That was certainly the case with a recent client.
In her first session with me, my client admitted that she has been struggling a lot lately, suffering with feelings of inadequacy, and imposter syndrome, which had been triggering her to engage in avoidance behaviour, including turning to internet surfing and television watching to cope.
We quickly found that she was holding onto the belief "I'm not good enough."
In my head, I thought, "well that would make sense...if she doesn't feel good enough to engage with the work she is meant to do, she would be drawn to procrastinate and do other things, like TV or internet."
Where did the belief "I'm not good enough" come from? We tracked it to a time when she was younger and her older brother bullied her. Despite her telling her parents that he was mistreating her, they took no action, and the torment continued. To her, "I'm not good enough" really meant "I'm not good enough for my parents to care about me...I'm all on my own". This general problem came attached to a specific memory that came to mind, though. In this one, her brother "decided" that she would no longer be allowed to watch TV for a year. He put a sheet over her head to prevent her from viewing the TV, and would interfere in other ways anytime she would try. As always, her parents did not intervene, and this behaviour went on for some time.
And then it hit us.
She wasn't surfing the web and watching television because she was avoiding doing other work. She was watching it because the little girl inside her wanted to watch TV and was upset with her big brother for not letting her!
My client's subconscious was communicating with her. That "desire to watch a screen" was meant to remind her of an earlier experience of when she had that same desire; it was trying to direct us to heal the abuse and neglect she experienced when she was young.
By the time we were done healing the experience, my client said the thought alone of spending hours in front of a screen made her nauseous - she had no desire to do it. She even wrote me later and told me that she had no craving to spend time on the internet or TV, and instead her evening was "pleasantly filled with other joyful stuff."
Yay!
Do you know anyone who is addicted to their screens? If they would like to get hours of their life back doing meaningful activities that would bring them more joy, let them know I can help and suggest they book a session today.
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