Men as Mentors - Richard Rohr and Sergio Milandri - Part 4

Take a few moments to relax and get in touch with yourself in the silence.

Part 4. Addicted to Ourselves.

Getting it wrong.
Judging from the state of peace and fulfilment of most of our lives, it might be said that we do not have much grasp on reality, nor do we manage our lives well. Many of us can relate to Paul who said “The things I want to do I can’t and the things I don’t want to do I end up doing.” Many of us struggle with our daily reality, striving to find that elusive fulfilment, balance and joy. Why is it that though the years pass, we seem to come no closer to personal wholeness? Why do we get stuck in patterns which seem impossible to change? These are tough questions.
The irony is that in an argument or conflict situation, most of us insist on defending our position and arguing that the problem lies with others, that if only people behaved as we want there would be fewer problems. Why is it so easy to fool ourselves, to be blind around our issues of power and powerlessness?
Why would we hold on to the very attitudes that disable us and keep us imprisoned in our way of thinking, insisting that our way of seeing is the only way there is?

Addicted to our Attitudes.
From our earliest days we assumed that everyone saw as we did. We took for granted that our perceptions were normal and that others saw, thought and believed as we did. Thus the confusion or defensiveness we felt, and still feel when anyone disagrees with us or presents us with a different scenario. Holding our position is both a strength and a weakness as we do well to know who we are and where we come from but we fail ourselves when we assume that any deviation from our view will threaten and betray us.

It seems that once we establish a particular attitude, we hold on to it as part of our identity, assuming it to be right and needing to be defended. Thus our habit of defending our view, especially in a difference of opinion or argument. We tend to look for just one thing we can fault in the other’s perspective to feel justified discounting the entire view.
Instead of seeing that our view is also flawed and using the other’s opinion to increase our understanding, we religiously hold on to ours as if our life depended on it. Some of us might have the opposite problem, that of not believing in ourselves and addicted to thinking less of ourselves than is reasonable, always taking others as right and better and ourselves as wrong and worthless. These feelings control our reality.
The sad truth is that many of us have become addicted to ourselves, our preferred and familiar wounded feelings and from them our ways of seeing and understanding,

Rohr says “People’s addiction to their own system blinds them to anything and everything that falls outside that system. What they see and feel is only what feeds their addiction or what threatens it. To themselves they seem logical, even if they are incoherent, reasonable even if they are irrational and moral, even when they are doing things that are destroying themselves and others.” (p21)

Healing Awareness.
Our addictions are to particular feelings we have. We inflate the feeling by justifying and defending the beliefs behind it. This becomes part of our identity. For example, a feeling of insecurity might cause a man to be very controlling and when challenged he might defend his position saying the world is a mess and someone needs to exert some real control. He will cite many examples of why more control would make things better. He might hurt his family in his overbearing control. This is his addiction. In reality he might have had an absent dad as a boy which left him with a wound of insecurity and this needs healing rather than exerting more control which only makes the wound worse. Assuaging wounded feelings makes them more vicious and empowered while making us more stuck and powerless.
For healing we need to hear what the feelings are saying and find alternative views on that area. As with our example, insecurity will not be healed by more control but by new and different forms of security. Maybe we already have enough security and need to wean ourselves of the addictive feeling by actively being less controlling and perfectionistic. People who are different from us are the ones we need to learn this from, not others who are controlling. What are your own additive patterns?

Reflection and Journal (10 minutes in silence)
Reflect on your own selection of emotions. Which do you dwell in mostly? Anxiety, fear, anger, moodiness, optimism, need of change etc? Choose one.
1. What lies behind your reality? What beliefs does it engender?
2. How has this belief become part of your identity and how do you justify it?
3. How do you behave as a result?
4. What might the invitation be to let go of this focus?
5. Who could help you find new ways of being?

Connecting with each other in the group.
Share around the circle something of what you are finding in yourself.

This week. Reflect on your feeling patterns and explore new ways to respond to them.Read chapter 5 of Richard Rohr’s “From Wild Man to Wise Man”