I mentioned that I’d discuss what Archangel Michael had to say in a reading I had with him on Aug. 22, 2014 about the notion of addiction to pain.
Perhaps I could make a few comments as preamble. In what seems at times a loveless, (1) 3D world, we’ll purchase what we want at the price or cost of feeling pain. Or dishing it out to others.
Pain is what we give and what we receive. The dense vibrations and our social conditioning lead us to traffic in pain.
For instance, we often choose being right over being happy, being angry over being loving, or being vengeful over being forgiving. Whatever our pattern is, we often seem to prefer pain to love.
Just a minute ago I was on a street corner. The man in front of me was standing more or less in the street. A car rounded the corner and honked at him just before turning. Instead of stepping back onto the curb, the man stepped forward, knocked on the passenger’s window, and called it “honking back.” Addiction to pain.
Moreover, it was all I could do not to frown at him or express my disapproval in other ways. Addiction to pain.
In a relatively-loveless, Third-Dimensional state, self-righteousness and anger can feel good. For a while.
We feel triumphant. We feel vindicated. We sell out to and settle for these feelings, in the absence of love.
But later it feels awful. And it eventually becomes a world view, a false grid: Get them before they get you. Eat or be eaten. It’s a harsh, dog-eat-dog world.
I remember in the 1990s reading the business literature that represented the world as being full of sharks eating everyone else’s lunch. Sociologists called this viewpoint Social Darwinism. This is how it came to be that way.
Moreover, in a loveless world, when things escalate, our vasanas are triggered. We erupt. The sleeping volcanoes awaken.
In a world characterized by love, a conditioned addiction to pain would probably never attract us. But we may not see any of that while living in a loveless state.
Sometimes I don’t see very far at all as a matter of fact. I react like a stimulus/response machine. I’m in a dumbed-down, robotic state. Mechanical. Listless.
With that as preamble, let’s now hear what AAM said on the subject:
S: Can you explain what you mean by addiction to pain? Addiction to pleasure I can understand, but not pain. What is addiction to pain?
AAM: Addiction to pain is one of the most common addictions on the planet.
S: Really? Is that like my addiction to anger?
AAM: Yes. All addictions are addictions to pain.
S: Wow. The concept escapes me. I don’t know why.
AAM: If you scratch the surface, they are all about pain. They are all self-injurious.
S: Why would somebody want that? Addiction to me means you want something; in this case, you want pain?
AAM: A lack of love is the way the old Third was constructed.
S: Really.
AAM: Yes, that was how you were all held captive. You all became addicted to pain.
S: Pain. But pain hurts. Why would anybody want pain?
AAM: So that you could feel that you were in control.
S: In control of what?
AAM: You have seen teenagers who cut their arms.
S: Yes, cutters.
AAM: And the reason they cut their arms is that physical pain jumps in front of the emotional pain.
S: Oh. So a cutter is a metaphor for what you’re talking about.
AAM: Yes.
S: Ok. I’ll look a little more into cutters and that may allow me to get a handle on this. (2)
Cutters take a razor and cut themselves. It brings them back to the present moment, apparently. The physical pain is the only thing that can supersede the emotional pain, if I understand the matter rightly.
I have a similar example from my own past. Anger would fuse the Humpty Dumpty Man back together again. I was then decisive, definite, confident, in word and deed – for as long as I was angry. I’d have a short burst of power, which felt wonderful, followed by a long burst of misery.
So the shattered man became addicted to anger. If I substitute “addiction to anger” for “addiction to pain,” I get the notion immediately.
(Concluded tomorrow)
Footnotes
(1) When I say “loveless,” I don’t mean the fondness, affection or similar states we experience in Third Dimensionality, but real, transformative love such as we have at the height of a spiritual experience. That alone for me is love.
(2) Personal Reading with Archangel Michael and Steve Beckow through Linda Dillon, Aug. 22, 2014.