There has been a palpable intensity in the air as we move through Scorpio season. Emotions run deep on both the individual and collective level: for those of us living in the US, there is a heaviness permeating after a particularly charged presidential election. Scorpio takes us into the depth of our shadow, bringing to the surface unresolved emotions and patterns from the unconscious ready to be transformed and healed. As Scorpio’s ruler Pluto prepares its move into Aquarius, this is an especially potent time for releasing addictive habits and behaviors that no longer serve our highest path.
An addictive pattern in my own life that has come to the forefront during Scorpio season is emotional eating. Since I was a child, I’ve had a tendency to overindulge in sweets. Over my adulthood, my relationship with desserts has been complex: chocolate always evoked joy and pleasure, yet mixed in would be the sensations of guilt and shame that arose when overindulgence resulted in weight gain. The universe decided to bring that addiction front and center a few weeks ago when a new bakery called Levin (voted best bakery in the country) opened a branch in Philadelphia. Levin is a place where you can get warm, gooey cookies roughly the size of your hand daily, from 7 AM to 11 PM. During the first few weeks after their opening, I became a daily customer. My bakery stop was the highlight of each day: I’d carefully choose my cookie flavor (making sure to rotate through the six options each day for variety) and savor my few minutes of cookie bliss. Yet the temporary pleasure that I experienced negatively impacted the rest of my day: I became moody and had difficulty focusing, likely from the spikes in my blood sugar level. After listening to a lecture from Gabor Maté (the leading specialist on trauma and addiction), I came to understand my cookie addiction on a new level, realizing it was time to transform my relationship with dessert.
The reality is that most, if not all of us, have experienced an addiction in some form. Certain addictions are more accepted by society (shopping, working, social media are a few examples), others less so (drugs, alcohol, sex, etc.). If you too have an addiction that has been highlighted during Scorpio season, now ready to be healed, here are a few strategies to help navigate and transform these habits.
1) Cultivate self-compassion
We often resist taking ownership of addictions due to judgment and shame, yet these dependencies serve an important function. An addiction is actually a coping mechanism, an attempt by your body to self-regulate and soothe deep wounds and unmet needs stemming from childhood. If you do have an addiction, instead of making it wrong, try offering yourself compassion. Then get curious and ask what purpose it serves. In my case, my sugar addiction began in childhood as an adaptive response to my environment. I didn’t have a safe space to fully express and process my emotions, so I numbed uncomfortable feelings and learned to self-soothe through desserts. As an adult, emotional eating continued to serve as a coping mechanism during periods of sadness, overwhelm and stress.
2) Engage in somatic practices to connect with your body
Addictions offer an outlet for us to disconnect from our body and avoid feeling unresolved emotional pain. Yet the more we attempt to suppress our emotions, the greater the resistance we ultimately create in our lives. Emotions are simply energy in motion: when we come into stillness, go within and hold space for intense feelings, we allow them to flow through us, transform and heal. In my case, somatic practices helped me to access a deeper sadness behind the addiction needing to be seen. I realized that dessert had become a type of replacement parent, providing a sense of comfort that I didn’t receive as a child. My path to transforming my own addiction required me to give myself that comfort and reparent my inner child, providing her with the unconditional love I had come to seek through external sources.
3) Create your own nourishing rituals for self-love
Creating sacred rituals that bring us back to wholeness is a powerful tool in transforming addictions. Some practices that I love include connecting to the earth (ex. walking barefoot in the grass or hugging a tree), beginning and ending the day with gratitude (I like to speak outloud all of the people/things/situations that I’m grateful for) and doing aryuvedic self-massage before bed (this is very effective in soothing the nervous system and promoting restful sleep). Setting aside a few minutes a day to engage in simple nourishing rituals helps you to reconnect with your inner essence and cultivate self-compassion.
As we journey through the Scorpio energy of shedding and letting go, this is a time to consider any addictive patterns or behaviors you are ready to release. What past wounds are now being illuminated and how can you approach them with greater compassion?
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