Why do people lie, cheat, and hurt us?

 

What is wrong with people today?
 

The truth is that we live in a culture where addiction is rampant.. When I speak of addiction many people may think of chemical dependency.. But there is something much deeper than the outward addictions of drugs and alcohol.. Something else that is damaging our cultural ability to continue to treat each other with love and kindness in the world.. Emotional/behavioral addictions...


 

First, a look at the shadow...
 

Freudian student and predecessor Carl Jung was the first to introduce the shadow theory.. Carl Jung hypothesized as a location for the negative psychic energy.. Every time you think that something--an idea or behavior for example--is "just not me," that the "something" is put into shadow, and any energy associated with it goes into storage.. Suppose for example that like many people you decide to rebel against something that you parents taught you.. That something goes into unconscious storage along with all the other not-me ideas, feelings, people, and things of your life.. At some point in life, most people turn to the shadowed energy and wonder about it, taking it out to look at it again.. But some behaviors are so deeply embedded in shadow that they may never be investigated.. Behaviors that we are choosing to deny are in fact, shadow behaviors.. The shadow is what I choose to "Hide, Repress, and Deny"


 

Now a look at the mirror theory
 

Using the "mirror" theory, we can examine what society projects.. The mirror theory works like this.. When I see something about you that brings up a strong emotional charge in me, it is because you are showing me a part of myself that I am in denial of.. A piece of my shadow.. It is a part of me that I am choosing to keep hidden, a part of me that brings self anger, sadness, or shame.. This theory is not very popular in our culture because it challenges one to stop blaming others for the harmful aspects of society, and to look within to seek the change that society needs...

It does not excuse bad or hurtful behavior, but allows one to take a look inside to see how I do this in my own life, and why.. Often it is a subtle and sideways behavior, one that only slightly resembles the act that I had a charge with.. But it is about me.. If it were not about me, I would seek to understand it better.. It is because it is about me, that I am choosing to not understand it, this helps me to remain in denial, and oblivious...

So instead we cast stones and call names.. This is proof that our society has a major relationship with addiction, but we deflect the attention away from our own addictions by finding the most OBVIOUS people to sling it on...

Example, when I was introduced to this theory, I asked the man who explained it to me to answer a question.. I said.. "I have a charge with child molesters, and I have never molested a child, so how can THAT be about me?" Thinking that I had just slam dunked on him, he said to me.. "I don't know, that's yours to figure out" His words remained with me...

Years passed and I tried this theory over and over, it proved to always be true, especially noticeable when it was someone else's charge with me.. It was so crystal clear then, and what a gift when they allowed me to help them see and understand that process.. But I kept re-visiting that scenario with the child molester.. until one day it came to me.. What my charge is about with the child molester is not about what creates excitement in his mind, truthfully I am able to feel sad for him to have that horrible condition.. What my charge is about, is that he acts on it selfishly, that he hurts innocent and vulnerable people, he takes advantage of others weaknesses.. And there it was, the bully that I could be in the former parts of my life.. Remembering the people that I had wronged and taken advantage of in my chemical dependencies.. remembering just how self centered and selfish I can be.. Although those are parts of me that I no longer chose to use, they are still a part of me, they are however no longer in shadow today, because I am aware of them and have chosen to be more mindful of their power...

So the shadow theory is simple, the things about you that create an emotional charge with me, are really pieces of me that I would rather not look at.. Just as the Jewel song "Pieces of you" suggests...


 

Cultural Shadow...
 

Society casts an evil eye at the heroine addict, or the crack addict, an eye that says "you are vermin slime" Society screams out to lock these people up because they are weak, untrustworthy, pathetic.. etc etc... Society casts an evil eye at the drunk, an eye that says your dirty, stupid, and lazy.. etc etc.. This is far from the truth.. Although some chemically addicted people seem to well represent those things, many are quite brilliant.. Edgar Allen Poe was an alcoholic, Stephen King is an alcoholic and an addict.. So, considering the suffering and the shame that addicts and alcoholics endure, what is it about that our culture casts stones at these sad and driven self defeating souls? Sure some of us have given them chance after chance and gotten burned, but it was often our own lack of clear and enforced boundaries that created the opportunity, we often ignore our role in allowing us to become victims.. So why does society so cruelly cast stones at the addicted?

