105 - The Triangle and Addiction: Relinquishing Defenses

Click here to read the episode highlights.    The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). You can connect with Dr. Chip Dodd at [email protected]. Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at [email protected].  Be sure to subscribe to Dr Chip Dodd’s new Substack. He will be sharing two to three articles a week. The topics focus on healthy relationship, personal growth, and leadership. Dr. Dodd shares content two to three times a week. To subscribe, use the link above or go to chipdodd.com. FREE RESOURCE:  Relinquishing Your Defenses   Ultimately, every person who becomes addicted to any substance or behavioral process is running from knowing how to or being willing to contend with four realities and four promises (from episode #104), which requires that we know what to do with our feelings and needs.    We must become “response-able” to contend with life on life’s terms. While life is wonderful, it is also very painful. Even love, which is what we most desire, is very painful.    We are emotional and spiritual creatures, and we are created to live fully. We are created to find fulfillment in relationship with ourselves, others and God.   If we run from feelings and needs and the responsibility, we have to deal with them as emotional and spiritual creatures, we cannot fulfil our desire to live fully and love deeply.   On my website, chipdodd.com, you will find a FREE RESOURCE called, Relinquishing Your Defenses.  This resource uses a triangle diagram to show the trap we can get caught in if we run from feelings and needs.  We can become trapped in a never-ending cycle of avoidance and projection, “mind-reading,” and judgmental conclusions about everyone (Codependency Episodes, 32-44, Season 4).    People can get trapped in the victim-martyr-persecutor roles that become a person’s reaction to any forms of vulnerability that produce emotional arousal.   Anxiety fuels the defensive roles.    Judgmentalism creates a repetition of behaviors that a person uses to block or defend themselves from perceived threat.   The Victim - The victim role is not about being immature or weak.   It is about life experiences in which a child “discovers” that their feeling responses to life are ignored or negated in some other form.    The experience creates a sense of helplessness, which means “no help is coming.”    Click here to continue reading the episode highlights.