We have an intuitional voice that says we can connect much more deeply to ourselves and to one another.

We naturally live our lives wanting belonging, connection, a home in this world. We yearn for warmth, for possibility, for the more abundant life that recovery seems to promise. We sense there is a quality of real recovery that is possible beyond the narrow straits we have been told to navigate, a possibility that's not idealised or merely abstract. We have an intuitional voice that says we can connect much more deeply to ourselves and to one another.

We ardently believe that we have the capacity to experience real recovery despite the hindrances and warps of our culture and the media. The practices of mindfulness and lovingkindness open the door to this possibility.

 The practice of cultivating real recovery for ourselves with loving-kindfulness and self compassion. It serves as an antidote to negative messages from our birth families about our selves. You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

The stories we tell ourselves about our experiences and encounters with self and others need to erase all the negativity and reframe what has happened in a more positive light. The stories others tell us should not be the source of our self-esteem but can serve as spurs to personal growth and wisdom insights. Other challenges to recovering ourselves are explored by welcoming our emotions, meeting the inner critic, letting go of perfection, becoming embodied, moving beyond shame, taking a stand on happiness, and following our child withins ethical compass.

The sturdiness of this recovery practice of loving ourselves paves the way for additional examples of real recovery of relationships with our partners, children, parents and siblings, dear friends, colleagues and recovery teachers. "The best thing we can do for our relationship with others . . . is to render our relationship to our child within to be more conscious."

Recovery and loving- kindfulness to others is an expression of our ten stage recovery path. No gesture is too small when our connection with strangers is at stake.The necessity of empathy, dealing with rather than writing off difficult people, seeing inclusion as the face of recovery, moving from anger to sanity, and transforming a "No" into a "Yes."

Real Recovery offers mindfulness exercises and meditation techniques designed to evolve real recovery into childhood maturity animated by compassion, empathy, and inclusion.