The reason society so hates addicts, is that so many of us are completely oblivious to, and in denial of our own addictions, the parts of us that are weak, untrustworthy, and pathetic.. (and these labels are all personal judgments) We would rather point out someone else's inability to control themselves, than to look at the parts of US that we do not control.. The most common form is the root of all addiction, co-dependence.. but there are a ton of emotional addictions to accompany co-dependence..


 

The Anatomy of Addiction
 

The hypothalamus is a gland like region of the brain that produces branched chain amino acids, neurons, and dopamine.. these create a chemical cocktail for each emotional response to situations, and create patterns that are driven by the chemical dependency to these reactions.. If people remain unaware of their conditions of addiction, and that the consequences of their life are a result of themselves re-creating the same scenarios over and over, to recreate the chemical release cocktail that produces the emotional rush, they will likely continue to believe that it is everyone around them that creates the situations.. They may believe they are powerless to change their behaviors, and even defend them, the same as an active alcoholic would defend their right to start the day off with a drink...

Some of the thousands of emotional addictions are as such; sex, drama, violence, shopping, lust, pornography, risky sex, work, sports, tv, video games, the internet, myspace, being right, being sneaky, getting over on people, being the victim, power, seducing, status, stealing, crime, fashion, money, eating, socializing, collecting, cleaning, working out, control, and complaining, to name a few.. These can all be very real emotional addictions...

Emotional and behavioral addictions are a condition of co-dependence, a condition of feeling incomplete without these conditions, behaviors or substances... Feeling the need to esteem yourself with things that are outside of your truth, outside of your beautiful authenticity...

Emotional addictions cause people to act out, these are people who are often very sincere when they say the words "I love you" but fall short because when you are not there to fulfill their ongoing addiction to (love- sex- attention- acceptance- etc etc) they act out in another way.. and usually feel extreme guilt afterward, or choose to "block" the guilt by shutting down.. Either way, they harm themselves as much as they do the people they have hurt...


 

Why do we seem so stuck in this pattern?

We, as a culture, do a lousy job of attending to our emotional well being, we have relied too heavily on the psychiatric field and doctors... Pharmaceuticals have replaced the practice of processing through our feelings and getting to the source of our dysfunctions.. We are chasing the fast fix, what we don't often realize is that these pharmaceuticals only stop the pendulum from swinging, reduced anxiety, and reduced joy.. We remain trapped in this cycle when we begin to stuff our emotions from this half capacity state, creating the new need for tomorrows medications to help us cope with todays unattended to emotions..

Others simply choose to shut down, or deny the truth of their feelings as a result of a lack of good mentoring around emotional processing...

Learning to face, embrace, and pass through the pain of my past wounds, learning about the places that have created the belief that I needed something other than my beautiful authenticity, are the things that will help me to make peace with myself, and begin to realize that the addictions are only a temporary fix for a system of belief that I am somehow not good enough as is.. Facing these wounds and shadows are the work that must be done to heal.. If today I choose to embrace whatever comes, sadness, joy, fear, shame, or anger, and I invite it to stay until I have made peace with it.. I am doing the work to be truly ok with me.. I am facing the shadow with dignity...

People who are not doing this work, are likely to be people who are stuck.. Most of them are not happy to hurt other people, they are just oblivious to their addictions. Only the sociopath seems to hurt without conscious, so rather than to continue to hate and cast stones at those who bestow mixed signals, lies, and confusion into your life, ask your self three questions...

1) Is this person acting out an addiction?
2) What is it about me, that I am seeing in them?
3) Can I help them, and protect myself from their abuse?

 

Recognize that this is
a glorious growth opportunity
and remember to be kind to yourself,
we are all in this together...yet we are all alone...

 

Simply remember that we all need to be loved...
and to love one, is to understand...
we all heal in our own time...