Good Morning and Welcome back to another edition of Rainbows, Potholes and Nuggets of Gold blog!

When I started this blog I figured I would have enough content to never run out. And I do. But sometimes, I run across an article or newsletter with such great information, I feel I'd be amiss if I didn't share it with you, my loyal readers/fans.

Today's post is one of those.

This young man reached out to me with the following article. My first thought was, "but I write a spiritual blog." How is this going to fit?

The response came very quickly... "Don't you know your body is the temple of the Lord, OR temple for the Holy Spirit."

Of course!

Upon further reading, I realized this article has the ability to help someone heal and that, my friends is why I said, "Yes." Healing and growth are two of the main reasons I started this blog to begin with.
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So, pour yourself a cup of coffee or your favorite beverage and enjoy ​Movement as Medicine: How Physical Fitness Supports Recovery from Addiction by Connor Hoffman.

Recovery isn’t linear. Some days bring clarity, others confusion. But amid the highs and lows, your body can become more than a coping tool — it can be a catalyst for repair. Physical movement won’t solve everything, but for many in recovery, it becomes a stabilizing force. You don’t need to run marathons. You just need momentum — and movement gives it to you.

Repairing Pleasure Pathways Hijacked by Substance Use.
Exercise has been shown to rewire brain reward circuits, offering a critical counterweight to the neural disruptions caused by addiction. This is especially important because after long-term substance use, the brain’s reward system becomes imbalanced, dulling natural sources of joy. Aerobic movement helps retrain dopamine receptors and forms new, healthier patterns of pleasure. The result is that people in recovery can start to experience motivation and enjoyment without substances, not just white-knuckled abstinence. This isn’t just a side effect of fitness — it’s a strategic neurological reset. The more you train your body, the more you're quietly training your brain to recognize healthy rewards again.

Integrating Healthier Habits, One Step at a Time
The most important shifts often come from the smallest adjustments. You cook something instead of skipping the meal. You stretch instead of scrolling. You go for a five-minute walk even though everything feels heavy. Over time, those become routines. And routines become structured. When you lean into small choices that support recovery, you're building a recovery that isn't dependent on willpower alone — it’s built on practice, consistency, and self-respect.

Easing Emotional Overload Without Numbing Out
Within weeks of consistent physical activity, many people begin to boost mood and ease substance cravings, often without even realizing that’s what’s happening. That’s because exercise naturally increases endorphin release while lowering cortisol levels, a combination that supports emotional stability. In early recovery, when emotions can come fast and unfiltered, even a brisk walk can create enough space to pause before reacting. There’s nothing romantic about panic attacks, racing thoughts, or mood swings — and movement gives your body a way to metabolize that energy. You don’t need to be in therapy mode all the time. You need pressure release valves, and your body knows how to be one if you let it.

Building Rhythms That Replace the Chaos
When everything feels unstable, it helps to create a structured rhythm for daily recovery. Routine becomes more than a schedule — it becomes a scaffold that holds you up when motivation runs thin. Exercise fits neatly into this because it gives your day bookends, rituals, and internal checkpoints. You showed up. You moved. You kept a promise to yourself. Over time, these micro-commitments build internal stability, the kind that makes it easier to say no to old patterns and yes to tiny victories. For people used to chaos, predictability isn’t boring — it’s healing.
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Using Movement to Find Connection Again
Isolation is a dangerous partner in recovery. But when you find connection through sober fitness communities, the need to explain everything starts to dissolve. Shared movement creates its own kind of intimacy — not the kind you have to talk about, but the kind you feel when someone spots your barbell or runs next to you for the last mile. Community-based fitness programs built around sobriety, like The Phoenix, are showing that connection doesn’t have to be confession-based. It can be sweat-based. That kind of low-pressure presence helps rebuild trust with others, and with yourself. You don’t need to talk about your recovery every time you show up — you just need to show up.

Turning Movement Into Restorative Sleep
Regular exercise improves your circadian rhythm and helps you sleep deeper, feel more steady, both of which are often out of sync in the early phases of sobriety. Addiction and withdrawal wreak havoc on sleep patterns, and insomnia is one of the most frustrating and persistent challenges for those trying to stay sober. Physical movement helps reset your internal clock, reduce anxiety at night, and make rest feel like something your body earns — not something it resists. And better sleep doesn’t just improve your energy; it tamps down reactivity, reduces impulsivity, and supports better decision-making during daylight hours. Think of rest not as a passive reward, but as an active component of healing.
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Rebuilding the Brain’s Core Infrastructure
The damage done by addiction isn’t just emotional — it’s structural. Research shows that movement reverses brain damage from addiction, especially through aerobic activities that promote neurogenesis. That means new neurons. New connections. New internal pathways to support memory, attention, and problem-solving. This isn’t theoretical — it’s been measured. People in recovery who engage in consistent movement often report clearer thinking, better executive function, and a return of something they thought they’d lost: self-trust. The brain is an adaptive machine, and exercise is one of the fastest ways to nudge it toward repair.

