A Spiritual Cure for Spiritual Pain
Recovery almost always requires allowing the spiritual side of us to have more say in our lives. For many of us, to stay sober we’ve needed to completely surrender the course of our lives to God, Spirit, the Universe, our own Higher Selves – whatever name we use to refer to the deepest dimension of ourselves, where we are deeply at peace and connected with all of life.
This makes more sense if we understand that the negative ego (the part of us in charge before we decide to put spirit in charge) is always going to attract addictions. The negative ego is not a completely bad character but has some baked-in problems, namely that when we are too encapsulated within ego’s confines then we are doomed to a life of painful separation and alienation.
Negative Ego Attracts Addictions
The psychological structure we call the negative ego was formed in reaction to pain, as a kind of stop gap mechanism for defending us against intrusive forces that invaded our beings and threatened our lives. It also served to keep us all in one place, psychologically.
Egos are a developmental necessity. To grow into who we are, we do need lines around us that keep out the things that don’t belong inside of us, and to keep that which does belong to us, inside of us.
The trouble with ego is that it creates separation, often to point of no longer being able to contact our deeper, sweeter, and wilder natures. Therefore we experience a thorough, heartbreaking loneliness owing to our state of disconnection.
Only when we are in good-enough reunification with ourselves, with God, with Spirit, are we really happy. We need to have God filling us up from within, not only to feel good but also to feel safe. If we don’t have that, we will have the kind of psychological pain inside that drives a person to look for solutions in all the wrong places.
In other words, ego, as well-intentioned as it is, the manager part of our personality who runs our life every day, is the same reason we feel disconnected, shut off and in pain. That condition, as a chronic state, is a breeding ground for addiction.
Spirit is Our Ruby Slippers
What we need to replace the negative ego with is a kind of boundary keeper and protector structure around us, a benevolence that can stop us from being harmed and overwhelmed by oceanic psychic forces, but does not violently tear us from life, nor wall us off in loneliness.
How can that happen? There is one aspect of our own nature who can do that, and that is our spiritual side. Spirit can simultaneously keep us safe, and keep us filled up, replenished and restored, held safe and sound in deep and comfortable companionship.
Spirit has a higher level perspective that can help guide us in all kinds of scenarios that our normal mind has no way of truly understanding. Spirit, in other words, is our ruby slippers, the pot of gold we’ve been sitting on this whole time.
How Our Own Spirit Heals Addiction
Addiction attaches to us because we like what it gives us, at least in the beginning. To replace the powerful function it has had in our lives, we need an even stronger force providing an even better solution.
Spirit, infusing us from the inside, can make contact with all the alienated trauma states that live hidden in different rooms inside the mansions of our psyches. Like a perfume that fills the whole structure, Spirit can softly go into all of the walled off sections of our being and create unity out of fracture. Spirit creates the self-reunification that cures all sicknesses of heart.
Spirit is our fierce protector, as well as a nurturer, guide, and companion. Our perennial witness and comforting friend, the one who laughs hardest at our jokes and stands up for us when no one else will.
Recovery is Ours for the Asking
If we genuinely and consistently ask our own highest nature to remove our addiction, recovery can be ours.
This works in part because if we really want to be freed of addiction we will reorder our lives to match that intention. We will do everything we can. This means we will go to meetings, stay away from friends who use, give up all we have been attached to that runs counter to the presence of Spirit.
But most of all it means we are ready to meet our own whole nature again. This is the beginning of the end of psychological pain.
If you or an important woman in your life are struggling with substance use and are taking steps towards recovery, reach out to us today to learn more about how our treatment programs incorporate healing of the soul. Call (866) 950-0648 to learn more.