What lies beneath our addictions—what drives us to act addictively—is the key to going beyond our current limitations. Addictions are patterns: patterns of thought, patterns of emotional reaction, patterns of behaviour.
Overcoming addiction—indeed, changing in any way—involves changing our patterns of thought, emotion, and behaviour. We can start at any of these “layers,” if you will.
One way to become aware of patterns of thought, for example, is to free-write at various times of the day for five minutes, and simply write exactly what’s on your mind without filtering anything out. It can be surprising, and perhaps disturbing, to actually write down what we are thinking. We might find ourselves thinking hateful thoughts about ourselves or others. Even though we may, at first, feel quite judgemental about what comes out, if we can be genuine and honest in this practice, many patterns of thought will be revealed.
Patterns of emotion are perhaps more difficult to observe. For example, in doing the aforementioned writing practice, we may become so emotionally unsettled or upset by what is coming to mind that we avoid the practice altogether. Thus, we avoid looking at the pattern. I would argue that not wanting to feel certain emotions is at the heart of addiction and dysfunction in our lives.
But even if we cannot get through a practice such as writing down our thoughts, if we continue to make an attempt, we’ll begin to see another pattern emerge—an emotional pattern. We’ll have the opportunity to notice that the same feeling emerges every time we attempt to do the thing we’re trying to do, and that we then quickly find a way to escape the emotion.
Of course, our thoughts, emotions, and behaviours are not mutually exclusive. They go together, one influencing the other. Any approach is just a doorway into awareness, so to speak. Awareness is key.
Changing behaviour is another doorway through which to begin understanding our patterns, making room for change. Like attempting to start doing something like the writing activity, if we try to stop doing something for even a day—say, using our phone—we’ll invariably get a sense of the thought and emotional patterns that perpetuate our (often excessive) phone use.
As Michael Singer points out quite pragmatically in his book The Untethered Soul, if we want to see why we do something, we need to try to stop doing it. We’ll quickly gain some awareness of our motivation for maintaining a certain pattern of behaviour, such as vaping, or eating cookies every evening.
Becoming aware of patterns—especially addictive ones—means we’ll have to feel some pretty uncomfortable emotions and face some painful realizations about how we are thinking and behaving. However, if we are not willing to see and know our own patterns, we will remain stuck with whatever limitations they create for us.
While this process is difficult, especially in the beginning, I wholeheartedly assert that it is well worth the effort. Being willing to see our own patterns is life-changing.