Life! By Design_ 6 Steps to an Extraordinary You - Laura Morton [29]
Most of us attach a lot of meaning to big moments in our life. These could include the death of a loved one, being fired, starting a new job, getting divorced, ending a relationship, beginning a relationship, having your first child, or having an unexpected pregnancy. The list is infinite and could include just about anything that happens along the course of life. Most of us create a “story” around a particular event and spin it over and over in our minds until it takes on a much greater meaning than the actual event itself.
For example, do you know someone who has been recently fired or whose job was eliminated because of corporate cutbacks? The moment they heard the words “You’re fired,” they likely began to fantasize about what that means. How will their spouse respond? How will they find another job? What if they can’t find another job? How will they put food on the table, pay their bills, and meet other financial obligations? Our tendency is to spin those two words down a very negative path.
Most people naturally play out all of the worst-case scenarios in their heads. Those hallucinations are tied to something from their past that shaped and formed their response to what has just occurred. This stimulus response is tied to four primary addictions we all have and are the ones I refer to throughout this chapter.
Good or bad, experience shapes our values, which are our principles, our ethics, our moral code, and our standards. Our values create our habitual behavior, our routines, practices, and patterns. So here’s what I want you to get: Who you are today is the sum of the experiences you’ve had, your beliefs about those experiences, and the stories you shared with yourself about those experiences, which in turn shaped your values and habits.
I’m asking you to consider the following:
If we are our habits, who created them?
If we are our values, who created those?
If we are the sum of our beliefs, how can you change those to live the life you want?
The four addictions I’ve listed destroy more dreams, more hopes, and more lives than alcohol, drugs, food, gambling, or sex combined. Living without joy and happiness is what forces us into that coma! These addictions are the why we will explore in this chapter.
1. Addiction to opinions of others. As a society, we’re addicted to what others think about us and how others’ views of the world affect us.
2. Addiction to drama. People are drawn to and consumed by any event or situation that occupies their thoughts and fills their mind with negativity, which often brings attention to them in unproductive ways.
3. Addiction to the past. People have an unhealthy attachment to events or situations that occurred in the past. They’re stuck in how things used to be.
4. Addiction to worry. This addiction comprises all the negative and self-defeating thoughts that make us anxious, disturbed, upset, and stressed, that hold us back in life.
My goal is to help you identify the roles and impact of these four addictions in your life, and help you become more conscious of them—and know exactly what to do when they show up.
Although for some people addiction is a disease they’re born with, a recent study showed that the propensity toward addiction is most likely formed from early childhood experiences. The study showed that events such as divorce, growing up in a single-parent home, lack of love and affection, or parents who suffered from addiction make a child more susceptible to becoming an addict.
I bumped into a good buddy while on vacation in Mexico. Although we weren’t traveling together, our families hung out for most of the week we were there. Toward the end of the trip, I noticed that he hadn’t had a single drink. I knew this guy had a passion for fine wine. We had talked many times about