Addiction and Woundology
May. 6th, 2007 12:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kokopellePain and anger are addictive. I begin with this statement because I see this being a driving force in many lives, including my own. There is a place where pain and anger cripple a person, keeping them from operating. The wounded person is incapable of doing more than just existing. They are the broken radio that can play no tunes. In time though, the radio is repaired and still there is no music. The root of this dysfunction is the continued embracing of those things that originally crippled the inner being.
Why embrace things that provide discomfort and derail lives? The answers are many, but I believe that there are some common roots. Humans are creatures of habit. Any emotion can set a vibrational groove into a person's life. This groove is where a person gets stuck. The groove is where the person lives their life. Caroline Myss uses the term "woundology". In the grasp of woundology, the person begins and ends the world's conversations, both enternal and external, with some reference to the original wound, the source of the pain and anger. The person has therapy, attends workshops, reads books, and pursues other avenues to 'healing' the wound. These are applaudable, but in the midst of woundology, these potentially healing avenues become prisoner to the groove. Myss gives the example of the person who begins a conversation with "I just came from my therapy group on X, and let me tell you about it" and ends the conversation with "I've learned so much in my ten years of therapy with the doctor, but I'm just not getting results, so I guess I have to find a new one". This person's life revolves around the addiction of the wound. In some ways, living the wound through anger and pain is all they really know. This is a sad thing. I cannot say that I am free of this myself.
What is the outcome of this addiction? Many things are justified based on the addiction. The pain that the individual feels easily justifies and pardons inflicting pain on others. Opportunities for learning about oneself are wasted as a revenge of sorts is sought against the world. I see to be the greatest sadness to addictive pain and anger. Additionally, time, money and emotional energy are spent in a never-ending quest to 'end' the addiction when an ending is truly intentioned. While the original pain and anger were honorable, asking for acceptance and then transformance, the pain and anger take on a life of their own. Instead of the pain and anger being transformed into something else, the resonance of the pain and anger transforms the person into a caricature of who they could have been. Again, I am not free of this myself.
How can the addiction be discarded? Perhaps therapy to counter the therapy? I don't know about that. The Eastern meditative systems speak of having an impartial observer "in our mind". This part of us stands separate from the motions of ego and emotion. The observer is not the mind's intellect. Our wounds and addictions can easily hijack this. The observer is instead the holder of the wisdom that comes from experience and knowledge. Destructive actions are mitigated because we know better and have experienced the outcome. The path of woundology can be circumvented by the observer saying, "Wait, we've been there before. Remember? Don't go there". Gradually, new grooves are etched into the psyche of our lives. Woundology, and the addictions inherent in it, pass away into the history of our lives. Addictions are released. Pain and angered are honored and then sent on their ways. Life is lived how it should be. We become our true selves. This is what I aspire and live towards. In the good moments, this is who I am.
Why embrace things that provide discomfort and derail lives? The answers are many, but I believe that there are some common roots. Humans are creatures of habit. Any emotion can set a vibrational groove into a person's life. This groove is where a person gets stuck. The groove is where the person lives their life. Caroline Myss uses the term "woundology". In the grasp of woundology, the person begins and ends the world's conversations, both enternal and external, with some reference to the original wound, the source of the pain and anger. The person has therapy, attends workshops, reads books, and pursues other avenues to 'healing' the wound. These are applaudable, but in the midst of woundology, these potentially healing avenues become prisoner to the groove. Myss gives the example of the person who begins a conversation with "I just came from my therapy group on X, and let me tell you about it" and ends the conversation with "I've learned so much in my ten years of therapy with the doctor, but I'm just not getting results, so I guess I have to find a new one". This person's life revolves around the addiction of the wound. In some ways, living the wound through anger and pain is all they really know. This is a sad thing. I cannot say that I am free of this myself.
What is the outcome of this addiction? Many things are justified based on the addiction. The pain that the individual feels easily justifies and pardons inflicting pain on others. Opportunities for learning about oneself are wasted as a revenge of sorts is sought against the world. I see to be the greatest sadness to addictive pain and anger. Additionally, time, money and emotional energy are spent in a never-ending quest to 'end' the addiction when an ending is truly intentioned. While the original pain and anger were honorable, asking for acceptance and then transformance, the pain and anger take on a life of their own. Instead of the pain and anger being transformed into something else, the resonance of the pain and anger transforms the person into a caricature of who they could have been. Again, I am not free of this myself.
How can the addiction be discarded? Perhaps therapy to counter the therapy? I don't know about that. The Eastern meditative systems speak of having an impartial observer "in our mind". This part of us stands separate from the motions of ego and emotion. The observer is not the mind's intellect. Our wounds and addictions can easily hijack this. The observer is instead the holder of the wisdom that comes from experience and knowledge. Destructive actions are mitigated because we know better and have experienced the outcome. The path of woundology can be circumvented by the observer saying, "Wait, we've been there before. Remember? Don't go there". Gradually, new grooves are etched into the psyche of our lives. Woundology, and the addictions inherent in it, pass away into the history of our lives. Addictions are released. Pain and angered are honored and then sent on their ways. Life is lived how it should be. We become our true selves. This is what I aspire and live towards. In the good moments, this is who I am.
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Date: 2007-05-06 05:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-07 03:52 pm (UTC)I think part of it is that when some aspect of your life wrongs you, you may get stuck in that particular stage of grief we know as anger. There will constantly be a part of your mind shrieking "It's not fair", and the thing that's difficult to overcome is that it may well never be. That isn't right, but it's not uniformly something you can do something about. That is a fate that is difficult to resign yourself to (see "acceptance") without becoming trapped in bitterness and cynicism instead.
The problem is that breaking out of a pattern sometimes requires more than just effort: it requires a moment of lucidity wherein you see what precisely the pattern is, and what behaviour or trigger has been trapping you in it. From my experience, it took major changes in my life to prompt a reevaluation of my attitudes.
Therapists, that's an iffy topic for me - I've had bad experiences. On the one hand, they may tell you the truth as they see it, and if it's not pleasant, it may result in the patient deciding the psychologist's opinion is obviously wrong and worthless; or they can ensure that you keep paying their bills by telling you what you want to hear. It takes both an honest therapist with integrity and a strong person that's genuinely willing to listen for therapy to be effective, I think.