Our need for authenticity and attachment - Part Two

Remember last week’s inSight?

Jumping right in… a continuation from one of Gabor Maté’s workshops.

We have so many circuits running through our body: love, fear, panic, grief, lust, exploration, anger. It’s necessary and is our authentic nature. We will have a healthy response unless we’re not accepted.

Example: When your anger is not accepted in childhood, the message seems to be good little kids don’t get angry. Yet, what a child learns is, angry little kids don’t get loved. This then gets ingrained in the nervous system.

So we grow up typically thinking, I’ll do this, so I can get that (accepted, loved, cared for). And if I was actually me, maybe I won’t be (accepted, loved, cared for).

“The mind will always want to invalidate your true essence.”

When we don’t (didn’t) get the attention we need, we use strategies to get it. (Think attractiveness and the billion dollar industry). We attempt to attach. It’s too vulnerable to say, will you love me?

So here’s my question for you: what do YOU do to get the attention you didn’t get from your childhood? How do you now gain the approval you need, if you weren’t loved for who you were? Here’s a few popular answers on the board:

• Being attractive

• Charming

• Winning

• Demanding

• Impress people with your attributes

• Be a helper

• Be very nice

• Seek status/recognition

These are false attributes over your real attachment needs. This society rewards us for self betrayal.

So your personality is a combination of conditions and adaptations. Kind of an imposter. It’s how you survived.

We are compelled to seek attachment. We (majority) weren’t accepted for who we were. (This is not to blame, just to understand). We were conditioned to fit in.

When we don’t get the approval we need just for existing, we need a winning personality. Not valued for who we are, we’ll try to measure up. When we’re not made to feel important just for existing, we’ll be helpers.

Our attempt is to attach.

If you weren’t liked, you’ll be very very nice. Not loved for who you were, you’ll be very charming.

These are adaptive mechanisms. They temporarily work and don’t satiate.

Would they like me if they really knew me, or wasn’t so helpful? Would they still pay attention to me if I wasn’t attractive?

Addictions come from this. The need to do more and more. And we all have them.

Your personality is desperate to survive. It will try to invalidate your true being. Get used to it. Your mind chatter. Notice your mind's activity. Don’t be identified with it. Be compassionately curious. Don’t judge it or criticize it. Ask yourself why am I doing this?

Enough? Haha

I know - easier said than done. But hey, at least you know you’re not alone. This stuff fascinates me, can you tell?

Have a great day, just being you today. I dare you. ;)

All my love,
Kristi 💛