Body & Soul Responses

from Dr. Jeanette, licensed psychologist, alternative approach

practical, psychological, holistic help for emotional, mental, physical, spiritual issues

Question

Can you help a reoccurring compulsive gambler and addictive personality disorder? Which is probably the result of a screwed up childhood? Jayson Diorio

Answer

Compulsive gambling is like any other compulsive behavior, such as nail biting, over eating or watching too much television. It is an anxiety response. And yes, we learn to be anxious in our childhood. It is said that six million people suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorders. You are in good company; many movie stars have this behavior. You are gambling in order to avoid feeling anxious. CB's are ways you "bind" your anxiety, trying to "hold" yourself together. They are forms of control; gambling is how you control yourself. In other words people develop these seemingly strange behaviors when they are creating an "illusion of safety." I say an "illusion of safety" because you are not really any safer and your anxiety is still there. You just don't pay any attention to it and it gets worse and worse! 

The source of the anxiety is what you want to attend to. When you stop and directly experience the anxiety, you can then get deeper into the fear. The real fear is what you want to become aware of. The difference between fear and anxiety is made clear in my Fear Tape. Both the anxiety and fear are in your autonomic nervous system and held throughout your body in all the places where it is too tense and or too fat.

You can use any technique that helps you. But a technique is a technique; it may or may not get rid of your symptom, and it is not necessarily helping you feel safer in the world. 

My take on the situation is that your energy is out of control. All out of control and all controlled energy is the result of fear. All out of control behaviors and all controlled behaviors are anxiety responses. You may find your energy flip flopping back and forth between moving too fast and too slow. You gamble too much or don't let yourself gamble at all. Alcoholics do this frequently. They drink too much or not at all. Controlled behavior usually results in out of control behavior later. Likewise out of control behavior reverts back to controlled behavior. What we want is the authentic natural flow of energy because it is our god/goddess/nature given power. It is our real strength with which we can be healthy and alive and enjoying being so.

So my approach is to begin to eliminate this out of control energy out of your body, emotions and life, not to focus on the symptom at all.

What I would do is first help you stop judging yourself about the behavior. To judge this or any other behavior only makes matters worse. It is our judgment of the problem that makes us so miserable and unhappy. Whether with eating too much or gambling too much, try to accept yourself and acknowledge you're past need to "DO" it. Be accepting and loving with yourself that you have developed these "ways" to try to feel safe. What you want is to love yourself in your journey toward self-realization. Don't even try to stop gambling. Let it be a barometer of your anxiety.

After you accept your past need for this behavior and accept yourself for creating it, then focus on finding ways that really work in helping you feel safer in the world. You do want to eliminate this out of control energy because it is impossible to feel safe around it; it scares everyone. So first you have to become aware of your anxiety. The next time you feel you must "gamble" or "turn on the tube" or "jump up and wash the dishes" sit down and feel what happens inside of you when you don't! This is your anxiety.  

Every one of us carries huge amount of fear in our body; that is the reason we are so rigid, unhealthy and miserable. If we would just let our real fear flow, we would face new ones each day and groove right on down the river. Life is a series of facing more and more fears. If you are looking for a guarantee that you won't fall, get sick, be judged or displease someone, there IS no place where it is safe.  

The safety you want is to feel comfortable being yourself in your body on the planet and in your real feelings in your society, in other words, not having to hide the real you! All anxiety comes from having to hide who we really are in the world. None of us would be the least bit anxious if we were open and comfortable with whom we are. We would be natural and free like all the other animals on the planet instead of such nervous wrecks!

So you can be safe with yourself. You do not have to judge yourself and you do not have to be so anxious! This is enough to help you feel safe and secure in the world. Let others be anxious and nervous wrecks if they choose to be so. You can relax and enjoy your life without all your judgments. Judgments are nothing but a form of control. Without them you will naturally flow and be yourself.

The more you expand your consciousness, the safer you will be. Awareness will protect you and help you sense things that might harm you. A professional dancer in Philadelphia was killed a few years ago by walking out into the street into an oncoming car. I had taken several classes with her and was shocked at her death. A few years later, I had a motorcycle accident hitting a little curb and laying down the bike on my right knee. Major pain and destruction for my knee, not my bike. Our energy created these accidents. If I had been paying attention to the road and the sharp curve I would have sailed around the curve as I had every other time. Instead, I was "draying," going over and over things in my head. If the dancer had been attentive to her outside environment she would have sensed the car's movements and not step out into its pathway. These things happened to us because we were worried, unconscious and not taking care of ourselves. The more relaxed you are, the more you will respond appropriately to any real physical danger. Trust your relaxed body to response perfectly to any and all situations. It will. 

That is the reason your real fear is important. You want to feel it and honor it; it might safe your life.

I have found that the only way to feel safe is to be grounded in my body (just as electricity is grounded) and grounded into the energy field of the earth. I know there are no real accidents, i.e. everything is a result of something! And I am aware of the bigger story of my Life, not just this little piece. Take my motor cycle accident. I was crushed. I hated myself and couldn't believe I wasn't "spared by the angels." Well, now I can look back and see that I was pretty unconscious and very stuck. I am happier now, more connected to others and more relaxed! Many of us learn things the hard way.

My approach would be to help you directly experience the fear (the real fear in your body) and your emotions. This automatically starts to vibrate the frozen energy in your body. This vibration moves through your body and out of you. In other words, the more you feel the fear, the less of it you will have. It is the denial of it and the inability to feel it that has kept it frozen in your body so that you act compulsively about something. 

I do so hope this has helped you and would love to hear how you received it. Thanks for the question and next month we have a goodie!