Four Signs of Emotional Addiction

 

Emotional addiction is like having raw emotional wounds all over your body. For most people these wounds stay raw until the addiction is looked at head on and is addressed, just as a tender nurse cares for wounds. This is not to say that people’s emotions are invalid, they are very real and very valid. When you notice these tendencies in yourself or others don’t try to correct the behavior, that is like pouring salt on a wound, rather when you notice these things allow it to be a reminder to embody more compassion and love. As if you are a gentle nurse. You can not heal the wounds you can create an environment for healing though.

Here are some ways to notice emotional addiction in yourself or someone you know.

 

Broken Record – Often someone who’s addicted to their emotions will sound as if they are a broken record about their feelings. Sounds something like: I feel so mad, that person is a jerk, I can’t believe this happened to me AGAIN, I don’t care if they apologized I will never forgive them, etc. Being on broken record mode is like being stuck in an emotional rut.

Victimization – This goes hand in hand with the broken record. “Why me?” is a common statement of victimization. Feeling sorry for ones self, feeling as if there is nothing they can do right – dammed if ya do dammed if ya don’t – are all ways the victim shows up. When someone is feeling victimized they are often also feeling inferior.

Judgment/blame/shame – Finger pointing is one way people deal with emotional pain. “It’s your fault that things didn’t work out, if only you would have listened.” – who didn’t hear that as a kid?

Head over heart – When someone uses their head, their antithetical thinking mind over what their heart says time after time, it’s likely they don’t trust their emotions. Not trusting your emotions can led to avoidance or pushing away – which may show up as pushing experiences or people away as well. This can be highly addictive as this experience can offer a false sense of control over ones life.
Every person is different and this article is not intended to diagnose any kind of mental illness or addiction. It’s meant to be a reminder that when you or someone else is in pain – that is the opportunity to pay attention. If you cut yourself while making dinner and conversing with friends you’d excuse yourself and go take care of your wound, and your friends would (most likely) understand. We can do the same with emotional woulds with honest, open communication with ourselves and with others.

For more information on how to heal from emotional wounds I recommend: This Video

Old wounds opened up so they can heal

A post I recently made on my Facebook Timeline:

Making a commitment to love myself is easily one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. Old wounds have burst open and in many ways I feel like a child trying to find my place in the world. Like a person caught in the rapids of life. And then experiencing stillness in-between the rapids that I approach. If I can’t love me through all my emotional, physiological and spiritual turmoil I certainly won’t be able to love anyone else going through it.

And so this is a part of my journey to love myself even as I experience great pain and feel as though I am less than, that I am a burden and that I am not worthy – that feeling comes from a false perception I have. When I embody the awareness that the perspective is false and it’s my choice to keep thinking it’s real, that it’s my identity – I’ll be on my way to deeper experiences of self-love. I’ll be more in love with life. And transformation can only happen in the present moment, it can not happen in the future. The future is the concept that now will happen later – hahaha

So I ask myself, can I do it, can I love myself?

My mantra has recently been: I am open and receptive to Love.
Another mantra I’m choosing to work on is: I am peace

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Wounds can be torn open and you can ignore them and they become infected – I would call that default. Or when those wounds are town open again you can apply medicine, wrap it up and keep tending to it until it’s healed. And that’s what I am putting my focus on right now. I’m cleaning out that long held emotional poison from my now raw and exposed wounds and making a better life for myself. I’m starting to see through the “eyes of Love.”

Some ways I clean my wounds is through meditation, contemplation and self-inquiry as offered by my friend and spiritual mentor Leeza Edwards Director of Universality of Transformation. What are some ways you clean out emotional poison from your wounds?