While flowery messages with sunshine and yoga poses have their place, they don’t always match our mood. Or our life experience.

When you’re in recovery, you’re literally fighting battles EVERY DAY. And while messages about “acceptance” and “positivity” play important roles in the recovery process, they’re not always the best things to get you pumped up for BATTLE. So we’ve put together this list of recovery tools that take advantage of your inner bad-ass warrior.

Heads up!! This page is full of colorful language, so if you’re not a fan of the ‘F’ word, we’d recommend sticking with other resource tools posted elsewhere on our site.

The tools include several external links, presented in no particular order. So you may want to bookmark this page to refer back to as you explore all the items shared here.

This month, spend some time getting in touch with your inner recovery bad-ass. Embrace the days you feel the desire to replace lovey-dovey slogans with swear words. Pick up your metaphorical sledge-hammer and get ready for battle. Forward progress can take many forms. Honor that bad-ass and go show ‘em who’s boss!

• Mindfulness for When Shit Gets Real
• Pump Yourself Up With This Easy Posture Trick
• Warriors Need Fuel
• Epic Battles Need an Epic Soundtrack
• A Few More Tips for the Road

Mindfulness for When Shit Gets Real

Let’s face it. Life isn’t always full of sunshine n’ roses. So how do we practice mindfulness and self-soothing when the world around us is really annoying or frustrating? Enter, “F*ck That- An Honest Mindfulness Meditation”.

Eat Like You Give a F*CK

Warriors need fuel. That means food. If you have an eating disorder, your relationship with food is a little sketchy. The popular blog Thug Kitchen can help! This blog does an amazing job of highlighting all the great things that different foods can do for you to power you through your day. And they do it all with a hefty dose of F-bombs. Here are some examples of what you’ll find on the Thug Kitchen blog:

Head on over to Thug Kitchen Tumblr for more!

Stand Like You Mean It

It turns out, the posture you take actually helps shape your mood. Check out Amy Cuddy’s TED Talk about the power of Power Posing:

Every Great Fight Scene Needs a Great Soundtrack

Create a badass playlist with a lot of punk and rock and roll and maybe that one Mulan song about getting down to business. We’ve added a few suggestions here to kick things off:

A Few More Ideas and Thoughts Before We Go

• Have a brave friend hold up a pillow so you can punch it.
• Scream curse words. (Mind the neighbors).
• Throw ice cubes at a wall
• Need to prepare yourself to battle with meal time? Put on your “power suit”. Wear literally whatever makes you feel strong, bold, and powerful. Wear a unicorn costume. Put on a tiara. Jump into a phone booth and throw on your super-hero cape. Wear your biggest, baddest, heaviest, steel-toed combat boots. Get the idea?
• Remember: If food is the enemy, you are literally devouring your enemies and getting stronger from that!
• When people try to rain on your parade, poke them in the eye with your umbrella.
• You cannot please everybody.
• The day you stop caring what people think about you is the day you start enjoying life.
• Don’t let little stupid things break your happiness.
• Remember: Warriors are built from the fire