When we hand over the power to feel good...

During a short stay in Bogotá, I came across a billboard that struck me, because it spelled out so loudly the subliminal message our consumer society feeds us every day.

It showed a luxury 4x4 with this triumphant line...

"No solo es un carro, es tu próximo logro" (It's not just a car, it's your next achievement)

I don't know whether you're familiar with the idea of "emotional marketing", but to put it simply, it's the idea that brands never sell us a product, they sell us the promise of a positive emotion.

• Apple offers creativity,
• Jeep offers adventure,
• Red Bull offers adrenaline,
• Nike offers motivation and pushing your limits,
• Disney offers magic,
• Lacoste offers status,
• and so on.

But what is this advert doing in a reflection on wellbeing? Why am I telling you all this?

Six of one, half a dozen of the other

Because the gap between emotional buying and addiction is tiny. The only big difference is that the harmful side of addiction is probably much more obvious.

But the mechanism is the same: we hand over to something outside ourselves (an object, a substance) the power to make us feel a certain way.

Of course, it's often an illusion: the initial high of using or buying always fades little by little. We get used to it, we become attached ("I can't be / function without..."), and the more we fill that emptiness with things outside ourselves, the bigger the emptiness grows inside.

Our relationship with the outside world

Of course, this isn't an absolute truth: we do need the outside world. We need...

• means of transport to travel further,
• nutrients to stay physically well,
• our friends and/or our family, depending on the person, to nurture that sense of connection and belonging,
• other people and their skills in the areas that are beyond us,
• and so on.

One question to see more clearly

So it's wise to keep an open eye and an open heart as to whether the bonds we've built so far are still helping us grow, or holding us back.

Do I have a chosen, fulfilling, joyful relationship with this habit, this person, this object, or do I feel trapped when I think about it?

Thomas d'Ansembourg, whom I love to quote, explained in one of his wonderful talks that in the end there's only one question to ask yourself:

Does this thought, this outlook (or this habit) give me a feeling of expansion or of contraction?

When change is crying out inside us too

At a time when our planet and our young people, in particular, are crying out so fiercely for change, it's no surprise that change can cry out so loudly inside us as well.

If we listen deeply to our unease, it often asks us:

• to end relationships that have worn thin,
• to find work that feels more aligned,
• to say "no" on certain occasions,
• to step out of our default modes,
• to leave our addictions of every kind behind, because they damage our health, our mental wellbeing and our relationships too.

Seen this way, there isn't much difference between someone hooked on their work or their status at the expense of their wellbeing or their family, and someone hooked on a substance. The only difference is that one of these habits is more socially accepted.

Understanding where our habits come from before we can change them

But careful... here again the line is a fine one! The point is certainly not to cast a moralising or judgemental eye on anyone's habits. Human beings are, by nature, always evolving. We took up certain habits at a certain time because, back then, they were the most accessible strategy and very likely the one best suited to the situation.

• One woman threw herself into her work to get the recognition she had so badly missed at school, where teachers happily criticised her for not being academic.
• Another started smoking at the dawn of her teens, to find the sense of belonging she so sorely lacked at home.
• A third bought that beautiful car, seeking in status and social prestige a suit of armour against the contempt she had faced growing up in a poor family.
• The last, a man, found refuge in cocaine to give himself a shell of invulnerability and look "tough" in a world where he felt too fragile / sensitive.

"Addiction is an attempt to solve a problem: the problem of emotional pain, of stress, or of lost connection." — Gabor Maté (physician and leading author on trauma and addiction)

A broader view

The idea here is simply to offer a broader view of what an addiction is. It isn't only about using a particular substance that is recognised as harmful to body and mind.

An addiction is any habit or relationship with something or someone that we find hard to let go of, even though it makes us suffer, because it is trying to meet deeper needs that we haven't yet become aware of.

So we're left with a choice: to ignore it, to see it as a problem, or to see it as a path of growth and self-knowledge…