I recently was interviewed by Caroline McGraw at The Clearing–a non-12 steps recovery program. We covered a number of topics together about core issues, fundamental issues, tenacity, dealing with unconscious people, and so forth. I hope you’ll take some time to watch it.
I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to get to the core issues involved with addiction. You can think of addiction like this–most addictions are a means to self-medicating a deeper problem. If we are holding pain inside, we don’t like that. So people turn to alcohol, video games, sex, drugs, work, and other things to avoid feeling the pain. By turning towards the pain, you can begin to investigate it and get to the core issue, which could be a trauma, the experience of being unwanted by your parents, or something else. Once you heal that core issue, the need for addiction can dissolve.
You can watch the whole video and/or read the transcript on the link below.
Spiritual Awakening: An Interview with Jim Tolles
Additional Helpful Links About Healing Trauma
Trauma is a beast unto itself, so I wanted to add some additional helpful links if that is the core issue with which you’re working. Below is the video I mention in the interview about neurobiology and trauma. It’s super interesting and really shines a light on how the brain functions under trauma:
Neurobiology of Trauma – Dr. David Lisak
For more of my thoughts about healing trauma, here’s this spiritual healing blog post:
Healing Past Trauma, Issues, and Forgotten Memories
Feel free to leave a comment to let me know what you think of the video and these other links.
