Facade and addiction

[MikeCollier]

It feels to me like these two are almost interchangeable, but correct me if I am wrong. I think everytime I fall into one of my addictions, I am automatically falling into facade, because that's the whole point of addiction, to escape the pain of feeling something I don't want to. Escaping into a facade of myself.
So it feels like facade is the result of addiction from that standpoint. Facade is the state of active addiction (?)
Can we be in facade without an addiction in play ?

[Max]

Hi Mike

I thought I'd stick my neck out and attempt to answer your question.

My understanding of the relationship between facade and addiction is that the facade is the part of us that is false, it's not real from Gods perspective, therefore it's constantly fighting for its survival. When a part of our hurt self is triggered or asserts itself the facade engages in addictions to avoid this emotion ensuring its own survival. Addictions are the facades main tool of choice for self preservation. So I think it might be more accurate to say that addictions are the facades active endeavour for self preservation. If that's true then the facade could only survive without addiction temporarily because eventually LOA would trigger a real emotion (hurt self) that the facade would need to engage with addiction in order to keep that emotion unfelt. Which is one of the main purposes we created the facade for.

So you could look at facade as the noun and addiction as the verb, or the action the facade engages in for survival. That is why it's so important not to feed your addictions when you're trying to dismantle your facade. By not engaging in addictions you're robbing the facade of its oxygen supply in that one area.

I hope that answered your question. Cheers

Max

[Patricia Sanders]

I agree with what Max wrote and I like the way he put it. And Mike, I think what you wrote is also true. It seems to me that if we didn't have addictions in play, we'd therefore be in a loving state and have no need or desire for facade.

I believe you could also look at facade itself as an addiction. We hold up a facade in order not to experience emotions, e.g., if I present myself as knowledgeable and stylish, then I won't feel stupid and worthless and like no one will want to play with me.

This thread feels a bit intellectual though. I think it's good to get a level of intellectual understanding about these concepts, but really we only need to get the basic idea in order to get to work. For me definitely, my progress hasn't depended on improving my intellectual understanding but just on my willingness to engage emotionally.

Patricia

[maureen]

When I observe myself entering into a facade with someone there can be a multitude of reasons driving me. For instance, I am afraid of a woman who I know (actually I know quite a few) who has a crazy violent streak and I watch myself pander to her on really bizarre levels. So, I'm addicted to pandering to violent women. And I have a certain facade that I do that through. I watch myself play possum. And even contort my energy field to appear “non threatening” and to seem “undisturbed” when she tells me about things like how she just "went off" attacking people at the store she just came from.

Then there are other times when I am in a different facade, like when I feel afraid of unhealed injuries I sense inside of people. In that case I have always gone into my metaphysical/psychic/teacher role....which I have recently had pointed out to me is a facade of arrogance. When I am in that facade I feel less afraid and competent, perceptive, and in control. I give and give and go into counselor mode (even if it isn't truly solicited). And that helps me avoid my terror of what the unhealed person might do to me at some point if they never choose to look at their own issues. This is something I did from my earliest life...trying to "awaken" everyone in my sphere of influence so that we might all have a chance at salvation.

Oh, yeah, and there's the facade of wanting to please people I admire by performing in ways I hope will delight them....which is really manipulation....like a desperate child....the desperate child I once was....trying everything in her power to be loved by appeasing and pleasing.

So, for me, I am beginning to recognize I employ different facades for different reason in different circumstances based on different injuries I have remaining with God and the world. I can feel how creepy it is in a way....as I begin to be conscious for the first time about this movement in me....as it is happening...watching myself move to “adapt” to “arrive” into situations that would otherwise overwhelm me in ways because these “adaptations/facades” give me some semblance of control so I might assuage my terror and confusion and vulnerability at the sight of people and situations that I feel little capacity to love myself or others in the midst of yet.

I can see it is really off and as I am starting more and more to witness it as I engage it, I can see how hopeless and false and disconnected I become from my own soul and surroundings. It's like I am watching myself morph into someone else and becoming either a panderer to people whose actions I do not agree with or arrogant and unloving in the name of self-preservation in the guise of “helping” people see the “truth”.

It seems now that the more I seeing this, the more I can start to feel a choice not to do it and stay still and present and let the feelings I really have about the person/situation I am facing surface.

Love,
Moti

[maureen]

oh, and p.s. if I do that part (refrain from engaging the facade)...then there is an brand new opening for God's truth to enter into the equation on the matters at hand...which, when I have experienced that, has been profound. It's like the space the facade takes up is the place where the truth can be told to me by God....or something like that.

[maureen]

after writing that above post, I stumbled on this little guy...and I must say he gives a great demonstration of fully owning fear without engaging a facade....mostly for me, I am afraid more of the kind of attack I have often gotten (born of my unhealed relationship to my violent father which I am still facing and sorting out) when I feel my emotions of fear and terror in visible ways in front of people who scare me but don't want me to reflect the truth of how scary they really are back to them. My father would really come after me when I showed that I was afraid of him and used my showing of my fear as validation for further attack and so I became masterful at disguising how terrified I was/am of him which, of course, only allowed him to deny the truth of how awful his abuse was to those of us on the receiving end. It was a demand that was placed on me when I was so young that I have never really known that it was not the right thing to do...hiding my fear from abusers and those witnessing their abuse. I want to come to be present authentically more and more in all circumstance and with all people regardless of what is going inside of them or me....and, if I am afraid, I am sure God would want me to feel it without disguise (just like this delightful guy) or masking it behind a pandering pleasing facade....and hey,if this little fellow can do it...surely I can too!

[maureen]

what I love about him too is that it doesn't matter if what he is fearing is not really a true threat....I can see here how God wants all of us to feel our emotions fully...regardless of if we don't totally understand everything accurately....I mean how can we understand the truth of things perfectly before or until we reclaim our relationship to all of our emotions? We can feel things this intensely without causing harm...something I never knew before.

[Maxine]

It has taken me a while to get to this post which expresses my own denial of how much facade I have, but I am here now.

Max I like description ofcthe facade as noun and the addiction as verb. Thank you.

Moti, all that you wrote is really helpful. I recognised some of those facades in myself as I wrote. What I have begun to realise in the last couple of days is the unloving effect EVERY addiction I have has on others. I don't know all my addictions yet, but I am starting to realise that even the ones I think just harm myself , do not.

For instance, I have been a big self-attacker. I only saw this addiction as hurting me, but now I can start to see how over time my own self attack has led me to project demands and expectations to all those around me.... to the point that I now have cancer... which is a very angry state, which of course means huge avoidance of underlying fear/terrors and grief.

I think we often want to skip over the fact that everytime we are in facade and addictions we are being very unloving to all those around us.

Yukky stuff!

Maxine x