Perhaps you can relate to this…
You are doing something habitually that is damaging you, and intuitively every cell in your body knows this, however you cannot break this unhealthy pattern and you don’t understand why.
This was the case for me for many years when it comes to my relationship to alcohol. I used to be a perpetual binge drinker… And I’m not proud of it.
I used to play professional sport, where the high pressure and demand led me down an unhealthy cycle of binge drinking and I noticed the cycle over time became vicious. Little did I know that drinking became a way of numbing and distracting myself from truly feeling. I kept struggling with a restless mind which made it hard to be fully present and connected to my body.
Later on, in my journey, I came to realise that my habitual drinking pattern came from deep rooted trauma that I had not dealt with yet. It felt safer at the time to hide it, suppress it and deny what had taken place in the past. It was easier to focus on the fun, the pleasure, rather than taking ownership over my own healing journey.
Trauma occurs when things happen too fast, too soon, and too much all at once. The thing is that many of us don’t know how to deal with it, especially when it happens to us when we are still innocent children. As a child, we do not know how to self-soothe or regulate our nervous system, since no one really taught us.
My biggest pain I had experienced in childhood was losing my father abruptly to an accident around 13 years old. I didn’t know how to process what had happened or how to properly mourn, therefore the affects of that loss created wounds that stayed with me for the next 20 years.
I realised through my healing journey where my vicious and harmful habits were coming from, and from that moment, I could then begin to heal pain that was buried deep inside. The hero’s journey is about moving through our darkness into the light and for allowing all parts of us to exist simultaneously. A true coming home to the Self…