The addiction to More
I felt inspired to write about a phenomena I have been noticing in my personal life and in those of my clients.
the addiction to more.
more growth, more healing, more of this, more of that.
this idea that if we could just have or be this one thing…then somehow…it will all be better.
something inside of us will be soothed.
we will be satiated. and life will feel good again.
But if we are being completely honest with ourselves… this is never the case.
how often have we done this to ourselves?
how often have we indeed gotten that thing only to have it momentarily fill that hole of emptiness inside; only to find that hole gaping open wide again. perhaps even wider than before.
if we zoom out of our current perspective, we will find that it is this addiction to more that is convincing us that we are not enough. That something is missing. and that we will find it ‘out there’ somewhere external of us.
As if we didn’t already have everything we need.
our brains are wired for safety
When someone has experienced trauma, abandonment, or abuse… our brains are wired for survival.
It constantly scans the environment for proof of threat. With the assumption being “there is threat everywhere'“; in other words; “the world is a battleground and I have to protect myself”.
Now imagine how much energy is expended everyday as your brain scans for safety, as your muscles tense and react to tiny little stimuli you may not even be aware of. (If you can’t, try tensing your arms as hard as you can for just 60 seconds and see how that feels)
In the modern world, this looks like constantly scanning our phones, having long to-do lists that stress us vs support us, feeling disconnected from your loved ones, and that feeling of feeling alone in a crowded room.
This is what happens when our nervous systems are trained for survival.
It reads very neutral things (tasks, errands, people, work) as threats. Ready to take us down at any moment.
In response to that; what we do next is logical:
We try to fix what is ‘broken’.
We enter the hamster wheel of constant growth and evolution. Growth for growths sake.
In an effort to make the ‘bad feelings' go away, we create more things to do.
Capitalism supports this, the mental health industy supports this, social media supports this.
And it feels good for a while because we are taking action.
Action makes us feel in control of things while inherently taking us away from the feelings of what we are avoiding.
It also makes our brains feel happy because it gives our minds a logical reason for why everything feels so ‘f’ed’ up.
Except none of these things ever work… at least not in the long run.
Because there is always something more to do.
The hamster wheel is still the hamster wheel after all.
From lack to wholeness
When we see and do things from survival mode i.e lack mentality; we get the same results; more lack.
Creating from an empty hole only makes the hole bigger.
If you are operating or taking action (healing, growing, fixing) from survival or not-enoughness; of course there will never be an end-point. There is a belief under there that you are not enough. And it is not safe to be you as your are, now.
Because of this, the brain will still be looking for ways to ‘fix’ what is broken.
However, when we re-train our nervous systems to look from the lens of wholeness, we naturally see & feel what has been true all along.
We are enough.
The world is safe.
and we can move, heal, & grow from a state of ease. (a seedling does not need to be fixed; it simply needs the right nutrients to grow into a tree. And once that happens, a tree does not ‘try’ to be a tree does it? No… it just is.)
From this state, we naturally do things and experience things that grow us into the people we have wanted to become all long.
The difference is; it no longer feels like you are pushing a giant rock up a hill.
It feels like doing what comes most naturally to you because you are no longer just trying to survive.
You are now safe and are simply living your life.
You just ARE.
