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| Addiction to Thinking | |
By Margaret Paul, Ph.D.
Randall sought my help because he was stuck being miserable
and had no idea how to get out of his misery. In his life he had
experienced moments of great joy and sense of oneness with all
of life, but those moments were infrequent. He wanted more of
those moments but had no idea how to bring them about.
Randall is an extremely intelligent man, but in some ways he
was using his own intelligence against himself. The problem
was that when Randall did have those brief moments of true
connection, he immediately went into his mind to try to figure out
how it happened. The moment he went into his mind, he lost the
connection that he so desperately desired.
The reason Randall went into his mind was that, as much as he
wanted the joy of deep spiritual connection, he wanted
something even more than that - control over that connection.
Randall's ego wounded self believed that he could control the
connection with Spirit with his intellect - if only he could figure it
out then he could control it. The last thing Randall wanted to do,
which is what is necessary to connect with Spirit, is to surrender
his thinking. Randall was deeply addicted to thinking as a way to
not feel his inner experience. Thinking was his way of controlling
his painful feelings, such as his aloneness, loneliness, and
helplessness over others and over his spiritual connection.
Many us of are addicted to thinking. We believe if we can just
figure things out we can control others and the outcome of
things. We want to control how people feel about us and treat us
by saying just the right thing - so we have to think about it over
and over to discover the right thing to say. This is called
"ruminating." Ruminating is obsessively thinking about
something over and over in the hopes of finally coming up with
the "right" answer, the right thing to say, the right way to be to
have control over others and the outcome of things. Ruminating
is also a way to have control over our own painful feelings, which
is what addictions are all about.
In my work with Randall, he would immediately go into his head
and analyze what was happening in the session the minute
feelings came up. Over and over I would bring him out of his
head and into his body, into his feelings. His feelings were so
terrifying to him that he could only stay with his feelings for a few
moments before he was back into his head - explaining, figuring
out, intellectualizing. He was so terrified of the soul loneliness
and aloneness he felt that he had learned to avoid these
feelings with his mind. Yet until Randall was willing to feel his
painful feelings, which had been there since childhood, he
couldn't stay out of his head. As long as his intent was to control
his pain rather than learn from it, he would not be able to move
into the spiritual connection he so desired.
The purpose of all of our addictions are to avoid pain, especially
the deep soul loneliness that we all feel in this society. The
problem is that our disconnection from our feelings - which is
our Inner Child - creates aloneness as well. Our feeling self, our
Inner Child, is left alone inside with no one to attend to the
painful feelings. It is only when our desire is to learn about how
we may be causing our own painful feelings that we open to our
inner experience. Our desire to learn also opens the door to our
spiritual connection, which we cannot feel when our intent is to
avoid pain with our various addictions.
It took Randall many months to be willing to feel his painful
feelings, but he discovered that when he finally had the courage
to feel them, it was not as bad as he thought. In fact, when he
was no longer abandoning his Inner Child by going into his
addictive thinking, he no longer felt alone within. Connecting with
himself allowed him to connect with Spirit more and more of the
time. Rather than getting there through thinking and trying to
control it, he was getting there by being present in the moment
with his inner experience - surrendering to the moment. Randall
found that while he could not control others and the outcome of
things, he actually did have control over his misery - by choosing
the intent to learn rather than protecting against pain. While he
couldn't control Spirit, he did have control his own intent, which
eventually led to his being able to connect with Spirit.
Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of
eight books, including "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By
You?", "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By My Kids?",
"Healing Your Aloneness","Inner Bonding", and "Do I Have To
Give Up Me To Be Loved By God?" Visit her web site for a FREE
Inner Bonding course: http://www.innerbonding.com or
mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com
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