Strategies to break addictions and eating disorders by Clinical Nutritionist Christina Santini, CN, CTT, RYT
Most of us are busy trying not to get rejected. When we don't risk rejection, we blend into the many shades of depressing gray that makes up the sky of hazy february. Greatness is standing out. Greatness is daring rejection. Only what I give to you can I have myself. The spiritual field is opposite that of the material. And this is the key. Instead of wanting, we need to create abundance from a mustard grain of faith. If I want kindness, I need to be it. If I want love, I need to give it.Everything is faith based in the spiritual realm and nothing is ours til we give it freely.
If we have unrequited affection for someone it is emotional masochism. You cannot love someone who doesn't love you - that is merely obsession and infatuation at best. And well, at worst, we are busy realizing our childhood trauma of never feeling good enough, lovable and so forth. Why we unconsciously seek out people who will confirm our automated negative selv-talk. And because we are comfortable with our own trashtalk and believe this to be true about ourselves - that we are not worth it - we stay, we endure and hang on like a cat to the curtain tails. It is painfully pathetic.
I can't stand the #metoo campaign sweeping over us at the moment. It is toxic to both men and women alike. And I absolutely do not feel empowered as a female by this sort of feminist-wannabe campaign. On the contrary, I feel victimized, disempowered, pathetic and weak. I feel as if I am literally being brainwashed into believing, I cannot say no to anyone challenging my standards.
We mirror people we like, as it shows them that we respect them and also a certain level of admiration. If their response is favorable to us mirroring them, then they will also typically mirror us. This makes us feel like we are in rapport. We feel safe. This may not necessarily be the case - especially if we are both being people pleasing.
It is a funny thing in life. Oftentimes we spend so much time in the mud, that we think we are drowning. When the only thing we need to do is to stand up. The water is rarely more than an inch and yet we lie facedown, drowning in only an inch of water and dirt. It often doesn't require much to change the path we are on, if it leads to nowhere. Yet in our mind we make it out to be quicksand. How do we save each other when we can't even master the simple task of saving ourselves? How do we experience the freedom we so long for, if we constantly choose to remain in the chains that comes with addiction? Why do we make things so complicated, when fact is, we always have the option to just stand up and walk away. Walk away from what doesn't serve us anymore. And yet, how many of us ever look up to see that there is another way than how we have been living our life in denial? Imagine if breaking the chains of addiction was as simple as standing up and walking away. And maybe it is - when we want something bad enough, we will find a way - we will make a way. Faith is the only thing that separates us.
There are generally two types of people when it comes to neediness. There are those of us who pretend to not have any needs, not need anyone, to be completely and utterly self-reliant. Lies. And then there are those of us, who are constantly demanding some sort of "hit" to feel validated. Please like me.
"You can't forget anything that hurt so badly...(...) It's not possible to forget anybody you have destroyed." - James Baldwin from Another Country 1962. I was reading this tidbit of a snippet taken out of context just the other day. It struck me how many things we may think are "forgettable" but indeed they leave forever imprints.
In the movie Pay It Forward there is a scene where Helen Hunt says to Kevin Spacey, "I can't reject you, you're too quick for me". Kevin Spacey has some emotional stuff from his past that causes him to have intimacy issues with getting close to anyone incl. Helen. I thought this was a poignant reminder of how we tend to unconsciously exhibit the very behavior towards ourselves - and quite often also towards others - that we fear the most.
Sometimes we think that addiction is the stereotype presented to us in movies. We see the husband that suddenly goes bankrupt and his beautiful wife leaves him. So he is left in the gutter with stubbles and a bottle of Jack. We also see the drug addict as the person with one too many tattoos, portrayed as scarily gaunt, getting their money from shady business and spending their weekends at raves. These stereotypes are not what addiction usually looks like. Many addicts are high-functioning. Addiction is incredibly common amongst CEOs and people who need to keep up the pace of a life that is based on money, power and relentless ambition. Someone who is high-functioning will still have a job, maintain relationships and have their money matters in order. The high-functioning addict will appear to have their life together.
The lack of any emotional attachment has become the golden standard of today's societal demands. Seemingly in contrast to the political-correctness movement which gets offended by all and sundry, we also live in a time, where we are supposed to be "cool" with everything - cool with every type of douche-bag behavior. We are supposed to pretend like, “hey, I didn't even notice” - like, “I am so cool, you can't even get to me”. And that, right there, is the issue. When we give in to this nonsense apathetic BS pattern, we lose. Not only do we lose ourselves and our standards of how we are willing to be treated, we become liars. Everyone knows, yet we all pretend, that we are all so goddamn fine with these sick no-standard standards. We don't date anymore: we hang out. We don't wait anymore: we hook up. We don't talk anymore: we text. We don't feel anymore: we have sex, we do drugs, we eat too much, too little, or we purge our food and emotions up.