One of the things we learn in recovery is to take inventory of our character traits. The ones we feel are holding us back, that are hurting us and the people around us, are the ones we consider to be character defects. We have much to learn from these character defects, and working to improve upon them is part of a successful recovery.

Many of us have a tendency to judge ourselves for our mistakes and shortcomings. We beat ourselves up for the things we feel have room for improvement. What if, instead, we learned from them and used what we learned to help us move forward? Our character defects hold a great deal of information about who we are as people, our flaws and the ways we can grow and strengthen ourselves, and the ways in which we’ve been holding ourselves back and keeping ourselves small.

Our character defects often have a lot to do with our addictions. Oftentimes the most challenging elements of ourselves and our personalities contribute to our addictive behaviors and patterns. For example, a character defect may be an unwillingness to look at our mistakes. Perhaps we get defensive when people call us on the ways in which we’ve hurt them. Maybe we’re quick to be reactive instead of addressing how we can do better. This sort of character defect can exacerbate our addictive behaviors because we’re not open to looking at ourselves objectively and seeing the ways in which we are impacting others. Instead of facing our mistakes, we tend to want to avoid them, often using our addictions as our means of escape. This hinders the progress of our emotional development and therefore our recovery.

When we can look at our character defects with openness and honesty, we can work on ourselves and use everything we learn for our growth, healing and expansion. It can be hard to be honest with ourselves and others. It takes courage and strength. It takes humility. Every effort we make to look at ourselves and our behavior is a chance to become healthier, happier, more conscious versions of ourselves. Everything we learn affects how we operate moving forward, how we treat other people, how we feel about ourselves, how we confront issues. When we’re able to be honest with ourselves about who we are, we can be proud to know we’re taking that step to confront the things we perceived to be defects, things that actually can be fuel for the momentum of our growth.

We offer individual, group and trauma therapy to help you address these very important issues. Call 888-570-7154 for information on our treatment programs.