I have an emotional addiction for a woman to look after
me. The addiction has many facets, for
example, I want a woman to:
- look after me physically: food, cleaning, washing, ironing
etc
- emotionally by making me feel better about myself
- sexually by making me feel good about myself sexually and
doing most the ‘work’
- protect me from the world so that I don’t have to feel
uncomfortable, or take responsibility for my own choices and actions
I have spent the vast majority of my life being angry
towards women so that I get what I want.
Not in an outwardly aggressive way, but more a passive aggressive way,
and only to those that I know I can control.
I have been gradually (slowly) working through this
addiction over the last 12 months or so.
I feel like things are starting to improve, but I also know that I have
much more to do on this particular issue.
However I realised last week that a large part of my desire to work
through this issue was because I still want to live in the addiction. Let me
explain.
As I mentioned above, I have an addiction to being looked
after by a woman. In fact I still have a
feeling in me that if a woman is looking after me, then that is when I will be
happiest. I also have a belief that when
you do something good, that you will be rewarded for your efforts. So what I have been doing for a while now, is
working through a small part of the addiction, and then expecting a reward, and
that reward (for me) is being looked after by my partner. This is what I expected my prize to be. The
prize, that I had chosen from the top shelf of the side show tent, for me was
to still have my addictions met more fully then ever!
Now if my partner does not then do as I expect, if things don’t
improve from my perspective, then I get a bit confused about the whole deal. I think “Hey God, I’ve been good and worked
through something, so where is my prize?
Where is the positive reinforcement for working through my emotions and
becoming more loving? Shouldn’t I be attracting
a partner that makes me happy?” It’s at
this point that I think God’s not playing the game within the rules I have (arrogantly)
established.
But if we work on the simple premise that God is loving, and
gives us everything in harmony with the laws of love, then maybe (just maybe),
I am the one that is not looking at this from a loving perspective. So I started to get angry at God about the
rules of the game (I often tell God that he doesn’t know the rules of his own
game!), and in the midst of my anger, and cursing, and spitting, I realised
that if I am working through my issues and wanting to become more loving, then
God will grant me the gift or reward from a perspective of love. It then dawned on me that every time I work
through a little part of my addiction, God is actually giving me the prize of knowing
what love is.
This is the ‘prize’. Knowing what love is, is actually the
prize. Now initially this felt a
little underwhelming, because Gods gift feels very different to me having my
addictions met. However, I am starting to see that God is probably a bit
cleverer than I give him credit for. J
I was discussing this realisation with a friend the other
day, and he took it another step further.
He said “Not only is love the prize, but the greater prize is the gift giving that love to others.” Now for someone
who has spent almost a lifetime taking from others, this concept, initially at
least, is somewhat challenging. But it
doesn’t take long to see that this is much better way of being. So I now start the journey of learning to
give to others from a loving perspective (God’s definition, not mine).
But my question to others who are attempting to follow ‘The
Way’ is, what is the real motivation behind such an endeavour? What is the real reason behind wanting to work
through our emotional baggage? Do we
genuinely want to learn about love? If
so, we have to genuinely want to know God emotionally, as God is the one who
knows best what love is, and isn’t. I
for one would have said that “Yes, I want to know God and learn about love”,
but the truth was somewhat different once I explored my motivations. If we are struggling to deal with our
addictions, then I think there is a good chance that the prize that we seek is
not one of love, but one of further/added addiction, or avoiding the real truth.
So, what is the Prize you are seeking???
Take Care
Justin
