Getting Whole
I recently read an interview with Garth Mullins, a former heroin user and long-time harm reduction advocate, and now a published author writing about his experiences.
Mullins explained that using opioids was, for him, never about getting high or getting wasted. It was about feeling WHOLE. It was wholeness that he was seeking, and opioids delivered the feeling.
I very much appreciated his candor and clarity about a desire for wholeness being at the root of his substance use. I had never heard anyone articulate it quite like that, and it made a lot of sense to me.
A new perspective on addiction
Addictive or obsessive behaviors, whether clinically diagnosed or popularly defined, all have one thing in common:
An insistence that satisfaction come from one narrow source.
Whether the addiction is drugs, sex, scrolling, status, money, food, gambling or anything else, it is always a search for satisfaction, and being very specific, to the point of exclusivity, about where you will obtain it… “I want to feel satisfied, and it must come from HERE.”
Garth Mullins called it “getting whole”, but for some people it’s getting love. For others it is success. Someone else might think of it in terms of belonging.
It’s emotional
In each case, the satisfaction being sought is emotional in nature. This is important to note, and it often gets overlooked. Consider:
Every single thing you want in this life is for the feeling you believe it will deliver.
Human beings are eternal seekers of satisfaction and we seek it in endlessly diverse ways. We know we’ve found it only by how we feel.
I know I am satisfied when I FEEL satisfied.
I know I am whole when I FEEL whole.
I know I am loved when I FEEL loved.
I know I am good when I FEEL good.
I know I am successful when I FEEL successful.
The satisfaction that each of us is constantly seeking can never be determined by others or by any objective measure.
No experience can truly satisfy until we allow our satisfaction to be fully subjective and within our own sovereign control. In other words, until we allow our satisfaction to be unconditional, a choice we make for ourselves, we will be constantly chasing it, eternally unsatisfied.
This has powerful (and empowering) implications, and I talk more about it in my free audio course, The Gentle Art of Emotional Mastery.
Satisfaction takes many forms
Significance, meaning, accomplishment, forgiveness, pleasure, fun, validation, understanding, entertainment, peacefulness, adventure, contentedness… These are all words to describe some of the various flavors of satisfaction that are available in this life.
The desire for satisfaction keeps us active and animated, inspired and motivated, creative and engaged.
Our endless desire for satisfaction can also be a way of torturing ourselves and keeping us at arm’s length from ever “arriving”.
Learning to allow
If we consider that addiction is, in one sense, the insistence that satisfaction come from one single source, then our understanding and treatment of addiction can expand. It becomes less about trying to break a habit and more about learning to allow satisfaction to reach us in a broader variety of forms. This is one way the grip of addiction can be loosened.
We do this by changing how we engage with the world and with ourselves. It’s helpful to recognize that all of our engagement with the world and with ourselves is done through three primary “operating systems” or aspects of self:
- Cognition (the thinking self)
- Emotion (the feeling self)
- Sensation (the somatic self)
This understanding gives us direction and context for transforming how we think, feel, and behave. Again, I cover this topic extensively and provide helpful tools in my free course.
A world full of satisfying experiences
The reality is that we live in an incredibly satisfying world. At least, potentially. The world has literally evolved countless ways to satisfy us, to provide nourishment and beauty and engagement and wonder and belonging. From sunsets to birdsong, to satin textiles and musical scales. Spices and flavors, colors and sounds, textures and patterns. The five physical senses alone can provide an infinite amount of satisfaction to anyone who is willing to allow themselves to be easily satisfied.
Buddhist philosophies and practices teach us to find satisfaction in the mere rhythm of the breath, in the simple awareness of Being. It doesn’t get much more basic than that.
And then there is the mind. The imagination. And emotion. All providing endless possibility for satisfying experiences. But most people are not using their mind in satisfying ways. They aren’t using their imagination in satisfying ways. And they aren’t using their most powerful resource, emotion, in satisfying ways.
And so they become narrow in their pursuit of satisfaction. They become insistent, grasping, desperate, and often despondent.
They forget that they are intrinsically whole, and so they go looking for wholeness.