Recovery isn’t about perfecting yourself — it’s about reclaiming what’s already yours. When you move, you’re telling your body: I’m still here. That matters. Not because science says so (though it does), but because every step forward becomes proof. Healing isn’t some far-off milestone. It’s now. It’s yours. And it starts where you stand.

Connor Hoffman is a health and fitness coach and creator of Benefit The Body. He has dedicated his career to helping individuals transform their lives through fitness, health, and wellness. With more than 15 years of experience, he has become renowned for his holistic approach to coaching, focusing on building a solid foundation of health and fitness knowledge and training for his clients. His coaching philosophy is centered around emphasizing functional movement, nutrition, and mindset.

In the wake of last week’s tragedies and the social media trolls bashing, cursing, blaming, celebrating and all the other nonsense that came along with the senseless murder of a young father, husband, son, sibling, and friend of so many, I have labored over whether to address this. But my heart, soul and conscience will not allow me to just let it go.

In the days since Sept.10th, I’ve had the following thoughts run through my head like a ticker…

What If…

What if when we get face to face with Jesus, He doesn’t say, “well done,” like many believe?

What if He says we’ve got it all wrong?

What if His words are, “What part of Love your neighbor as yourself did you NOT understand?”

I can hear us now. “But, Lord, the bible says… yada, yada, yada. I was only defending Your word!”

My Words were, forgive everyone, pray for your enemies and bless those who persecute you.

But, but…the bible says this and that and they are an abomination!

And, I said Judge not lest ye be judged for by whatever judgement you mete, You will be judged!

Have you even read MY Words? Have you followed My example? Where is it written in RED to maim, defile, slander, defame or murder anyone? Depart from me you cold-hearted, evil, wicked being.

But, but…Lord, I’ve worshipped you my whole life. Where is the mercy your word promises?

Where is it written in RED to worship me? I never said worship Me. I said worship God and follow me. Learn by my example. Do as I did. Do even greater. Are you doing this? Where is the mercy You’ve shown? 

And the list goes on and on of possible questions and rebuttals between a soul and its maker and Lord.

The ONE Truth that keeps coming to me is this: God is the all-powerful, all-loving, supremely intelligent being that created the universe and everything in it.

1John4:16 says, “God is love and he who dwells in love dwells with God.”

1Corinth13:4-8 says, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

Honestly, I had no idea who Charlie Kirk was until my daughter texted me about what happened and asked for prayers for him and his family. So, for those of you who followed him closely and think you know him, ask yourself: Was he acting out of love? Was he debating with compassion and love or simply spouting some anti-anything-but-Christian/Judeo-Christian agenda?

A better question to ask yourself might be: How am I acting/behaving/speaking since listening to him or any person with a platform?

Ask yourself and be honest with your answers. You might not like what you discover but it will be the start of your healing and growth.

Besides, do we honestly, truly, deeply know anyone? I don’t. People surprise, shock and sadden me all the time but what I DO know is this senseless violence must stop!

Humanity as a whole has lost its ever-loving mind. When will it end? HOW will it end?

It will end when we think, study, and pray, FOR OUSELVES.

Not based on what a pastor, preacher, rabbi, guru, evangelist, teacher, professor, politician, public servant, or anyone says. Not from the rhetorical bullshit we are brainwashed with daily and have been spoon/force-fed for centuries says.

But For Ourselves.

How can we do this?

BE STILL. Get quiet and seek God, Wisdom, Knowledge, Truth within your heart, mind and soul. After all, aren’t we born with an inherent moral compass and an innocent love for everyone until we’re taught differently?

READ extensively something other than a book that has been dissected, dichotomized, edited and revised hundreds of times over the past twenty centuries. One that is quoted and misquoted, idealized, idolized and weaponized every singe day, all over the world. Read ministers outside your chosen religion or theology, read the mystics, read and study and pray but most of all do this with a pure intention. Not to prove anything to anyone except yourself.

RESEARCH what you read. Nearly every spiritual book I encounter sites other texts from which they – with prayer and contemplation – base their beliefs on. And almost every author leaves the interpretation of what they know and believe open for growth and expansion. Which leads me to my next suggestion…

BE OPEN minded and open hearted when you read, study or speak to someone. Listen to their heart not just their words. Ask and allow God to speak through you and if God knows nothing you can say will change a person’s heart or mind, ask that your mouth be sealed shut. Do NOT get into an argument or make war with anyone over your beliefs vs theirs.

