Greetings!
Some time ago, I was applying lotion after a shower. I was doing so hurriedly even though I had no reason to be in a hurry. In the midst of this, a voice interrupted me & asked, “Is this how you put lotion on your grandchildren?” I stopped to think about this & why I was being asked such a question. My answer to the question was “No, I put lotion on my grandchildren with love & patience & energy flows from my hands to them.” For I realized as I thought about the question that NOTHING, not love, not energy, not patience, nor care did I have towards myself as I carelessly slapped lotion on.
I have been thinking about this experience & the meaning of it on a personal & larger scale for awhile now. For myself, I realize that I treat myself mindlessly, carelessly & without love. Over time, this has caused me to feel uncared for, unloved & unworthy of love in all of it’s forms, both from myself & from others. I feel sad about this. I could blame my upbringing & my family but I can remember that I cared for & about myself when I was younger. I reached out to others for love & with love. So, I think this attitude towards myself has developed & worsened over time. It kind of crept up on me when I wasn’t looking. I’m glad Spirit pointed it out. I get a reminder every once in awhile so I know I’m not done working through this issue.
On a larger scale, it occurred to me this morning (as I applied lotion lovingly to myself after my shower) that this may be part of the current problem many have with addiction. One of the causes of addiction can be seen as a compulsion to fill the emptiness within by turning to something outside of yourself.
You can have an addiction to almost literally anything. I know most people think of alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, gambling or sex but this is just the tip of the iceberg. There is shopping, working, collecting, gaming, screens, & the list goes on & on. The idea that there is something outside of you that will make you happy, fill the emptiness, fix your life, solve your problems, heal you, bring you peace, satisfy you or fulfill you are all ideas that can lead to addiction. Love is a big one. The problem with these ideas is they are based on the assumption that you are lacking, broken, wounded, limited, wrong, a victim & you need something or someone outside of you to fix you. Well, I’m here to tell you that you are not lacking. There is nothing outside of you that you truly need that you don’t already have or have the capacity to acquire within yourself in balance.
Not only do you have all the solutions within you or at your fingertips but whatever you have been using as your addiction of choice is not the answer. The alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, gambling, sex, shopping, working, collecting, gaming, screens, etc., are not what you really need or want. They will never be the answer, nor fix the issue. Now, quite possibly you know this but I’m writing about this because you may have more subtle addictions that you are not aware of. You may tell yourself that you don’t have any addictions but I think most of us have developed them. The question becomes what are yours & how disabling are they? Ask yourself this question:
What do I do over & over again expecting a different outcome?
I ask this question because what you do over & over again may reveal what is ultimately unsatisfying, unfulfilling or isn’t permanently fixing anything. These could be addictions. Take some time to rethink your actions & choices. Question their purpose & meaning. Do you really need to do all that you are doing? Are they all necessary? Do all your choices & actions come from the desires of your heart? Or do your choices & actions come from compulsion, habit, anger, fear, grief, guilt, sacrifice, willfulness, loneliness, emptiness, control, manipulation, transactional love, sabotage, keeping up with others, wanting attention, to be accepted or other reasons?
After you identify these actions & choices, comes the tricky part. What is the outcome that you were HOPING to achieve by those actions or decisions? Your answer to THIS question tells you what you REALLY desire. Once you know what your true desire is then you can find a way to meet this Heart’s Desire yourself, directly.
A story from my own life to illustrate this: In my 30’s, I had myself convinced that I didn’t like color on the walls of my house so all of my walls were white or nearly so. I wore almost all neutral colors in my clothing at the time. Not coincidentally, I compulsively shopped at JoAnn Fabrics for HOURS. Not that I ever bought much of anything because we couldn’t afford it. I just went there to pour over all the beautiful fabrics & colors. To this day my daughter can’t stand to shop there! 😛
It wasn’t until many, many years later that I realized the shopping compulsion went away after I started accepting color into my life, my home & my wardrobe. This is a perfect example of an addiction arising out of not meeting a need directly. My need was for color in my life which I was denying myself so my only other option was to meet the need in another way. You can see that spending hours shopping was a huge time waster & had to be continually repeated weekly, monthly, yearly because it was only a temporary fix. The permanent fix was wearing color & bringing color into my home so that I didn’t need to go out shopping to be exposed to color.
So I hope you find your time, money, energy & life wasters that are pretending to support you. Let them go & replace them with the real thing whatever that may be for you so that you might feel loved, cared for & fulfilled.
May You Find Love in the Light of God, Dawn
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