An impossible task
In my R3 Relationship Masterclass I call this the “impossible task”, and I make the bold assertion that you are already everything you seek. You can not find wholeness in a relationship (or a substance, or a device, or anywhere else) because you are already whole. You ARE that which you seek, always. This realization is liberating.
You can find a reflection of your wholeness in any number of experiences or phenomena, but these experiences or phenomena are not the source of your wholeness. That comes from within, and until you recognize and enjoy this truth, you will remain largely unsatisfied.
Garth Mullins “found” his wholeness when he injected heroin, but that isn’t exactly true, is it?
An opioid might relax your resistance or temporarily dissolve the emotional or mental obstacles that you’ve put between you and your direct connection to your wholeness, but it isn’t the “real thing”, and it comes with some obvious downsides.
Surprisingly, the biggest downside might not be the physical dangers. The biggest downside might be that using a substance to “get whole” reinforces the erroneous belief that your wholeness is conditional, something to seek. It is not. Your wholeness is unconditional. It is your intrinsic nature and the essence of your being. It is your existential foundation. It is the real and authentic you. It is always there for you to enjoy in every moment that you are willing to recognize it.
Joy and well-being are your nature
Most of us are not using heroin, but nearly all of us are going about seeking our satisfaction in narrow and desperate ways. Very few of us are keenly attuned to the easy joy and well-being that is our true nature.
Becoming keenly attuned in this way means becoming more aligned with the deeper realities of life and what it provides. It means becoming more subtle in our sensibilities, and more willing to receive.
Satisfaction abounds in this world, but it can only find its way to you when you stop blocking it and decide to allow it in. You have choice in this matter of feeling satisfied, and it’s up to you to use it.
It isn’t hard work
I don’t know if Garth Mullins ever discovered his unconditional, intrinsic wholeness, but I know that I have, and I know that I’ve helped many people discover and enjoy their own unconditional wholeness (or belonging, love, success, clarity, well-being, goodness… there are many names for what we are talking about here).
It isn’t hard to stop grasping, and to start allowing yourself a rich and satisfying life. It really just comes down to making incremental changes in perspective, changes that anyone who is willing and ready can make.
I’ve outlined these changes in my enjoyable, easy to follow Free 7-Day Audio Course: The Gentle Art of Emotional Mastery. As you listen, you’ll discover a methodology and mindset for cultivating joy and well-being, and you’ll get all kinds of support and encouragement as you begin allowing the richness of life to get through to you and provide the nourishment it is meant to provide.
You are meant to thrive
Your life is meant to nourish you. Life wants to nourish you. And you, at the deepest level of your being, are meant to receive and benefit from life’s nourishment. But most people are allowing only the tiniest amount of this nourishment into their experience. Emotionally speaking, they are barely surviving, when they are meant to be thriving.
The Gentle Art of Emotional Mastery is about fully befriending your innate human desire to feel satisfaction, and learning how to use this desire as a compass to guide you in every step of your life. It’s not complicated or fancy, but it might feel new, and it requires some focus to make the necessary shifts in perspective and behavior.
The course is delivered through seven professionally recorded and carefully edited audio modules, averaging twenty minutes each in length. Total time is just over two hours. High quality sound production makes listening a pleasure.
You can also listen to thirty different One Minute Meditations that I recorded to help support you on your path to easy joy and well-being.
Everything that I teach is rooted in self-love and self-trust, and this free 7-day audio course is clear, direct, and practical guidance for cultivating and enjoying these essential qualities in everyday life.
There’s no cost and no catch. The course is ad-free, distraction-free, and designed only with your well-being and satisfaction in mind. I’ve even removed the sign up requirement.
Do you want to feel good?
Only three things are required to benefit from learning The Gentle Art of Emotional Mastery:
- A genuine desire to feel good.
- Enough emotional sensitivity to know when you feel good.
- A willingness to be less conditional about feeling good.
The details of your personal history are far less important than these three qualities. All kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds are benefiting from this simple but profound approach to finding personal well-being.
If this sounds like it might be beneficial for you, you can start listening right now.
Here’s the first module:
To access the full free course anytime, just click here. And be sure to share the course with your friends and loved ones and anyone you care about.
