Lots of people find enjoyment in shopping, some love junk food, some adore throwing themselves into a new relationship, some like running, some are addicted to drinking, some can’t be drawn away from social media. Whatever you do, it’s because you crave that ‘feel good’ moment.
Did you know? Our mind’s most important job is to keep us ALIVE and AWAY from pain.
So where do the lines come between an addiction, a passion or a habit?
Passion is an intense desire or enthusiasm for something.
Habit is an automatic reaction to a specific situation.
Addiction is a condition of being dependant on a particular substance or activity, that an individual has no control over.
As Valentine’s Day is in February, I want to talk about patterns in our love life, that may make us behave like an addict.
Our future is decided in our childhood. Between the ages of 5 and 8 (what some call our formative years), we create our most important perceptions about life, who we are and what we are capable of. In the later years we polish these understandings until they become beliefs – deep rooted in our subconscious mind. The main reason for suffering from low self-esteem, lack of confidence and self-worth can be an incident, trauma or just hurtful words we experienced as children.
When our basic needs of love, care and attention have been neglected in the early years of our life- there is a high chance that we can carry unhealthy or even destructive beliefs into the future that will shape our lives.
Living with negative beliefs and intrusive thoughts that make us doubt our self-worth can force us to create new ways to have our needs met. This can then form patterns of behaviours. When our understanding and experiences of love are tainted by lack of trust, jealousy, infidelity, drama, abuse, neglect, manipulation etc, we start to seek those things like a bee to pollen. Why? Because our mind has the distorted need to “fix” the past by telling us that we need to try harder, this just leads us to even more pain and suffering.
The most common destructive patterns in the relationship are:
· Dating a partner who reminds us of parent
· Need for drama as a fuel for feelings
· Constant need for confirmation and acts of “true love”
· Attracting toxic relationships
· Attracting abusive partners
· Being a people pleaser and trying to earn love
As we already established, whatever you experienced in your childhood shaped your life patterns. Unless you become aware of this and deal with it, it will keep dragging you back. It will feel like you are addicted to these triggers.
As a therapist and coach, I help my clients to heal their past wounds and let go of these patterns of behaviours that they seem to not have control over. The tools and techniques I use are efficient in spotting and clearing the root cause. This then allows you to create a new belief system and understanding that will give you the results you need.
The change starts with you and within you!
If you have any questions, please contact me for a FREE discovery call or send me an email at tiina@tiinanellis.com
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