What does your hand grasp every time you want to 'feel better'?
Is it automatic or are you choosing?
Think about various forms of addiction, whether it's drinking, drugs, gambling, online shopping, eating, smoking, video games, social media, etc.
In almost all cases, there is a motor movement of an arm reaching for something and grasping it.
It is about taking something external, outside of us and 'consuming' it somehow. (visual stimulus from video games, videos and social media is also consuming).
Grasping the bottle, grasping the refrigerator handle, grasping the substance, grasping the phone or device.
This 'grasping' is tied to our first attempts to self-soothe as babies. We've just changed the content.
Grasping for something to self-soothe is not inherently unhealthy. But it starts to be a problem when this self-soothing behavior becomes rigid and inflexible.
The networks that 'fire together wire together', and this robotic grasping becomes stronger and stronger. It starts to feel like there is literally no other option to feel better other than grasping for whatever that is.
It becomes so automated that we no longer question it.
Part of what can help interrupt this muscle-memory circuitry is to bring awareness to the series of motor movements.
To become a Conscious Self-Regulator. (that's what the mini-book and master class are all about)
We go into this in the interview. Hope you get a chance to listen!
Check it out here!
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