No matter what addiction you have, you must remember that it’s trying to mask the pain. We have to Unmask the pain for addiction recovery. Your personality is another mask that tries to hide pain, but addictions and personas don’t work. They’re all dedicated to our survival, and we don’t need what they offer as adults in a modern society. We are open to growth, learning, and contribution. We are open to things like wisdom and spirituality.
We don’t need masks; we don’t need addictions to mask our pain. We need to experience and express our pain, and then heal from it. That’s what recovery is, and that’s what the Paradigm process teaches us. We move away from all those masks and move back into Mastery. This is how we overcome addictions today, through awareness, through conscious awareness, and awakening to a new sense of self. We can authentically show ourselves naked and free, in terms of who we really are and what we’re made up of, defects, assets, and otherwise. When we do that, we become free from addiction, and in doing so, we also become free from the pain finally that has held us captive.
Addictions try to mask the pain that we feel inside. So, in order to recover, we need to get to that pain. We need to consciously be aware of what that pain really is, and it’s going to be rooted in our personality, our attitudes, our responses to life. It’s going to be rooted in our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. But below all of that, it’s going to be rooted in something deeper, and we call that fear. The fear that we are not good enough, the fear that because of how we are, what has happened to us, how we’ve responded to life, how we’ve interacted and integrated, has not been good enough.
So inherently, we are flawed, defective, and bad. And that is why we start the recovery process with a return to self-love, a return to self-love rather than fear, rather than addiction, rather than anxiety, personality disorders, and stress. We have to unmask the pain for addiction recovery by unmasking ourselves from the persona’s we have created. An addictive persona is common place for almost everyone in one way, shape or form. Our codependence, our perfectionism, are all masks trying to mask pain. Alcohol, food, sex, drugs, all are our attempts to do the same thing, and they all just lead to more pain. When we get to the real pain, we get to authenticity. And that is why I say the truth will set you free. The truth is recovery, and when we deal with our pain, we find that we are born to our sacred selves, our authentic selves. Not only do people recover, but they thrive. We become the best version of ourselves, and that really is the meaning of life. It’s a loving process to love us into authenticity.
From Pain back to Love
When our basic needs weren’t met as children, we carry this into adulthood, where eventually the truth will out. The truth needs to set us free, and it is uncompromising with its task. We operate in a world with five senses sight, sound, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. That’s how we interact with the world on a very sensory level. Our fears need soothing. That soothing later on turns into addictions, personality defects, and inflammation and disease. Anytime we’re in fear, we’re entrenched in our personalities, our masks, and our personalities are all created on a shaky foundation of fear.
Our personalities are a combination of all the qualities and characteristics that helped develop our character and our traits. Our interests, our self-conception, and our drives. Our brains are hardwired for fear. Everything that we experience only through the five senses comes through and is scanned primarily for fear. Our brains are hardwired for survival.
The journey to Unmask the pain for addiction recovery is the transformation to your Sacred Self might just be the most important journey of our lives. It’s the journey we take within ourselves. So our personality that was once there to serve us, protect us, and keep us safe and secure starts to throttle and choke us out over time. Our personalities end up seeking control rather than self-love, authentic love for self, God, and others. They seek out and desire control, perfection, and freedom from fear, which of course they never find. Like attracts like, that is the law of attraction. Fear attracts fear, and the personality is very limited in what it can attract. Your spiritual self is not limited at all and this is where real recovery lies. It is where a spiritual solution is born that makes us better than we were to start with. Recovery is indeed as Mark suggests, it is a return to love.
For more information about Unmask the pain for addiction recovery or to attend our alternative rehab centre which is our luxury wellness center experience in South Africa that offers the 10 step Paradigm Process Addiction Treatment program. This is also an alternative to the 12 steps. These addiction recovery programs are for those who do not want a regular drug rehabilitation centre experience in a clinical setting.
The Center’s Emotional and Addiction Wellness Programs today are better known as mental, emotional and spiritual wellness courses done at The Center for Healing and Spiritual Transformation. The Sanctuary courses have been running since 2012 and have helped many people, who are looking for a therapeutic and spiritually based healing path, to find happiness and wellness.