeps us feeling trapped, and therefore stops us from behaving differently towards making positive changes in our lives. We consciously say we want to do something, but feel at odds with what we have declared we wish to do. We think we want to change, but we feel otherwise. How baffling! The deep feelings we have, which we can detect by mindfully paying attention to our body, is what we call our subconscious programming. Such subjective programming is what determines how we behave most of time.”
― Christopher Dines, Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles

“The difficulty in overcoming self-abandonment is that it is very often unconscious behaviour. Some of us are so deeply ingrained in our survival traits, and swamped in self-delusion, that we cannot see when we are neglecting ourselves. It is extremely difficult to heal from self-abandoning behaviour without help. We need non-shaming people to mirror back to us our disempowering behaviour.”
― Christopher Dines, Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles

“The more we try to disassociate from our shame, relying solely on our own reasoning and will power in an attempt to get some emotional relief, the stronger the hold shame has over us. Our shame-based behaviour will find ways to reveal itself if we remain in denial about our pain. Shame can be very subtle and often operates at a subconscious level of awareness. However, when we accept we are carrying unresolved shame, we can heal and make peace with ourselves.”
― Christopher Dines, Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles

“A deeper, mature love with your spouse/partner is much more fulfilling and richer than the act of ‘falling in love’. A mature love requires trust, honesty and friendship. This cannot be experienced months into a romantic relationship. Mature love is a process which usually begins to develop after 18 months. It is a practice which can be applied one day at a time. When we are in a deeper, mature love, we can share our joys and sadness with our spouse/partner. We can share our desires and build on those dreams. We can support each other when we are grieving or coming to terms with a loss. We can share intellectual curiosity and laugher and have a strong, healthy attachment figure in our lives.”
― Christopher Dines, Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles

“It is our unconscious thoughts, emotions, sensations, feelings and beliefs which will paint our reality. The difficulty for many of us is attempting to build a new fulfilling reality if we have experienced something different. When something goes ‘wrong’ while we are untangling from a co-dependent relationship or creating a new goal, our automatic reaction is to immediately revert back to old thinking and habits.”
― Christopher Dines, Super Self Care: How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction, Toxic Relationships and Dysfunctional Lifestyles

“The only way to free ourselves from the grips of compulsive thinking is to completely transcend it. By this, I mean learning to observe our mental activity without being drawn into identifying with each and every thought.”
― Christopher Dines, Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals

“Conscious breathing is being aware of the life breath that flows within and through us without any effort on our behalf.”
― Christopher Dines, Mindfulness Burnout Prevention: An 8-Week Course for Professionals