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addiction
 

John Ruskan's
Emotional Clearing

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A Chakra center is considered integrated when there is a balanced experience of the dualistic qualities of that center. This means we have learned to recognize and accept both the “positive” and “negative” poles of the duality, incorporating them into a basically positive experience. No large amount of avoidance and suppression is occurring, and previously suppressed energies have been cleared. If we cannot realistically say that we have learned to experience the negative pole in a harmonious way, at least we have learned how to accept it and work with it constructively – for example, through processing.

We become addicted to the positive
because we are unwilling to face the negative

Unintegrated, we become addicted at various levels of experience. We become addicted to the “positive” side of any one dualistic experience because we are not willing to face the “negative” side of its duality. We seek to escape to the positive side, often not even realizing that both sides are dependent on one another for their existence.

However, because of the nature of dualism, the more we try to experience the positive, the more we also generate the negative. We become frustrated. We attempt to suppress the intensifying negative with more experiences of the positive, and the addiction cycle builds. Addiction can occur not only at the Sensation or Nurturing levels, where it is normally recognized, but in all centers. We develop a deep hunger for a particular need, but no matter what we do to try to satisfy the hunger, it remains or even becomes worse. Addictive behavior is also known as “compulsive.”

Addiction requires
psychic energy

Each addiction can be related to a certain center of consciousness. Addiction is the result of an energy imbalance in that particular center. The center is blocked and does not experience the normal energy flow of a healthy center. The center is blocked because of our suppression. Through the avoidance of feelings in the center, we create the block. To maintain the block requires energy, energy the addiction supplies. All addiction provides an extra supply of energy, taken either from external sources or from the body’s internal reserves.

The cravings that arise for a particular object of addiction are learned. Through experience, we learn that energy can be obtained from a certain source and used to maintain the block. When the block begins to weaken, because the suppressing energy is getting low, we begin to get glimpses of exactly what we are suppressing, and we experience discomfort, anxiety, depression, and so on. We then seek the addictive experience once more, to gain the energy required to maintain the block to the feelings. The feelings are resuppressed, over and over. Because the suppressed feelings will continue to build, the suppressing energy also must keep increasing, resulting in the extraordinary means that must be used to provide the energy. We enter the expanding cycle of addiction.

Usually we are addicted to a center’s complement to the negative experience. However, we also can escape to another, usually higher, center and draw energy from there. The higher center will suppress the pain of the lower center. Thus, if we experience anxiety from an unintegrated Survival center, we could attempt to suppress it by becoming compulsively addicted to wealth and security, but we also could suppress it by compulsive seeking in any higher center, such as sex, power, love, even creativity.

The first step in breaking addiction is to understand how it works. When you know why you act compulsively, you weaken the power of the addiction. You must stop yielding to the addictive experience. Process the addictive urge as well as the feeling that you are suppressing with the addiction. Self-processing can be the main approach, but other approaches, such as therapy, group support, or medical support in cases of chemical dependency, are helpful as well.

When you confront feelings related to addiction, you meet your demon head on. You must realize that you are clearing accumulated negativity; proceed patiently and gently as well as sensibly. You must not demand too much of yourself, nor should you yield too easily. The delicate balance, the sense of making steady progress, must be established. As you learn how to work on yourself, you will acquire new tools that will help you tremendously. You will be able to cleanse negativity that previously compelled you to act in addictive ways.

 
 

© 2004 John Ruskan / The Institute for Integrative Processing