Art of Addiction

There are three stages to the process of rehumanizing. We are both always inside the process and tending to others around us.

Stage 1: Obsession Cycle

The obsession cycle or addiction is almost like an anesthesia that keeps the rational mind “asleep” while the soul travels down to the depths to get its calling and its power.

A person cannot be pried open here; like a bud pried open dies. We cannot force growth; It’s a sin in eros. We can only tend to people, and have compassion for others who are where we have been.

When someone is cultivating obsession, it’s a hard thing to watch. We see the potential. We want to rush them. We even want to force them through to the other side. We can always point the way, plant the seed. So that when they are ready, they know the way out. But inside of this process, they are like a cake. They aren’t done until they are fully baked. We have to know intuitively when they are fully cooked. Not be resentful that it took time, but continue to be here.

The biggest pitfall in this stage is to try and rush through the cycle to its completion.

If we complete this stage but don’t unplug and begin to take initiative, we grip to power and fall into victim and powerlessness.

Stage 2: Disintegration Cycle

Stage two is unplugging from what we are bonded to. During this time, we dry out. This is a challenging bardo-like stage between life and death. We either go forward into the new place or back to complete what was incomplete in the obsession cycle. In this bardo, it’s a tug of war. The pull toward the new needs to be just one percent greater than the pull back to the old. In that one percent, we see creativity employed. We see a power and a determination to move forward along this new line.

Tending to someone through this stage, we unplug and begin to look at the natural arising of initiative. We notice they can stand on their own two feet. We look to see if the person becomes more ordered, not less. Obsession orders our mind in a single direction. We only focus on what we are obsessed with or addicted to. It is a coarse version, and it is the training of hyper-focus. Obsession creates the pathways we need.

When stage one is truly complete, we feel discomfort, but the relief we feel outdoes the discomfort. If it doesn’t, it is self-will that disrupts the obsession cycle and we will return to stage one. Our aim is to dissolve the self and also not use the self to restrict the self. This only increases self-ing and mutates the form of it. We can also call this the disintegration cycle. The question we ask in this stage: Is there more relief or more agitation, more letting go or more restricted control? If there is a “thank god,” we have entered stage two?

At some point, benevolent aid enters. We get our internal marching orders and we start to move according to a deeper vision. Confusion is replaced with conviction. There is access to the soul’s injunction. The feeling of being lost is gone, because the question of “What am I here to do?” has been answered.

We are called deeper. Our identity, without much form, is beginning to form around this deeper vision and understanding. There is a coherence as if there is a magnet drawing in and repelling things. We are not so much externally referenced or dutiful. The duty has been transformed to devotion to the soul. We answer to this first and accept guidance that will aid in this.

This is a tricky process. If it’s not the right time or it is not done well, we will be a live wire. We will waste all the energy and return to obsession more passionately in order to find the calm of an ordered mind. The obsession or addiction becomes more virulent.

If we think obsession is bad and we quit, we have not actually completed stage one. We can’t will ourselves through. It must be a true completion of this cycle, when there is no more juice left.

If we’re tending to someone in this stage, it can be frustrating if we feel — either for us or for them — that there is somewhere else we need to be or we have more important things to do. The most important thing is the evolution of this person. Your timing is perfect. It requires great patience and attention, like cooking.

The main temptation in this stage is to dissipate the energy.

Stage 3: Re-Plugging In

The final stage is re-plugging in. This is where we bond with the same level of intensity and obsession we had in stage one. Now the obsession has shifted from reaching outside of oneself to down and inside oneself. This is a type of possession, being inhabited by the animating dynamic force that animates all of life. We are possessed by our calling.

If stage two is getting our top spinning, stage three is continuing to tap it. Our center of gravity has been established by this point. We become a person unto ourselves, a “light house.” We have our own station in the order of things. We are uniquely called. We are specialists in something and everything galvanizes around that. We are connectable in the larger scheme of things, permeable so that what we are doing can flow out and what is needed can flow in. We are now synapses in the nervous system of the planet.

The rest of our lives is two-fold. The first is doing this procedure over and over at more subtle levels to re-concentrate the magnet. This keeps us humble too, because we are always in it. We repeat this process ultimately opening each of the 10 spots. The second is sending this out into the world and securing the connection.

In this stage, we have our marching orders and now we must perfect them. We interact with joy and listening and tending to that which is around us. It is paradoxical in that if we keep moving forward with joy, we will not fall back. But we also can’t engage from a fear of falling back because then we are in the “grip” instead of being possessed, and we have already fallen back. Possession is almost pure sentience. Gripping is the opposite of that. One is a deep breath, the other is holding the breath.

Tending to someone in this stage, our work is to help them ungrip and release. We can notice a grip because it’s usually accompanied by complaint. In some, it can be more subtle, a greater formality, perfectionism and restriction. Or like a subtle agitation where we’re happy but something is bothering us.