You can't get enough of what you don't need

Ram Dass was quoted as saying that pain is our separation from god and addiction is our quest for god. Problem is that the addiction - whether it be love, gambling, drugs or work - addiction has a certain duration while our connection with god is who we are, where we came from and where we are going.

If this were true, why would anyone turn away from god?

I think that before we were here we were with god - whatever form that comes in. There were no blinders on our eyes. Our connection with god was never in doubt. We were connected. Then, once we came into this body, our experience became physical and if I am physical then my god must be physical too. So, where is he. If I can not see him in front of me like I see my brother, then maybe he doesn't exist. Instead our ego kicks in and he think we are awesome. And we are. But not more awesome than god.

Then things do wrong or life just happens and there is pain. The ego shrieks out - I didn't ask for pain! Even good pain - the pain of growth - hurts. When the environment is supporting and loving, this pain can be dealt with. When the environment is dysfunctional, the pain becomes overwhelming and we search for relief.

My pain became overwhelming when I was 13 and my mom was murdered. I officially gave up on god and fired him. He was doing a crap job and I could do better on my own.

At 13 I had not had a sexual experience. Sexuality was never spoken about as "healthy" only as "bad". My naked body was shamed and covered neck to ankle. I was taught that masturbation was bad and had never had an orgasm. I think all of this avoidant behavior plus overwhelming pain made me a prime candidate for love addiction - or at least love distraction.

Just four months after my mom's death, I ran into a 21 year old guy that thought I was special. He had blonde feathered hair and tight big bells and he seemed "bad" enough to know how to "do it", which we proceeded to do on the floor of my parents bedroom. I can still remember the rug burns on my back side.

Sex was fun and I'd never felt anything so amazingly wonderful. I wanted to feel like that all the time. It filled my body with fun hormones and the pain of real life faded for a little while. The calm afterglow of sex was as close to heaven as I had ever felt.

Since I had never felt like that before, I attributed this great new flood of hormones to this guy. I kept him around longer than I would have otherwise. At 14, it was the closest to god that I had ever felt. Problem was, the feeling faded, I realized the guy was just a guy and I was left in the pain again.

Left to find god another way.

Trusting Scorpions

There's a story about a frog and a scorpion that are trying to get across a river. The scorpion ask the frog to take him across on his back.

No, I couldn't do that, you would sting me.
Why would I sting you when I need you to get across?
The frog concedes on this logic and takes him across.
Half way across the scorpion stings him.
As they both go down the frog asks "why'd you do it?"
"Because I am a scorpion"

In my family, my father was the scorpion. You never knew when his stinger would come out. I want to say that you couldn't trust him but the truth is that you could trust him to take care of himself. Whatever he wanted was paramount. He didn't value anything more than he valued himself.

I have a tenant that is a tweaker. He is busy all hours of the day and night. Mostly doing and accomplishing nothing but, he thinks he is accomplishing a lot and that his work is highly valued. The interesting thing is you never know how saying "good morning" will affect him. For a few days he's cheerful and welcomingt so I come to expect that. Then on a day that looks like any other he's lash out in anger. Blaming and criticizing and tearing down anything that happens to be in the way. It's a day you wish you would have kept your head down and gone the other way.

That's the thing about a scorpion, you never know when they are going to sting you but you just know that they will.

Who are the scorpions in your life?
How do you react to them?
Are you surprised when you get stung?