To make good choices our hearts and minds need to be connected. We need to be aware of our intended desired outcomes. On many occasions I have heard people talk about their jobs etc. and say the words “my heart is just not in it” and yet driven on by the needs and desires to make a living we carry on.
We are not quite happy but sometimes there seems that there is no other way. In our language I have also often heard the “follow your head not your heart”. Knowing what we do about the heart field and Heartmath’s work, to me, that is now one of the most absurd comments ever.
Becoming Congruent
It is part of our spiritual journey to become congruent; part of that journey is making choices that involve the mind and the heart and using our will to carry out that choice.
Addictions are numerous in our society and they may keep us from reaching our true potential. We use them to occupy ourselves and stop the heart and the mind connecting. God forbid that we should feel what we are really feeling and what might happen if we were actually honest with ourselves and expressed these feelings.
It’s very possible that this would really “rock the boat” in our lives.
But what actually is an addiction?
An addiction is anything that has more power over us than we do, so that can be drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, chocolate, sugar, food, sex, money and it can even be ways of being for example, like being addicted to drama in our lives because that is what we use to get attention, the need for approval, and I could go on and on. Addiction is a habit that keeps us playing small.
So how do you break a habit or heal an addiction?
If you, or me wanted to heal an addiction then first we have to become conscious or aware that we have the addiction in the first place. So it’s a bit like the alcoholic that goes to their meetings at alcoholics anonymous and says my name is…….. And I am an alcoholic, smoker, sugar addict etc. Of course we don’t have to go to a meeting, or group to become aware of our addictions, however it is true support groups can help us get over these addictions, but the first stage is admitting it to ourselves.
Acceptance and Acknowledgement
From the point of acceptance and acknowledgement, we are then at a point where we can begin to heal the habit. There are many systems, and methods of healing addiction, hypnotherapy, coaching, EFT to name but a few. Healing an addiction is about putting yourself back in the driving seat, taking back your power and not been controlled by old out-dated habitual responses. Effectively you can start to live again and leave the robotic programming behind.
How do we become addicted?
Addictions are habits, habits are ways of being, we continually repeat things and in the end it just seems normal. This is why it can be difficult to break a habit because it seems so normal. To break a habit it starts with the little things in life. If you always have a cup of tea first thing in the morning, try not having it, at first it feels strange but then it gets better. Habits are comforting and its worth noting that some habits are good but an awareness of our habitual nature is helpful.
Food, sugar, nicotine, chocolate, alcohol
Things like alcohol, food, sugar etc. are addictions of the heart, we are looking for comfort for love, and addictions to work, money, position, control are addictions of the ego.
If it’s the repetition that creates the habit then it stands to reason that it’s going to be repetition of healthy lifestyle habits that are going to help us to heal the habit. Hypnotherapy can be a powerful tool to assist us in breaking unhealthy habits.
When we have healed our addictions we can get on with becoming congruent to whom we truly are.
Being who we truly are, I believe is about surrender to something far bigger than us. As humans one of the greatest gifts is the power of choice, paradoxically as we grow as spiritual beings, to be of greatest service, we then surrender that choice.
The story of Jesus at Easter is a metaphor for that surrender of choice, for as he surrendered to what was to be, he was then rewarded with resurrection. Perhaps this story shows us the power of becoming congruent and surrendering to a higher power so that we too may be resurrected to our true potential as human beings.
Swedenborg, a Swedish Scientist and mystic born in the 1600’s belief was that the purpose of our human existence was to become a race of Angels. What a heart-warming thought.
