Post written in May 2018.

When we desire to avoid past emotional pain from our childhoods or avoid pain due to the actions we have taken during our lives, we create emotional addictions, ways to avoid feeling the pain, ways to minimize, justify or mask the pain. That is what we think and what we tell ourselves.

What actually happens is that we either deny the pain or numb out to it for a period of time because the fact is the pain is still in us dictating our every move; every feeling, choice and action or inaction.

We tell ourselves we are:

• ‘Over the pain of our past’
• ‘We are managing the pain of our past’
• ‘We are okay’
• And sometimes, ‘We don’t feel that anymore’

But when we have not released the emotion this is not true.

At some point the pain will be felt, because it compounds if it is not felt, experienced and released. How long it takes to release the pain, is as long as it takes us to desire and choose to feel the pain and suffering inside our soul.

A friend helped me become aware of a past pain I am firmly hold onto (I will refer to it as a sin as I am attending Jesus and Mary’s Understanding Sin and It’s Causes Assistance Group and sin is what I am engaging in).

So my sin is that I do not want to feel the grief of feeling unloved in my childhood.

The effects of this sin is I give out a lot of energy as I attempt to get people to like me, give me approval, or ‘need’ me. I have a heavy demand that people approve & need me and when they don’t I work harder and harder to get them to.

I have set up roles with the children where I give and give to them as I believe this will get me ‘love’ or at least a bit of approval so I can avoid feeling my grief (it doesn’t the more I try the more needy I am the more the kids ignore me, good move on their part and perfect attraction for me so my addiction doesn’t get met).

I put a lot of time and energy into ways to avoid crying and I have my reasons and justifications for doing it, all of which prolong my pain and cause even more issues in my life.

I have false beliefs such as:

• My parents should love me
• If I work hard enough I will prove I am lovable
• If I do everything they want they will love me…and so on.

The facts:

• Love is a gift
• No one is obliged to love another person, no one has to love another person
• Love cannot be demanded
• Love cannot be earned
• If someone does not already love you there is nothing you can do to make them do so
• Again, love is a gift

Which means I am out of harmony with love in my demand and I work hard to get my addictions met rather than ferling the grief of how unloved I feel.

So I have heard the truth about my sin.

I have identified the addiction and some of the actions I take to engage the sin.

But I still act out the sin, I still desperately want it.

This means:

• I have yet to awaken emotionally to the sin
• have yet to emotionally work through the sin
• have yet to feel the pain and suffering of the sin I am committing, the pain and suffering towards myself, others and the environment.

God loves me and can love me through this process.

I feel I will be incapable of truly loving others or myself until I work through certain issues and desires out of harmony with love. I find myself selfishly wanting to be loved rather than desiring to love others. This selfish desire is one of the main problems on the planet. At some point my attitude needs to change so that my main focus is to love myself and others equally.