09/01/2024
Addiction and mental health challenges, or any dysfunction that we experience or express as humans is relational in nature. Life is relationship, so any impact to our way of relating has an impact on every aspect of our experience.
If we look at the world we see the state of relationship that humanity is in. We see the external dysfunction that is a result of the underlying relational rules or patters that are present.
Our relational rules or patterns are inherited through our family lineage and human history, and are reinforced throughout our childhood and life. Most of this takes place without our conscious awareness.
We are born into a reality that many people are calling the Matrix these days. This is a consciousness that determines how things work and what is possible. So many of the relational rules are already in place. These include sacrifice, control, abuse, scarcity.
Then we begin to learn how to relate within these parameters. Our family patterns or rule sets then establish another layer. We begin to become calibrated to our immediate environment.
If we are born into an unsafe, unsupportive, and abusive environment, we will start to become calibrated to that environment. We learn that it isn’t ok to set boundaries, it’s not ok to express our emotions, we have to behave or be a certain way to receive love or have our needs met. These are just some examples of the different ways we learn to modify ourselves to survive.
As children we don’t have the ability to go and find another family, or to take care of ourselves, or to remove ourselves from an unsafe situation. We resort to what we have available for our survival.
In every case, this results in disconnecting from our body. If we are in an unstable and overwhelming environment it is often too much to handle for our system. We learn to disconnect so that we don’t have to be fully present with how this impacts us internally.
This isn’t just a mental disconnect. It is a part of our being. And as a result we lose a part of ourselves that is hiding away for safety.
Another way that we learn to survive in a dysfunctional environment is we learn to modify our behaviors. We learn that expressing our needs and emotions isn’t safe, so we adapt to the desired or required expression of our caretakers. We learn that setting boundaries is not ok, so we learn to do things that don’t feel right to us or to take on the burdens and emotions of others. We learn to navigate around the emotional state of our caregivers so that we can diffuse conflict and create as much safety as possible. We learn that people will hurt us and are not safe and can’t be trusted.
Our body is always registering the truth of our experience. And all of our emotions are sacred, especially anger which so many people and teachings say to avoid. Anger is the setter of boundaries and a clear sign that something doesn’t feel good to us and isn’t ok. We learn to repress our anger and to "behave.” We learn to hide who we really are. We learn that we have to be someone that we are not in order to receive love and get our needs met. We are forced to manipulate and lie.
These ways of relating become a part of our automatic processes. We do them without even having to think about it. It is an efficiency system. But this also means that this becomes a part of our subconscious. It is like our heart beating our breathing. It happens automatically.
We also modify our beliefs to rationalize these new ways of relating. “I can’t trust other people,” “Everyone is trying to take advantage of me,” “I’m unlovable,” “I don’t deserve that,” “I’m not capable,” and so many other things that start to shape the way we see ourselves and life.
Again, a vast majority of our ways of relating and the corresponding modifications that we make to our beliefs and identity are subconscious. Our entire system becomes calibrated to these ways of relating.
Because relationship is the fabric of life, everything is calibrated to support healthy ways of relating. Our human system is calibrated to function optimally when we are in an optimal relationship to life. This is how our brain and body chemistry is designed, how our nervous system is designed, how our mind is designed. Literally every aspect of our system is created to encourage healthy relating.
When our harmonious relationship to life is disrupted, it impacts the way that our systems function. We start to see imbalances. This shows up on a nervous system level, brain and body chemistry level, physical level, emotional level, psychological level, and externally in the ways that we are expressing ourselves and relating to life and other people.
We start to experience and express dysfunction. We know that something is wrong.
Connection and healthy relating is essential to all systems in life. This is what allows nature and the universe to be so efficient, vibrant, regenerative, and symbiotic. This is how all systems in life are designed to function. And humans are no different. Our individual systems are also designed to function in this way, and also to notify us or show when we are not. Our systems are intended to alert us to a disruption in this relationship or harmony and also to make it clear (through dysfunction) that something needs to be addressed.
This is an extremely intelligent and efficient system. Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, we start to formulate our belief systems around our relational wounding or calibration.
Now our mind is telling us that we need to sacrifice ourselves and our needs in order to be in relationship. We think we need to be someone other than who we are in order to be loved. We think we need to achieve something to be good enough. We need something outside of us to feel whole and complete.
The natural intelligence of our system becomes hijacked and every impulse we have to try and address the pain and dysfunction that we are experiencing creates more of the same.
These are the underlying dynamics that lead to addiction and mental health disorders. And as you may have noticed, we are already calibrated for many of the behaviors that addicts are so often judged for. Lying, manipulating, isolation, burying our emotions.
If we simply try to remove the substances or medicate the “disorder” we are not actually addressing the underlying source of the imbalance in the system of the individual. And on a larger scale, we are not addressing the imbalance in the larger systems of humanity.
We will continue to express the same disharmony and dysfunction that has been the norm for humanity but is anything but normal.
There is deep relational healing that is needed at this time. And it starts with each one of us individually. If we just continue to try and patch it up and get on with our lives, we will continue to leave everything that is truly of value in our wake. Addiction, disorders, and the shadow of humanity will continue to rear its “ugly” head as we continue to try and sweep it under the rug and label it as broken until we wake up and see it is just an expression of our broken relationship to life.
