What's your secret addiction, healer? Sugar? Caffeine? Ice cream late at night? The standbys: sex, alcohol, smoking or ingesting chemicals... Or perhaps: anger, control of others, or drama?
As healers, we feel particularly guilty about our addictions, telling ourselves we should know better. But, no. It's time to forgive ourselves and look at our addictions as the spiritual quests they are, however misguided. It's time to love ourselves and guide our quests properly, to where they can be satisfied and our deepest desires answered.
Studies have shown that addicts have a higher than average anticipation of satisfaction ahead of consumption, and a way-below-average satisfaction afterwards. Sound about right to you? No satisfaction, just want more... My secret craving is refined sugar. If I was Edmund in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, I too would have climbed up in the witch's sleigh for some turkish delight candy, in all likelihood.
So I know: what you are seeking is not your favorite substance, but something even greater and more satisfying. It's that something that feels missing in your everyday, seemingly troublesome physical life. It's the missing something that drives many into mid-life crises or acting out. Why not find it now and save yourself a lot of trouble? Here's a clue: Did you know some psychotropic drugs stimulate the same brain centers as states of deep meditation or spiritual awe do? (Other substances simply suppress our misery.)
When you chase your addiction in circles, you are seeking one thing, and one thing only: CONNECTION. A safe connection that holds you, fills you with deep love and comfort, a connection to something greater than you within which you can relax all your defenses and be yourself.
This drive is completely normal, for reasons I'll have to go into at another time. Addictions and "bad habits" happen when you don't know how to find this connection, so you try all kinds of things that seem to feel good like what you are seeking, but don't work in the long run.
Next time, I'll share something you can do to help curb your addictions.
