Shiny Objects
The addiction nobody names -
I am guilty of allowing myself to be seduced by shiny objects. Shiny objects that appeared to provide a reflection of me as a shiny object as well. Shiny objects that were like an IV drip that kept me hooked for decades. But when we are hooked, when we are addicted to whatever it is that we're addicted to, whether it is literal shiny objects or drugs or alcohol or relationships or promises, we don't want to risk cutting off our supply because we feel like we will die without it.
It's a more obvious scenario perhaps in the case of drugs and alcohol, and it's harder to see with things that we need to survive: money, food, relationships. And I don't know what the numbers are, but I would venture to say that the majority of us, at least in the United States, have been at one time or another addicted to some version of a shiny object.
We get seduced by these things that we think will fill us, and that do make us feel better, excited, loved, for a short time. Typical addiction experience. But then we go into withdrawal and we need more.
Because of my addiction, I didn't risk speaking my truth and standing my ground in what I believed was right in so many scenarios. I've spoken about it before, but I actually manifested a physical condition where my capacity to breathe has been severely restricted, and gets more severely restricted when I experience stress around speaking up.
I wasn't able to recognize this on my own, to the level at which it had infiltrated my life, until I was ready to see it. Until a friend said something that made that coin just drop all the way down to the bottom. And then another friend put a name on it, and it landed. And it was like, oh my fucking God, how could I not see this? But I didn't.
And when I finally did, when I finally allowed myself to see what I had been seduced by for so many years, the rage that welled up inside of me was massive. The rage at the perception of manipulation. The rage about all the times and ways and places I'd not been able to speak my truth. The rage at the guilt and the blame and the shame that I had taken on, believing that speaking my truth, being the truth of who I am, trusting and following my guidance, was wrong.
And I know that as a soul, this is the path I chose. This is the medicine I needed. This is the medicine that I get to heal with and then share.
It's been a lifelong journey for me to break through all of these walls of deceit and denial, and this was exactly the medicine I needed to heal this. And when I truly recognize that there is no one to blame here, there is nothing to blame, there is ultimately only gratitude. Because this pattern was not just mine. It was generations before me, and generations before them, that carried these patterns, these untruths, these seductions, these lies.
It is only with this willingness, with this awareness, that we're able to release them and come into alignment with what is real, and that is only love. And I know that sounds like a trite, overused catchphrase, but when we can come back to the essence of that, that has never ever ever left us and never will, we become the shiny object. The shiny object that's lit from within.
If you have done the work and still feel the pull of something unnamed, The Through-Line was designed for exactly that. 1:1. No framework. Just the one question that makes everything else irrelevant. The first step is a 30-minute alignment call. No obligation. fiercegravitas.com/the-through-line
