Compulsive Character and Consequences
By Mary Cook, M.A., R.A.S.
Compulsions concentrate our available energy in limited areas, and deplete and block energy that we require for overall health. They create imbalance, lack of harmony, and impede healthy development emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually. Additionally, compulsions produce negative energy either due to their intrinsic nature, as with drug abuse, or due to the harmful consequences of their excessive repetition or use, as in sex or food addiction. The greater our compulsions, the more negative energy we have in our minds and bodies.
Persistent feelings of deprivation, emptiness, pain and negativity typically result from traumatic experiences, usually in childhood. Without healing, we carry these past experiences and our feelings and thoughts about them, into the present and create ongoing life scenarios from them. Compulsions attempt to bind anxiety and redirect our focus from something painful to something pleasurable. Because they are a temporary defensive distraction at best however, the pain we’re attempting to avoid, remains, and we fail to mature in the areas affected by it. This is why compulsions have a dependent childlike character, and defy adult reasoning and common sense.
When we have no understanding or role models for addressing inner pain, we project our pain onto other people and outside experiences. Thus internal chaos, craziness and conflict are viewed externally instead of internally. This allows us to assign blame outwardly and create an illusion of health for ourselves. The greater negative focus we have on people and life, the more sickness and ignorance we are denying within. Additionally, we try to hide personal pain through excessive busyness. Whether our behavior, emotions or thoughts are overactive, we lose faith, serenity and trust in this way.
Because compulsions keep our dominant focus external, we pay insufficient attention to internal states except for those that reinforce the compulsions. Thus we lack understanding and problem solving skills for the areas where we most need them. Decisions and actions we take in response to trauma, arise from fear and lack of insight. They are meant to be re-evaluated at a time of greater wisdom, rather than accepted as an ongoing life style. Viewing both the problem and solution as external, means that our goal in life is to avoid or fight that which reminds us of inner pain, and seek to capture positive gratification of what we were denied.
And yet life is meant to redirect us back to the places needing healing, as well as forward to where we can evolve. Avoiding, fighting and coveting are behaviors of resistance to life urging us to grow. Resistance keeps us in the problem, and the problem expands and intensifies. Because we lack tools to heal in childhood, we think pain is something we must avoid. But pain in life is inescapable, and therefore this produces a futile and frustrating goal. We are meant to experience negative emotions and realize that they are temporary, and be mindful of what they might teach us. Examining ourselves and our lives in response to pain, can lead us to greater humility, sensitivity, assertiveness, gratitude, understanding and integrity.
Compulsions deny or minimize conscious awareness of ourselves as spiritual beings. Our soul knows that we are whole. Compulsive cravings arise from fearing that we lack something internally or externally, to create or sustain satisfaction or fulfillment. We cannot find true peace and pleasure in projections. They are only temporary illusions that disable our evolution. It is only when we embrace ourselves fully, that we can experience the personal growth that leads to happiness and health. We must see our human faults and flaws and allow them to transform. We must see our soul and its wholeness and grace, and incorporate its’ presence into our daily life. When we accept the mysteries of life and what we do not know, we create space inside of us for miracles.
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http://WWW.MARYCOOKMA.COM Mary Cook is the author of “Grace Lost and Found: From Addictions and Compulsions to Satisfaction and Serenity”, available from Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, etc. She has over 35 years of clinical practice, 29 years of university teaching experience, and is a national speaker. Mary has a Master’s degree in psychology and is a registered addiction specialist, with a private practice in San Pedro, CA. She is available for telephone and office counseling, guided meditation, speaking engagements and in-service training. Contact her at MaryCookMA@att.net and see website for further information.
