Soft Addictions- Signs
Here are a couple clues to help you see the line between a soft addiction and a productive activity more clearly:
Zone out. A good way to identify a soft addiction is to ask if you zone out as you're doing it. When a person is zoned out they aren't completely engaged. We may be checked out or have a "nobody's home" expression on our face. Zoning out suggests that the truegoal of our activity is to become numb. Even though we're physically participating, our minds are somewhere else. After the activity, we often do not remember what we've done, watched, or read. Though this regularly happens when viewing TV, it may also happen while shopping, working, having superficial conversations, or doing any number of activities.
Avoiding feelings. Some activities help numb us to our emotions, especially very strong emotions. We avoid feelings by becoming numb, enhancing specific feelings that we enjoy to the exclusion of others, or even wallowing in your favorite unpleasant feeling to avoid another. Several of us feel uneasy about our deepest feelings, whether good or bad. We don't know how to safely handle our sadness or anger so we find an activity or a mood that facilitates an emotion-muting state, smothering our sadness, anger or other unresolved emotions.
Compulsiveness. Does an irresistible urge drive you to indulge a specific behavior or mood? Do you often feel constrained to do, have, or purchase something, no matter if you understand that it's not necessary? This may be accompanied by a helpless, powerless feeling. You may have difficulties trying to stop or reduce the amount of hours wasted on a given activity. Though you receive temporary pleasure, you usually feel rotten about yourself after engaging in it. You continue following the routine, saying to yourself, this is the last time. Even though you try to stop, you can't find the strength to.
Rationalization. If you're defensive or make excuses for your actions, it's probably a soft addiction. Denial is a refusal to acknowledge and rationalization is making excuses to justify a behavior. Both blunt our awareness of ourselves and reduce our expectations of ourselves. To write our actions off as acceptable, we ignore, cover up, or gloss over the actual reason or price. We either convince ourselves that our habit is not a problem or we make up reasons why it is an acceptable or necessary way to use our time. "What is so horrible about a couple cups of coffee?" is a average justification. We may deny that the many hours spent on the internet are a waste of time. The urge to deny an activity suggests a soft addiction.
Stinking thinking. Related to denial and rationalization, "stinking thinking" is distorted thinking based on false beliefs. Generalizing, magnifying, minimizing, justifying, blaming, and emotional reasoning are some examples. Stinking thinking creates the funny rules and logic of soft addictions. For instance, "there aren't calories when I eat standing up," or "I absolutely cannot exercise if I have already taken a shower." Woven throughout soft addiction routines, this kind of thinking is addictive. The tainted thoughts prompt indulging in a soft addiction in the beginning and later allow us to justify the indulgence.
Concealing the behavior. Beware of habits that become guilty pleasures that you try to hide. Hiding the number of hours you spend participating in an activity or being deceitful to those around you about how you frequently use your time or your money are signs of soft addictions. You are ashamed of what you're doing and that's why you want to conceal it.
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About the Author: Judith Wright is an internationally recognized author, speaker, life coach, and seminar leader. She teaches workshops to help people overcome soft addictions and creating "More" for 12 years. You may contact her through her Web site at www.theremustbemore.com. See also Massive Personal Growth
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