Establishing
Balance and Stability Through Values
What
does it all mean? Everything that you have learned so far--from
the Wheel of Sexual Compulsion to the "ritualistic chains";
from the elements/filters involved in producing stimulation
to the critical things to look for in a healthy recovery;
from the role of emotions to the role of immediate gratification--is
meaningless until you apply it to your partner's life.
The
underlying theme to everything that you have been presented
with so far (in terms of sexual addiction), is that it is
in your partner's nature to pursue a state of emotional comfort--in
their reality, not yours. It is in their nature to
attempt to manage their emotions in a way that will provide
them with comfort and balance. Within the body, this natural
process is called homeostasis. It exists within the emotional
self as well. For everyone, such balance and stability can
be accomplished through a reality-based pursuit of values--both
universal (socially-accepted) and unique (personal); or it
can be accomplished artificially through the manipulation
of the body's response mechanisms. One is permanent, providing
long-term emotional stability and personal growth; the other
is temporary, providing short-term emotional stability and
long-term chaos/emotional imbalance. Obviously, the only healthy
choice for your partner to make is to begin learning how to
manage emotions based on a foundation of healthy values. But
what are those values? Who determines what is of value to
him/her and how important each value is? Your partner, that's
who.
It
is your partner's responsibility to determine what type of
person that he/she wants to be, and what type of life that
he/she wants to live. They make these decisions based on what
in life is important to them. In the context of recovery,
begin by thinking of your partner's values as those things
which, when they are experiencing them, provide them with
a feeling of accomplishment, satisfaction and a sense of purpose.
Things that, when your partner associates themselves with
these traits, make them feel good. Also, think of their values
as those same traits that, when they are acting in a way that
contradicts them, fills your partner with feelings of failure,
frustration, guilt and/or shame. Some of the most common values
in life include: your family; your career; your education;
your pets; your home; your car; even your sexuality. Values
can be anything that is important to you and your feeling
good about yourself. Or, as was mentioned, trigger feeling
bad about yourself when acting in a way that is inconsistent
with those values.
Simple
Versus Universal Values
Values
can be divided into two main categories: simple and universal.
The simple values are those that can be traced to objects
or events. All of the values listed above are examples of
"simple" values. Each is directly associated with
either an object (people, places, things) or an event (or
series of events) in your life. Each of these simple values
can then be traced to the more complex, "universal values"
such as self-preservation, acceptance and meaning. A list
of the more common universal values will be discussed later
in this lesson, but for now, what is important is for your
partner in early recovery is to begin developing a sense of
their own values: both simple and universal. In Lesson Six
of the PRIDE Workshop,each participant identified ten values
that were important to them. These values are the building
blocks for their foundation.
Depending
on the severity of your partner's addiction, they might feel
as if they have no values left. That their character is somehow
"flawed" because they have no desires, no ambition
and/or no drive. This is fairly common to those who have relied
on compulsive behavior for long periods of time (we're talking
years, not months). But the character flaw description is
inaccurate. Even if your partner has no current interests
or desires, at one point in their life, they did. It may have
been as a child, or when they were a teen, or even as an adult,
but rest assured, your partner was born with the potential
to develop values. Now, the development of many of these values
might have been significantly disrupted over the course of
your life--through traumatic events or a lack of nurturing/social
training; or these values may have significantly deteriorated
as a result of the addictive patterns; but the potential to
develop them remains for almost everyone. So, if your partner
believes that they were born without a sense of values (perception
being more powerful than reality), then they must take the
time to develop them from scratch. Right now. Permanent recovery
cannot be achieved without a thorough understanding of what
it is in life that they value. These values provide both a
road map for personal achievement and a compass for the decisions
that your partners will make for the rest of their lives.
It is impossible to move beyond addiction without this foundation
of values--and the knowledge of how to use them.
Values
and Balance
Recall
the story of the two students who received less than perfect
grades presented earlier in the workshop. Both had initial
stress reactions, yet the girl whose only values were food
and grades had a much more devastating reaction to the same
event than did the girl who had many different values to rely
on. Why is this? The answer lies in human nature.
As
stated previously, each of us have our own innate desire to
maintain a feeling of emotional comfort. We have each developed,
quite naturally, our own ways of balancing whatever threatens
or disrupts that feeling of comfort. In other words, each
of us have developed our own ways of balancing stress. In
a theoretical state of perfect emotional balance, your emotional
scale would look as follows:
There
are several things to know about this scale: First, note the
absence of stress. In reality, of course, such a state can
never be reached as stress is a constant in our lives. If
we do not create it by our action (or inaction), others will
provide an ample supply from their's. Even if we maintain
a completely isolated existence, away from all external sources
of stress--which is also an impossibility--we still must acknowledge
the effects of physics--gravity, environmental stressors,
physiology (aging, hunger, disease). Not to mention the effects
of change in any form--be it positive or negative change.
