Post
by Courtney » Sun Oct 11, 2015 4:35 pm
Hey Niky,
I can identify with some of these emotions and have been working on my own addiction to being busy/productive. For most of my adult life I never felt like I could relax even when the "to-do" list was done either. I used to be the kind of person who could not even really sit still and just hang out with people casually--I felt anxiety about not being productive then.
You mention you take "addiction breaks" from this cycle of being really busy, which makes me wonder if you perhaps haven't identified yet that staying busy itself can be an addiction (esp. if motivated by fear as you said yours was). So, there is a good chance that you may actually be in addiction a lot of every day in this case.
It sounds like you've sat with it a bit, at least enough to know that the busyness is about fear, and helping you avoid feeling it, and that's a start, though it sounds like you're saying that you stop yourself after feeling a little of the fear pretty quickly and basically go back into the addiction of getting things done, rather than staying with it long enough to really get into it in a way that would begin the process of healing it.
You also identified some of the underlying associations of punishment if you weren't productive as a child, and you've identified what some of the fear may be about -- money etc.
That's been a lot of the stuff underneath the busy addiction for me too. Don't underestimate how big the terror about money and things falling apart financially or otherwise can be. I wanted to mention that because I know you've mentioned some money fears in the other forums on FB too before and I have had/have some huge emotions about that. Money can represent so many other emotions about security, safety, whether passions are possible, abundance, self-worth, etc.
If you were punished when chores weren't done, or even threatened with punishment when they weren't done, really getting into the heart of these emotions for you would most definitely lead you to some grief and pain, as punishment systems (versus teaching about self-responsibility and law of compensation in a totally loving way) in parenting are all unloving ways to deal with a child. I was listening to a parenting talk by J&M recently and I think they classified punishment and reward systems under ways to control and manipulate a child. I have found huge emotions of what it felt like to be threatened with punishment, purposefully made fearful of it, and controlled and manipulated by punishment/reward systems as a child (of which my parents had tons).
For me, I have had to work through some actually pretty big feelings of self-worth underneath the busy addiction too--my dad all throughout my early childhood and teenage years criticized and shamed us (my brothers and I) for ever doing activities he didn't approve of as productive. So I have felt if I don't stay busy and achieve everything on my to-do list, and then even when I'm done the list, continue to be productive in the way my parents approved of, I am an awful, terrible person who is pathetic and lazy and a failure in life--a lot of which were things my dad said, verbatim. My mom was never verbally shaming in this way towards us, but she did live her own life in a busy addiction, never following a single passion of her own, and so I learned from her example that busyness was the noble and right way to live life, too. My parents both also had a lot of judgement and anger about other adults who, for various reasons, weren't as busy as them, which became a message I absorbed too.
I don't know if any of that last paragraph will be helpful for you, but I feel like I have noticed those of us who have had busy addictions do have some level of self-worth associated with getting things done.
I have struggled in the past with lots of physically-based addictions (busyness, multiple eating disorders, internet, TV, etc), and for me choosing to just stop the addiction and feel what comes up has often been the most helpful approach. Like, what if you took a whole day off and didn't get anything done other than having food? No cleaning, no errands, no work, no email or internet-based tasks, etc.? And didn't substitute that time with any other addictions like TV or the internet, etc.? What would you feel then?
Related, I feel like I've been listening to a lot of DLP seminars recently where Jesus and Mary emphasize that we have to carve out dedicated time for our growth: emotional work, prayer, being with God. And so when we're busy all the time we are really cheating ourselves out of what we need in order to progress on this path. For me right now that feels like quite a big issue of self-love.
