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For example, this family have just moved into my neighbourhood, they seem wild and out of control. My dismissiveness and my arrogance are parts of defence mechanism against rejection, they guard my inherent sense of shame. I am full of shame, more so than fear, although these two overlap. I have not been taught as a child or since to simply say I am upset. We are far from being Saints but have a solution Saints would approve and achieve a kind of transient sanctity in this 12 step solution of letting go and letting God. I also impressed upon him that mostly I can manage this emotional dysfunction but often I fail to and get into a resentful anger.
It is therapeutic exchange and shame reducing to know someone else has committed similar sins or has acted for similar reasons; they were powerless over their behaviours. Referred to in several of the twelve steps is therefore unrelated to religion; it refers to the potentially healing power inherent in interpersonal relationships based on reciprocity and equality. The solution to your alcoholism is the same as the solution to their alcoholism. The original power greater than himself, as for millions of alcoholics over the last 80 years is another alcoholic.
Spiritual Maladies
These illustrate how the 12 step programme can help with an emotion dysregulation disorder. I have suggested clearly in previous blogs how I think AA’s 12 recovery programme https://ecosoberhouse.com/ helps specifically with problems of emotion dysregulation. For me the “spiritual malady” is underpinned by an emotion disorder and makes us over reactive as you say.
- Desire obviously runs contrary to the idea of being in God’s will, in fact it is being in Self Will that seems to create distress in many people with addictive behaviours.
- This could be the power of nature, the universe, or even something as simple as your cats or dogs at home – perhaps their love for you and the fact that they need you to be sober is your Higher Power.
- When people become too self-reliant, they may stop working on their program entirely.
- The more we focus less on ourselves we allow a god of our understanding to enter our minds and work in our lives.
- As overwhelming as I’m sure this all may seem for someone who’s either never had a spiritual connection, or been disconnected for years, I’d like to assure you it’s not as formidable as it may seem.
I grew up in a family that did not express emotions like the ones I had mentioned. We reacted via anger and put downs hence I have grown up to be dismissive. My past constantly assailed me emotionally, randomly attacking my mind. My emotions became wedded in time to being undifferentiated arousal states that prompted me to seek an external way to deal with these troubling emotional/arousal states.
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Reality becomes distorted to further protect the self from poor self esteem. The transfer of blame to someone else is an indicator of internal shame. I have resentments spiritual malady because they are a true sign of emotion dysfunction. I would have had empathy for where the newcomer “was at in his recovery” as I had been there once too.
We have difficulties in our relationships with others, these relationships are often unhealthy and ill. As a result we are guarded against those that we perceive will reject us or be negative to us, harm us in some way and we seek to dominate these folk or we are dependent on those who are kind to us, help us and care for us. We are in a sense co-dependent on other people for our sense of esteem. We rely on others in terms of how we feel about ourselves. As Bill Wilson noted, we seem to get distressed when we don’t get what we want or feel people or trying to take away what we have. Reach out to our compassionate team to begin your recovery journey.