Thinking about your year ahead? Planning to make changes? Lose Weight? Give up smoking? Be more positive? … or have you given up on New Year Resolutions... why bother?!

As a Kinesiologist, I am fascinated by the energy psychology of behaviour and working with Addictions has been one of those areas professionally that I thought I knew enough about but also knew on some level that I didn't!? All the strategies I had been taught unfortunately did not always help and it's only in recent months that I have really begun to understand the complex nature of Addiction. I am writing about this now because it is January (2015), the start of a new year and maybe it may prompt some of you to seek help and understanding about your own or another's addictive behaviour... Why not? Why wait another year going around the same old loops?...

What is an ADDICTION?

Definition (courtesy of Wiki): 'Addiction' is a state characterised by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli, despite adverse consequences. The Stimuli will be 1) Positively Reinforcing - increasing the likelihood that a person will seek repeated exposure to them and 2) Intrinsically Rewarding - activating the brain's “reward pathways” so are seen as something positive or desirable. Scientifically, biological and genetic factors have been shown to influence a person's predisposition to behavioural and substance addictions but is that it?

Working With ADDICTIONS

Talking from my professional and personal experience over recent months, I have been surprised to see that in the deeper consciousness levels of everyone, there are addictive patterns; we all like to be praised and to be rewarded so the key phrase in the definition above is 'adverse consequences', which is when an Addiction really becomes a problem. Unfortunately by this stage, a significant factor with recovery or self-realisation is the Denial that there is any problem at all and this is also what I have seen in healing terms – the Addiction Pattern is one thing but the layers of Denial and Deception hiding it can be an even more significant obstacle and adversary.

SOCIETY and ADDICTIONS

Addictions, whether substance- or behaviour-related, seem to be getting more prevalent in our Society with greater personal freedoms, less social judgement about behaviour but also that it is easier to hide and indulge such patterns using social media personas and internet communications. Whatever the reason for it or how we feel about it, being able to openly discuss and educate about this topic is crucial to becoming aware of the deceptive behaviour and then how to get help for the primary addiction . . . if you are concerned, get talking, seek help . . . <3