RESPECT: Everyone else’s right to speak their truth as long as it’s done respectfully and without malice.

Walk AWAY when you feel uncomfortable and then Pray and ask for wisdom and understanding.

STOP jumping on the bandwagon of someone else’s opinion or “truth.” NO One has a monopoly on any truth except for the TRUTH that Love is the answer. Love created the universe. Love holds the universe together. Love is always growing, always expanding just as the universe is. Love is big enough to hold space for diversity. I’d be so bold as to say that Love loves diversity. Otherwise, we would all be little robots walking around saying the same thing, wanting the same thing, believing the same thing… You get my drift.

STOP letting the political and immoral propaganda floating around the stratosphere shake your foundation so that you waver in the wind like chaff and don’t even know what you do believe anymore.

CHOOSE peace instead of anger, love instead of hatred, compassion instead of disgust or disinterest.

PRAY for an open mind, soft heart, bridled tongue, and let everything you do or say be done in and with LOVE.

Finally, remember Mother Theresa said, “It is never between you and them, it is between you and God.”

Therefore, BE the change you want to see in the world. After all, change starts with and in You. God cannot and will not change anyone until You allow the change you’re wanting “them” to make or be, take place in your heart, mind, thoughts and beliefs about them first.

The world cannot go on like this, folks. If there isn’t a major change of heart, change of dynamics between humans, God, and nature, we’re going to self-destruct.

I would say, like so many do, “God” will destroy the world and start over, but I don’t believe that’s true. We will spiral into extinction and another, more loving, more intelligent being will rise out of the remnant and create heaven on earth as we were supposed to do.

Something to think about.
“Inspirational with an Edge!” ™
“Coaching in PJs”

As Christians we are encouraged to become more like Jesus, but how is that possible in a world where hearts have grown cold and mutual honesty, integrity and respect is almost nonexistent?

In his book, Just Like Jesus, Max Lucado offers us numerous examples. I own this treasure trove of encouragement and have read it numerous times, but I must say, loving as Jesus loved/loves and living as He lived, is not easy!

Sometimes it seems as though Life sets out to prove just how difficult a task this is. Not wanting to get into particular situations here, let’s suffice by saying I have never considered myself capable of emotions strong enough to actually hurt—I mean physically—hurt someone. But I have. I’ve experienced anger, so deep, so raw it nearly rendered me incapable of feeling basic kindness much less compassion.

I’m not proud of it and am certainly not advocating acting on those feelings! But there have been a few times in my life I can honestly say I’ve experienced something so fierce, so strong… so dangerous that it actually scared me.

I’ve seen social media posts that say when asked WWJD remember that turning over tables and taking a whip to someone is not out of the realm of possibilities.

Yeah, there are times when I’d like to do that.

Or worse.

Without a qualm.

Hard to believe, right? Especially for those who know me personally.

Hard for me to believe too.

Thankfully, I haven’t felt such intense rage like this often or in a long time.

So how can we be more like Jesus when we have such undesirable emotions?

Scripture gives us the answer… “But I tell you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” Matthew 5:44 and Romans 12:14: “Bless those who persecute you [who are cruel in their attitude toward you]; bless and do not curse them.”

So that’s what I did and continue to do: Pray and trust that God has the entire situation under control and will show Himself strong on my behalf, help me see the people/circumstances in a different light, or change my heart completely. I’ve prayed, “Lord, I’m willing to forgive and I surrender this situation and these emotions to you, but only YOU can make the forgiveness true in my heart.”

Three other prayers have proven beneficial when faced with something like this…

• Ho'oponopono, the ancient Hawaiian practice of reconciliation and forgiveness, meaning "to make things right." I’ve studied and practiced this prayer and am a Certified Ho'oponopono Practitioner. With this prayer you take full responsibility for your emotions by apologizing to and asking forgiveness from the perpetrator(s), saying “thank you,” and ending with, “I love you.”

 
Which isn’t easy when our ego mind screams, “yeah, but…!!!” One thing that helped me was to add, “I forgive you and I release you to God,” at the end of my prayer. Another was to write the prayer in full using the person/people’s names. In her book, The Four Spiritual Laws of Prosperity, Edwene Gaines suggests writing your forgiveness statement 35 x twice a day for 7 days (70 x 7). I have this book and will discuss it at a later time. I want to re-read it first. 😊

Surrogate Tapping for those involved helped too.

• The prayer of St. Francis of Assisi and the Amni Christi are wonderful too because both help you focus on emulating Christ.

 
Have these things made me more like Jesus?

Maybe, a little, but I know there’s always room for me to learn, to heal, and to grow.

Something to think about...
PamT
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“Inspirational with an Edge!” ™
"Coaching in Pj's" ™

​I'd LOVE to hear your thoughts so leave a comment!