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.