Hello tribe,
This week I have really been diving into the topic of Abandonment and Addiction. When I say addiction, I am also referring to love addiction, relationship addiction, emotional addiction or what can also be referred to as Codependency. I recently have put together a deeper understanding around what happens to us when we grow up in an abandoning environment on ANY LEVEL.
One of the key phrases I like to remind my clients of as we enter this topic is “Your wounding is not because there is something wrong with you or because you did something wrong. It is because of what has happened to you.” Our emotional wounds are NOT OUR FAULT.
Many of us who have experienced abandonment on some level also struggle with owning our own perception of reality due to the gaslighting that went on. This gaslighting is what can throw us into codependent situations & emotional addictions as well. It can look as simply as “I feel rejected” and your parent or partner says, “that is ridiculous, no one is abandoning you.” Yet even in that moment, your feelings are being rejected or made out to be INACCURATE.
You can see how this works. If someone truly feels rejected, the healthy response would be to say, “I hear that this is how you feel, can you tell me what happened that made you feel that way?” If we do not acknowledge these feelings, we grow up constantly looking OUTSIDE of ourselves for EVIDENCE that our inner feelings are accurate (externally dependent). We even create scenarios in our head like “everyone hates me,” just to validate that our feelings are valid and there isn’t something wrong with how we feel or our perception of reality. This pattern can go on and on for years simply because our original feelings were gaslighted.
We were made to feel like our feelings were not accurate when in FACT, they ALWAYS ARE.
If this happened to you, you may now experience extreme triggers around emotional events. In next week’s newsletter and video, I will be addressing how to control the triggers in the moment. But for this week, I want to address the ways we can tell if we have fallen into an emotional addiction.
It is important to see that abandoning environments creates an insecure attachment that makes us FEAR DISCONNECT. When we fear disconnect or abandonment, we go for something that we can depend on to soothe our emotions. Many people choose alcohol or drugs, others choose relationships and the intoxicating ups and downs that come from those toxic “drug like” cycles.
Healthy relationships seem boring to you if you are in need of that high and low that mimics the cycles of abandoning parents or partners. We can start to break out of this by validating our emotions and also by seeing our triggers as a threat from the past that is no longer in the present.
We need to SELF PARTNER with ourselves. Our wounds are part of who we are and are becoming. They will become our wisdom if we dive into the radical acceptance of them and integrate them rather than stay separated from them. Trust me, my work would not be possible if I did not turn those wounds into the wisdom that serves my life in a miraculous way today.
I want to encourage you to take a look at the REASON behind your emotional addiction or cycles of dependency. IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT. You can start to have compassion for your experience rather than self blame for your pain.
I honor each and everyone of you for doing the work and following the path less traveled, but absolutely needed.
Please know that my two 12-week courses on emotional and relationship healing are open now until OCT. 1. For more info on them check out this video.
Also, if you need extra support and guidance, feel free to book a session or a package of session with me here.
