Are You Addicted to Your Pain?

This is a controversial thing to say, but…

I think a lot of us are addicted to our suffering.

I think a lot of us prefer our pain because of the rollercoaster of highs and lows it causes.

We are naturally goal-oriented, problem-solving creatures. When we’re faced with a challenge, we have an incredible ability to find the way through.

What results when we achieve a goal or solve a problem is a high; an emotional payoff.

This is what compels us to reach for further and further heights, constantly pushing the envelope a little bit more each time.

And it goes without saying that this is how we can become outstanding beings capable of achieving incredible things in our life.

But there is a dark side to goal chasing and problem solving…

And it comes about when we get addicted to the emotional payoff of solving problems and achieving goals.

To a select percentage of us, what we end up doing is effectively creating problems so that we can solve them and derive a dirty high from it…

We do it in our relationships, in our careers, with our hobbies, etc.

We manufacture problems so that we can go through the task of fixing them.

But what this does is not only burn out our nervous system over time, but it keeps us in a perpetual up-down cycle of conflict, resolution, conflict, resolution, and so on.

We never actually progress; we just keep going up and coming down.

Kinda like a yo-yo.

This is what self-sabotaging is. This is what trauma bonding is.

We get addicted to conflict because of the high we get from fixing it.

And when there’s no conflict?

We create it.

Don’t get lost in the hamster wheel of conflict and resolution.

There is a place within you—way more present than you may think—that is able to completely and fully enjoy the moment.

Whether there’s conflict or not.

A lot of us would rather suffer because it’s familiar than take a chance at being free by making a decision we’ve never made before.

A lot of us, when things are fine, get bored.

It’s like being used to navigating rough, stormy seas as a sailor, and then all of a sudden being put on a serene, tranquil lake.

What now? Not much to do here…

So we find ourselves PREFERRING the pain.

But I’m telling you right now: the pain that you’re addicted to is creating a ceiling on your potential.

It’s keeping you trapped in a loop where you never actually grow, but are experiencing the illusion of progress through constantly solving problems that YOU created.

So… let yourself enjoy today a little bit more.

Much love, Devon G.