Most people are trying to change the outcomes in their lives, rather than changing themselves as a person. They want to have meaningful, loving and trustworthy relationships, generate more capital, get physically fit or set up a business, without truly putting in the effort to rewire their brains and change their subconscious programming. This is putting the cart before the horse.

Having personal boundaries is an act of love. When we are able to assert a boundary, we are practising super self-care. We are being honest with ourselves about what is both acceptable and unacceptable to us. When we are honest with ourselves about what we wish to discuss with and disclose to others, we are being authentic and honest. This might seem perfectly obvious but a lot of people struggle with asserting personal boundaries due to co-dependency, people-pleasing and low self-worth.

Have you heard the saying by the actor Lily Tomlin, ‘The road to success is always under construction’? I like this concept. My spiritual journey has certainly been messy and uncomfortable at times. I had several emotional breakdowns before experiencing an emotional breakthrough. In essence, layers of deep denial and negative thought-patterns had to be unravelled and replaced with new and greater self-awareness.

It is our unconscious thoughts, emotions, sensations, feelings and beliefs which will paint our reality. The difficulty for many of us is attempting to build a new fulfilling reality if we have experienced something different. When something goes ‘wrong’ while we are untangling from a co-dependent relationship or creating a new goal, our automatic reaction is to immediately revert back to old thinking and habits.

The difficulty in overcoming self-abandonment is that it is very often unconscious behaviour. Some of us are so deeply ingrained in our survival traits, and swamped in self-delusion, that we cannot see when we are neglecting ourselves. It is extremely difficult to heal from self-abandoning behaviour without help. We need non-shaming people to mirror back to us our disempowering behaviour.

The more we try to disassociate from our shame, relying solely on our own reasoning and will power in an attempt to get some emotional relief, the stronger the hold shame has over us. Our shame-based behaviour will find ways to reveal itself if we remain in denial about our pain. Shame can be very subtle and often operates at a subconscious level of awareness. However, when we accept we are carrying unresolved shame, we can heal and make peace with ourselves.

It has been said that bereavement is a state of loss and grief is a response to loss. To grieve is a natural and healthy response to our losses. It is nature’s way of letting us heal and open ourselves up to a new chapter in our lives.

A sex addict is also emotionally anorexic – they must be in order to continue participating in isolated behaviour such as being addicted to pornography and being promiscuous or having multiple affairs. All of these secretive behaviour patterns affect a family and home.

Think of an untreated sex addict who spends hours every night until the early hours watching pornography on the internet instead of spending that time with their wife or husband, and then becomes so tired due to the late nights that their professional life suffers. The sex addict’s behaviour will cause resentment, destroy trust and create economic insecurities in the family and home.