Healing the Addictive Personality: Freeing Yourself from Addictive Patterns and Relationships Book

Introduction     1
The Path to Happiness and the Road to Misery Are Easily Confused     3
Recognizing an Addictive Personality and the Purpose of Healing     4
Healing Begins with the Invitation to Love     7
The Four A's: Achieving, Acquiring, Approval, and Accomplishing     7
When the Solution Becomes Another Addiction     8
Where to Find the Answers and How to Recognize the Smoke and Mirrors     9
Biological Factors and Addiction     10
Is There Really an Addictive Personality?     11
How to Use the Power of Choice to Heal     12
Your Teacher Is Standing Right in Front of You     12
Who We Are Versus Who Our Addictive Personality Tells Us We Are     15
The Truth about Happiness     17
Three Healing Words: "I Am Enough"     20
Denial: The Not-So-Little Secret     22
The Addictive Personality's Plan: Deny It and It Will Disappear     23
Projection: The Illusion That Keeps On Rolling     24
Special Hate and Special Love Relationships     26
The Thought System of the Addictive Personality     29
How the Addictive Personality Uses Fear to Control You     30
How to Break the Addictive Personality's Cycle of Fear     33
How the Addictive Personality Uses the Past and the Future to Prevent Positive Change     35
How the Addictive Personality Uses Judgment to Maintain Conflict-Centered Relationships     40
The Peaceful Alternative to Judgment     42
How the Addictive Personality Uses Scarcity     43
The Thirteen Core Beliefs of the Addictive Personality     45
I am separate from everybody else     45
If I want security and success, I must judge others     47
My perceptions are always correct and my way is the right way     48
Attack and defense are my only safety     48
The past and the future are real and must be worried about     48
Guilt is inescapable because the past is real     49
Mistakes require judgment and punishment     50
Fear is real     51
Other people and situations are at fault for my feelings and failures     52
Another's loss is my gain     53
I need someone or something else to complete me     54
My self-esteem is based on pleasing you     54
I need to control everyone and everything around me     55
How These Beliefs Combine Forces     55
The Two Forms of Communication     57
The Structure of the Truth-Based Personality      59
How the Truth-Based Personality Uses the Power of Love     62
How the Truth-Based Personality Uses the Present Moment to Set You Free     64
Peak Performance and the Present Moment     66
Six Principles to Peak Performance and Realized Opportunity     68
Six Old Patterns of the Addictive Personality and Six Truth-Based Alternatives     69
Watching the Breath     70
How the Truth-Based Personality Uses Acceptance to Create Deep Change and Peace-Centered Relationships     70
Recognized Essential Value     71
Deep Change Versus Surface Change     75
The Power Over Approach     76
The Power of Powerlessness Approach     77
Hard Honesty     78
Hitting Bottom     79
How the Truth-Based Personality Creates Opportunity and Miracles     80
Creating Opportunity and Abundance: What Is Valuable and What Is Not     82
The Myth about True Abundance     83
The Thirteen Core Beliefs of the Truth-Based Personality     85
What I see in others reflects my own state of mind     85
My safety lies in my defenselessness     86
Love is unconditional     88
Forgiveness, with hard honesty, ensures peace     89
Session      90
Only the present is real     92
To change my experience, I must first change my thoughts     93
Mistakes call for correction and learning     94
Only love is real     95
I am responsible for my life     95
I receive what I want by giving what I have     96
I am complete right now     97
My self-esteem comes from within     98
I can't change others, but I can change how I perceive them     99
The Core Beliefs of the Addictive Personality and the Truth-Based Personality     100
Beliefs of the Addictive Personality     100
Beliefs of the Truth-Based Personality     101
The Addictive Personality and the Fear of Intimacy     103
The Confusion between Freedom and Imprisonment     104
Accepting and Embracing the Life We Have Lived     108
Finding Freedom and Opportunity through Responsibility     109
The Big Myth: "I'm Not Okay the Way I Am"     110
The Misuse of Goals     111
Stopping the Cycle of Attack and Defense     111
A Truth-Centered Approach to Life     113
The Truth about Anger, Guilt, Attack, and Defense     114
Trust Versus trust     118
Learning to Recognize Our Essential Value     119
What the Addictive Personality Wants You to Believe     120
Irrational Beliefs of the Addictive Personality     128
Alternate Messages from the Truth-Based Personality     129
Being Compulsively-Other-Focused     130
Ten Core Beliefs of Being Compulsively-Other-Focused     132
Healing through Forgiveness     134
Letting Go     134
Affirming Who You Are     135
Truths about Myself     136
Healing Relationships: Growing Beyond the Addictive Personality in Our Interactions with Others     137
Six Core Truths of Truth-Based Relationships     138
Patterns That Create Conflict and Traps     140
Patterns That Create Peace and Opportunity     140
You Are Not Alone: An Introduction to the Daily Lessons     142
Daily Lessons     145
An Eleven-Week Action Plan for Continued Healing     168
Epilogue     171
Index     173
About the Author     178