Hey there,

In this edition:

• I was a sucking hole

• How did we get here?

• How to dig ourselves out

• Pls reply with your thoughts

I was in a training workshop with one of the pioneers of Psychodrama.

Adam Blatner wrote “Acting In”—the bible of this powerful technique.

I was a young therapist and attending with my girlfriend at the time.

I was complaining that she just wasn’t caring for me enough.

Adam said, “Well, are you going to do the work or not?”

I babbled for a while, then said, “What do you mean?”

He wasn’t much on mincing words—or endless talk.

“Bob, do you always plan to be suctioning love?”

“Do you want to remain a giant sucking hole?”

It hit me hard. It cracked me open.

I cried for the next 2 hours.

Diving into the black hole…

Of abandonment.

It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.

—Joseph Campbell

I’ve always had a sense that something was missing.

And I’ve tried to fix it with self-medicating, academic degrees, money—but the deepest pain has been in relationships.

I’ve been suicidal a couple of times over breakups. When that particular kind of pain consumed me, I was clueless as to how to function. And clueless about what was really happening.

Maybe you’ve been there. It’s so painful.

Job loss can also send us there. I’ve been a complete mess in that area a few times as well.

The level of hopelessness and pain should be a wake-up call to us. Obviously, something needs healing.

So, I’ve spent the last 25 years working on healing that “sucking hole” deep within me.

First, I had to understand how it works.

Here are three models that have helped me tremendously to unravel the mystery:

The Trauma Model

Trauma comes in many forms—severe and mild. 

Those of us with severe trauma are aware of the impact.

The more subtle forms—abandonment, neglect, and enmeshment—can be more difficult to recognize.

But we all had some dysfunction in our childhoods—there’s no perfect family. And there’s no blame here.

Most of us minimize the effects for survival purposes. Pack it away, forget about it.

Well, trauma gets lodged in the body. And the body does not forget. It holds it until we’re ready to look at it.

Whenever there’s conflict around a developing child, the child perceives it as their fault. They can’t yet individuate—or separate themselves—from the world around them. To the child, everything around them—IS THEM. 

Kids don’t have the ability to say “Dad needs a therapist” or “Mom needs a 12-step meeting.”

Instead, what does the kid say to themselves?

“It’s my fault, I must be causing this.” 

And this marks the beginning of our journey away from our authentic selves. 

Many of us spend the rest of our lives making choices to try to fix this thing inside of us that drives messages like, “I’m not enough,” “Why won’t they love me?” or “What did I do wrong?”

That thing has a name.

And it lives in our bodies until we surrender and do the grief work to heal it.

It’s called shame.

Dr. Brené Brown, the preeminent researcher on shame and vulnerability, defines shame as:

"...the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love, belonging, and connection."

Here’s the formula that explains how we got here:

1. Conflict or role confusion in a child’s family

👇️

2. Shame lodged in the body

👇️

3. Negative messages about self

👇️

4. Adjusting who we are to compensate

👇️

5. More conflict (aka “complex trauma”)

It’s a crazy cycle. Literally. It makes us feel crazy and hopeless.

Until we start accessing body-focused healing processes.

The Attachment Model

Attachment theory, developed by British psychologist John Bowlby, is another way to explain how early relationships with caregivers shape our emotional development and future relationships. 

Unmet emotional needs in early life can distort our understanding of ourselves. 

When caregivers are consistently nurturing, children develop secure attachment, feeling safe and worthy of love. 

But when caregivers are neglectful, inconsistent, or abusive, children can form insecure or disorganized attachments—becoming anxiously clingy, avoidant of closeness, or emotionally dysregulated. 

These maladaptive patterns often persist into adulthood, undermining trust, self-esteem, and the ability to form healthy relationships, as individuals unconsciously reenact early relational wounds in later bonds.

According to Bowlby, “If a child is raised with fear, hostility, or rejection, he is likely to develop an unconscious pattern that includes choosing others who will be unavailable or unresponsive.” 

So, we never get that old need for acceptance satiated. In fact, we perpetuate, intensify, and deepen the need for love and recognition.

Understanding this dynamic is crucial to healing.

The Love Addiction Model

Pia Melody pioneered the codependency model at The Meadows treatment center in Arizona in the 90s.

Codependency is when we struggle with self-esteem, setting boundaries, and owning our reality. We often look to the outside world for solutions to our inner conflicts.

Love addiction is the advanced form of this condition.

The University of Texas did a study of survivors of serious suicide attempts. 80% said a romantic breakup was the immediate cause of the attempt.

Doesn’t that point to something very wounded in us? 

The relentless search for “The one,” “My better half,” and “My everything” is often an attempt to medicate a very real abandonment wound deep within us.

Sam Keen, the author of “Fire in the Belly” says there are two important questions in life:

1. Where am I going

2. Who’s going with me

Most of us get these questions out of order. 

Think about it for a moment…

How many times have you gotten these questions out of order?

Hoping that “That someone” or “That job” or “That amount of cash” will finally fill that old hole.

Sometimes it does.

For a moment.

Then we’re back with ourselves…and those old messages.

Wherever we go…there we are.

These three models of examining how we’ve lost parts of ourselves can help us heal.

Most of our frustrations are rooted in childhood. And most of us hate that idea. It can seem trivial or impossible to address.

But it’s not. It’s the whole deal.

Quality support and Body-focused healing are the doorways out.

Get a somatically trained therapist. One with an understanding of attachment theory and addiction. 

Btw, codependency and love addiction work exactly like addiction. Just as the substance user adjusts his chemistry until he can’t stop, we often adjust our chemistry with the love and codependency cocktail until it requires treatment.

Go to a trauma workshop like deepwatersrecovery.org

Join a 12-step program like Codependents Anonymous, Adult Children, or Love Addicts Anonymous.

Again, it requires support. We were wounded in groups; we must heal in groups. 

We have to find a family of choice.

And learn to find the love we seek within.

The work involves becoming our own best friend.

Glad to be healing together.

Warmly,

Bob

PS. Let’s keep this healing movement alive:

• Inner Work Mastery - The 7-day healing program is closed for now, but you can get on the wait list here.

• Get my new book - Stop Doing Sh*t You Don’t Want to Do! Write an amazing review here. The Audiobook is now available on Audible, Spotify, Google Play, and Libro!

• Coaching/Therapy - I have a small practice for people deeply committed to the work. I also have three skilled colleagues with the same orientation. Reply if interested.

• Resources. You can go here for free and low-cost recovery and healing resources.

• Reply. I would love to hear your experience, strength, and hope. Just reply to this email. We publish a monthly roundup of reader responses.