Stress, therefore, is a constant. Second, realize that each
bar on the graph represents a separate value (like family,
sexuality or self-respect). When we begin adding stressors
to this scale, realize also that each bar on the Stress side
of the scale will represent a separate stressor in that person's
life. Finally, note the numerical values assigned to the set
of values. These numbers represent the ongoing amount of stimulation
that is provided to an individual when such values are fulfilled.
(For those who are thinking back to the values assigned as
a result of the Wheel of Sexual Compulsion...they directly
relate to these numbers assigned here. In the Wheel, the numerical
values assigned to the ritualistic chains represented the
amount of stimulation a person was able to produce via compulsive
thoughts and behavior. Here, the stimulation is produced by
a foundation of values. The number "150" is arbitrary,
but represents a perfect state of emotional well being.
"How
can the scale be balanced, when there is nothing on one side,
and something on the other?" Everyone requires
some sort of stimulation to be emotionally satisfied, and
to attempt a life with no stress and no values (and thus producing
a visually "balanced" scale), is to misunderstand
the role of stimulation in your life.
Because
stress cannot be avoided, and people are forced to manage
that stress in order to maintain a state of emotional well
being, the following scale is more reflective of reality:
Note
that the total stimulation provided by this person's values
is "180". The total amount of Stress (or negative
stimulation) is "30". Subtracting the negative stimulation
from the positive leaves the person with a total emotional
score of "150"--the level needed for emotional satisfaction.
Let's take a look at a scale of someone who is experiencing
mild stress:
See
that the total amount of stress ("80"), when subtracted
from the overall stimulation provided from their values ("160"),
creates an overall emotional score of "80". This
is not enough to achieve absolute emotional comfort, and so
the person would be classified as mildly stressed. Review
the following table for a complete understanding of the score
interpretations.
Interpreting
Emotional Scores
| Emotional
Score |
Emotional
Comfort Level |
| 150
and above |
Actualization
(complete emotional comfort) |
| 149-100 |
Emotionally
Comfortable |
| 99-50 |
Mildly
Stressed |
| 49-1 |
Moderately
Stressed |
| 0
and below |
Severely
Stressed |
As
you can see, the greater the discrepancy between a person's
values and their stress, the greater the need for compulsive
behavior to assist in managing that stress. Because there
are not adequate life skills developed (e.g. personal values)
to balance this stress, the person must then turn to artificial
sources. But because such artificial means are temporary,
as their effects subside, the addict finds himself even more
out of balance--a direct result of the additional time spent
neglecting the very values which are already lacking.
Take a look at the following scales of someone who is Severely
Stressed: notice how the amount of negative stimulation ("210")
cannot be managed with the significantly deteriorated values
that they posses ("50"). This equals an emotional
score of "-160", which represents a Severely Stressed
person.
In
each of the above examples, we viewed how a relatively healthy
individual attempts to balance stress with a foundation of
values. Now let's look at a typical scale from someone relying
on compulsive behavior to manage their stress. The green represents
the amount of further stimulation needed in order to obtain
emotional comfort (e.g. to achieve a level of at least "150").
Because these people have no other values to provide this
stimulation, they are forced to produce the stimulation through
artificial means. That could mean through, among other things:
alcohol, drugs, eating, gambling or sex (enter the stimulation
produced from the Wheel of Sexual Compulsion).
When
a person achieves emotional satisfaction through such artificial
means, they have achieved what is known as "Delusional
Actualization". In Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs,
at the top is self-actualization--the feeling of complete
self-awareness and control. Compulsive behavior allows an
individual to temporarily believe that they are approaching
such actualization. Of course, this is a false belief, which
triggers the need for the term "delusional" in this
concept. Delusional Actualization occurs when a person uses
artificial stimulation to produce a feeling of emotional perfection.
No matter how threatened/deteriorated your values become,
your compulsive behavior will always provide you with the
temporary feeling of comfort--with the temporary feeling that
your life is in a perfect state of emotional balance (delusional
actualization).The following is an example of a scale involving
such a state:
Note
how the person's values can not possibly balance the stress
that they are experiencing. The only way of achieving emotional
balance is to produce it through other means...like developing
their own "cookies" from the Wheel of Sexual Compulsion.
But what happens when a person's values have become completely
eroded? The scale would look as follows:
In
such a state, the person's addictions/compulsive behavior
will have actually replaced their values. When this happens,
their identity will have fused with their addiction...and
they will believe that they are indeed powerless to control
their behavior. They will believe that these compulsions are
a natural part of who they are. They will believe that they
cannot exist without these behaviors in their life.
To
summarize, your partner's values create their identity. When
they artificially replace those values with addictive behavior,
their addiction becomes their identity. The goal, then, is
to redevelop their identity by forming a foundation of values
that represent who they want to be. That represent the person
that they know they are inside. To become the person that
you know they are inside.
But
how?
To
have your partner choose values at random--or worse, have
them chosen by you--is not the answer. If it were that easy,
they might have done it long ago. What it will take is for
your partner is to begin an open, honest relationship with
themselves. This is what I ask them to do in the Recovery
Workshop:
