THE PAIN ADDICT:

Why human beings cannot help but suffer at times–and what to do.

Human beings are actually addicted to pain.  Seriously.  And it isn’t hard to understand why.  After all, we are built on a lizard chassis.  Meaning the core of our nervous system is basically that of a reptile, a dinosaur, a remnant of times when the reflexes necessary to see, react, fight, run, eat, reproduce, and survive were honed to a T.  Then, God stuck a gigantic, and I mean really gigantic thing called a cerebrum on top of all those ancient reflexes.

Our organism, the human being, lives within a sometimes harsh world and sometimes gets hurt.  Sometimes so badly it doesn’t know how it can go on.  But unlike a lizard, we don’t forget.  The experience of the traumas we experience reverberates within the cerebrum for days, months, often years after the crisis has past, going over and over the memories, including the bodily memories, of what the pain felt like.  In essence, in my studied opinion, about 70% of the people on Earth have some form of PTSD: Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

Addiction is defined this way:  Devotion to, dedication to, obsession with, infatuation with, passion for, love of, mania for, and/or enslavement to a substance, condition, or way of thinking. An automatic proclivity to develop dependencies on people, places, and things.

We are addicted to pain, because we can’t help it.  Like alcoholics, we are born with this addiction. And, although we can enter a state of recovery, we are never “recovered,” per se.  Pain has helped us survive. Without it, we would have been killed as children. Without pain, our species would not have survived.  So, there is no use in cursing our pain, our tendency to feel it, or our addiction to it.  That is useless.  We need to accept pain, and honor it as a phenomena that has a purpose.  But we also need to learn to move ahead so that we can choose to feel pain, or not, choose to let it reverberate or be a victim to it, becoming debilitated in a subtle or not so subtle way, unable to enjoy life and practice the joys of the here and now–or overcome it and be happy.

How, though, HOW, do we go about dealing with this hardwired “addiction” to pain?  I’m pretty eclectic and like to search and explore varieties of methods to see which ones work and which ones don’t.  In my opinion, the best approach to “beating” any addiction is the Twelve Step approach, based on the spiritual exercises of the Jesuit monks centuries ago.

First step, Admit you are powerless over the pain. It is going to happen and you are going to feel it.  Second, do whatever spiritual stuff you need to do to remind yourself, way down deep, at a gut level, a real level, that there is a power higher than “you,” — the small you, a power that can do anything, even take away your pain, even your addiction to it. Third, turn the pain, and the hardwiring and the hopelessness of your condition as a human being over to that higher power whoever and whatever it may be.

Three simple steps.  Sounds simple, sure.  But I’m not a Pollyana about this.  It’s hard as can be.  One of the hardest things a human being can ever learn to do in this life.  But there seems no reasonable alternative.  If pain is an addiction, and I am convinced that it is, then the statistics clearly show that this “Twelve Step” process has the highest rate of success on the planet.  Whether it be an addiction to attention, food, gambling, drugs or alcohol, sex and romance, or whatever, if you want to achieve success, then your best bet by far is to follow this road.

Many of you already know this.  But as someone who also “knows” it, I am the first to say that it is something I need to be reminded about, to remind myself about, over and over and over.  That deep lizard mind never sleeps.  It is there day and night to keep trying to trip you up, trying to convince you that you cannot succeed, cannot let go, cannot let God.

But you can.  And you will.  The people that read this blog are the kinds of people that persist, and they succeed.  Telling yourself that you will persist and succeed, in fact, is one of the great caveats to the whole message.  This kind of self talk works. The kind of self talk where you tell yourself that you are hopeless and cannot win has no advantage.  There is absolutely no profit to this way of thinking.  The only sane alternative is to tell yourself that you will, ARE, succeding, at letting go, and letting God.  This really works. But you have to actually DO it, not just assume that you are doing it because you already “know” about it.

I want to remind you that free promotional copies of my newest book, The Evolution Angel Book Two, Gaia’s Vision, are still available on request.  By emailing me at evolutionangel55@gmail.com with the words “Evolution Angel” in the subject mind, and asking me for a copy, you will receive a nicely formatted PDF version shortly.

I hope your life is filled with peace.  That you attain peace of mind, love, happiness, and contentment in overflowing abundance.  I’m here to help, with my books and CDs, with my Angel Readings, and my freely given advice through email requests and interchanges.  It is my sincere desire to help all that I can, to have the peaceful, pain free, care free state of mind that is your right to have as a child of God.  Claim your prize.  For it has already been done unto you.

With warm regards,

Dr.  Todd