Day 185 of Your Year to Wellness; Deprivation, Indulgence and Addiction

Deprivation, Indulgence and Addiction

Today's lesson and inspiration require that you dig deep into the wells of your memories to pull from them the old causes and injuries that are keeping you from your goals. (Just writing that has made me sit straighter.)

Here we go, stay with me because the ride will be a bit bumpy but well worth the trip.

Everyone has suffered a hardship; some more than others, but we all go through stuff. Whether real or imagined the outcomes are real for those who endure.

Most of our hardship results in a feeling of lack or deprivation. When there has been a sense of deprivation there is also a need to make up for or compensate so we tend to go in the other direction and overindulge. Overindulgence will often lead to an addiction, but not always in the classical sense. A person addicted to certain foods may be able to avoid them for long periods of time but then return to that food with a vengeance.

The deprivation may have been in the area of love and affection which can result in an addiction towards attention seeking behaviors or even sex addiction. In some cases, a person who is deprived of love will go in the opposite direction and overindulge in seclusion, shutting themselves off from the potential of future hurt. In cases like this a person will avoid even the kindest greeting, simply because they are afraid to get too close which the believe will only result in more loss.

The addiction can be more obvious and harmful as is the case with drugs and alcohol, but sometimes it can be as simple and seemingly harmless as shopping for shoes.

What we avoid we crave and what we crave we eventually overindulge in.

Today’s lesson is in two parts; the first asks you to be honest with yourself about yourself and no one else. Avoid trying to figure out the issues or problems of someone else until you have conquered all of your own (I think you know that this will be a lifelong quest.)

Ask yourself the following:

·         What are my patterns? What do I return to? What do I crave and need?

·         Where does this come from? When did it begin? What do I feel that I missed? What do I yearn for?

The second part requires that you begin to seek a way out of your pattern of deprivation, indulgence and addiction. While you cannot go back in time, you can deal with your present condition.

·         Who do you need to forgive? (Make sure you include yourself in your list.)

·         When you crave something, you need something else; what is it that you really need?

·         Gradually begin to replace your craving with the thing you need most.

         

I know that this is a big challenge and I know that you are up to it. I also know that we are in this together.

Be you, be real be fulfilled.

Bertice Berry, PhD.

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