Strengths-Based Recovery
A Virtual Workshop Series for Strengths in Progressive Recovery
Recently, Pavillon Recovery Center asked us if we could provide content that focused on what some call “assets inventory.” In a nutshell, it’s the alternate side of the much more common personal inventory based in the Twelves Steps that focuses on “character defects.”
Over the years we have seen the power of those personal inventories as friends in recovery look deeply at their failings, their mistakes, and the guilt and shame surrounding them. So too have we seen the incredible benefits of adding to that an inventory that explores what we do right, and where our personalities and lives are quite effective and useful.
We are more than our failings. We are more than our successes. We are both. And perhaps we are even more than the sum total of those.
Thankfully, our professional practices beyond the rooms of recovery had already discovered the powerful tools associated with “strengths-based approaches.” If you are interested, you can learn much more at this commercial site that provides a number of tools. There is a robust science over many years that we can trust. This is in the spirit of what Bill W urged us toward in looking to other fields for knowledge as well as maintaining an open mind and willingness in order to advance our recoveries.
The workshops that follow were developed for Pavillon by merging the work of the Twelve Steps, our practice base in Progressive Recovery, and this strengths-based science.
Welcome to the Workshop Series for Strengths in Progressive Recovery. Be curious. See what you can learn.
As always, take what you like and pass it on.
Progressive Recovery Through a Foundation of Strengths: Bringing Our Talents to Life
Workshop #1 - The Strengths Within Us - September 2022
A few years ago, in delving further into his long-term recovery, Ronald Chapman wrote Progressive Recovery through the Twelve Steps: Emotionally Sober for Life. Based on his personal experiences, the book offers an opportunity to recover more deeply through our emotional and psychological selves. Now, he has embarked on a similar exploration of the strengths that exist within each of us. That’s the focus of these workshops.
This first session lays a foundational understanding of strengths and talents, where they come from, and what we might make of them. As always, try to listen with an open heart and an open mind. What you find may provides awareness, growth and breakthrough in the same way it has for Ron.
Progressive Recovery Through a Foundation of Strengths: Bringing Our Talents to Life
Workshop #2 - Translating Our Strengths - September 2022
In Strengths Workshop #1, we looked at the underlying foundation for strengths and talents. That included some context on personal inventory as typically practiced through the Twelve Steps. Now, we look further at how these strengths appear in our lives, and what their relevance may be to us.
Once again we see how we are much more than our “character defects.” More importantly, this strengths-based approach brings an entirely new vantage to the practice of the Twelve Steps.
Progressive Recovery Through a Foundation of Strengths: Bringing Our Talents to Life
Workshop #3 - A Strength-Based Life in Recovery - September 2022
Just as we must find ways to bring our recovery into our world through our actions and relationships, until we bring forth strengths in our daily lives, we just can’t bear all the fruit that recovery promises. We are much, much more than our deficiencies, far more than our poor behavior, and have within us tremendous untapped potential.
Our third and final session looks to bring our talents to life.