Emotional addiction

We have all heard of addiction to drugs, addiction to gambling, addictions to food, but emotional addiction? I recently watched a movie called “What the Bleep!? Down the Rabbit Hole.” The movie is a narrative story along with interviews with scientists (mostly physicists) and spiritual scholars and the premise is how physicists are beginning to bridge the gap between science and spirituality. So what does this have to do with emotional addiction? Because it all has to do with our thoughts, and just how powerful our thoughts are.

It has been known for some time that our thoughts create our emotions, and if you give that some thought you will likely agree. Think a sad thought and you feel sad. Think a happy thought and you feel happy. The thoughts create a chemical reaction in our brain. Our brain produces a peptide based on the thought we have, this peptide is released into the body and our cells have receptors that these peptides lock in to. The more often our cells receive a certain peptide, the more it wants to receive that peptide. So when we continue to think the same negative thoughts about ourselves, we are conditioning our body to want more of that chemical peptide. Our thoughts also create or destroy neurological pathways in the brain. The more a person thinks about and experiences the emotion of love, the stronger those pathways become...so those people that always seem happy and you can’t believe someone could always be that happy...well maybe they have created an environment in their body that allows for that! The danger is we can also destroy good pathways in the brain through out negative thinking and create new pathways that perpetuate the negative thinking.

So the answer is to just change your thoughts, right? Yes and no. Yes, ultimately that is what is needed; however, as it took time for you to become addicted to the chemical releases and creating the negative thinking pathways, it will take time to reverse the process. The good news is it is totally reversible. You start where you are, and begin to reach for better feeling thoughts. It could be difficult at first because your body is craving the chemicals it is used to getting from your negative thinking. But as with a drug addict, you wean yourself off the negative thinking.

I had mentioned to a person I know I thought he might be addicted to drama. It had been my experience he was quick to respond to an email or phone call that had a lot of drama involved, he liked to get in the middle of family drama that had nothing to do with him, he liked to rehash old family drama. I sent this email message on a Saturday morning. This person rarely, if ever, checks his email on a Saturday morning/afternoon, and even more rare would it be for him to respond right away. Imagine my surprise, or not, when he did respond as soon as he read it that Saturday afternoon. For someone who had to defend he was not addicted to drama, he sure was quick to create a little by reading and responding right away. Of course he probably wouldn’t see it that way nor did I try to point that out to him...that would be me creating more drama :-) And I don’t live in his body, so do I even really know for sure? Take a look in your own life and see what your emotional addictions might be. Do you like to push other people’s buttons? Why, what do you get out of it? Do you beat yourself up about something you did or said? Do you have to get that last word in or can you walk away and let it go? When you feel a negative emotion strongly, what thought created that emotion? If it was a negative emotion, can you change that thought, even slightly, so you feel a little better? These negative emotional addictions is what Eckhart Tolle would call your ego painbody...that part of you that feeds on past hurts by bringing them to the surface again and again. Consciousness...raising your awareness to the present moment and the feelings inside is what begins to release this negative energy from within. So it’s not a bad thing to feel negative emotion, it’s actually a very good teacher for you...if you are aware. As always, I want to say I know I have my own emotional addictions and am a work-in-progress. I’m happy I am more aware now than ever so that I can begin to turn the tides, create new neurological pathways and begin to live more of my life in joy and harmony.

What is Love?

Love...we all want it in our lives, right? What is the definition of Love? Is it a feeling? An action? A way of being? Does anyone really know? Is it different for each person? In the last year and a half, I’ve found myself questioning what exactly love is. Religion would tell us we are to love all people...how’s that workin’ for ya? Did you love that guy on the freeway this morning who cut in front of you? What the heck does that mean anyway...love all people? Well, from a spiritual perspective we are all created from the same Divine Source, or God....call it whatever you like. We are all connected...even science is beginning to prove that through quantum physics. And that Divine Source is pure love, so we must be pure love right? Do you feel like pure love? Or are you like a lot of people constantly criticizing yourself and judging yourself and others? Do you look in the mirror and only see what you don’t like? Or can you get to a place where you begin to see what you do like both inside and out? That is self-love. I’ve begun to think that while love can be a feeling, an emotion that stirs from deep within, to truly love means to unconditionally accept another Being just as they are and it begins with the self. When we begin to love our self, we begin to see our self and others in a new way. We begin to live empathetically. We begin to put ourselves in another’s shoes as best we can. We see a mother have an angry outburst towards her child and rather than judge her as a bad mother, we acknowledge we’ve been where she is and our hearts open with compassion rather than close with judgment. Rather than curse the guy who cut us off in traffic, we know we’ve been in a hurry like that before and cut someone off in order to reach our destination faster and we hope he makes it where he needs to be...perhaps he just learned his loved one was taken to the emergency room. We have no idea what another person is experiencing, so truly, who are we to judge? So now I’ve moved from love, to unconditional acceptance, to empathy, to compassion...seems I’m all over the board...but maybe not. Maybe they are all tied together.

Here’s a challenge. Begin to work on self-unconditional acceptance. I think this will naturally flow into you beginning to unconditionally accept your family, your husband or partner, your children, your co-worker, the stranger at the grocery store. It’s a process, just start with a little awareness. I promise if you continue, the awareness continues to grow.

So I think love is a feeling, a deep emotional stirring, and an action. Questioning this all started about a year and half ago while I was on a quest for love from a man and I read a book called A New Earth. The book really made me question what love is, it actually turned me off of love for a short while because I thought if everything in creation is love, what’s the point of “special” relationships? Thankfully I did not completely give up on love, really that is impossible for me. But I did have to get love from myself first. I still want to share love with one man, but I now know he must love himself first, then he can let it flow to me and others. No amount of love from me can change that fact. When you get to a place where you love yourself, everything else in your life balances out and you can then fully receive love from others. And as always, I remain a work in progress...