The following writing is my attempt to add some more bread crumbs to the body of work researched and recorded by Devin about breaking the pattern of swamp addiction (https://medium.com/@devingleeson/the-swamp-swamp-addiction-75a6bbd68556). During my journey to break the pattern of my self-destructive swamp addiction I have had an amazing team by my side, 17 people from all over the world who agreed that I could call them up at any time so that I could connect as soon as I felt a swamp starting. I would take out my phone, feeling shit scared every time, knowing that someone would answer if I just started calling them 1 by 1, and knowing I was starting to enter some kind of swamp, though often not knowing what it was about or what I would say or what I would feel when the call started. But I was close enough to rock bottom to be more scared of not calling on my team than calling them. The cost of going in and out of the swamp was just too high. It was either give up everything precious in my life I have fought for, or get out of the swamp for good.
I am still in the swamp research and probably will be for a while! As I write this it has been 8 days since calling someone on my team, meaning 8 days totally swamp free. Life is different. One of the biggest surprises has been experiencing a constant background level of joy that I never felt before.
It has helped to write down these breadcrumbs, and it is also a way of thanking my spaceholders for being by my side by sharing the value I received. In my culture value grows by sharing it! I hope some of what I found can be helpful to others who are addicted to the swamp.
What is the swamp?
I was really surprised when I found out that my swamp was not very visible to others. Often I would be 40 or 50% swampy in the background with all sorts of self-criticism going on, struggling to stay in connection with myself and others, judging all my impulses, and I would assume that everyone could tell. I told this to one of my colleagues, and she said “what??? You mean you are in the swamp right now? I thought this is what you are like when you are sleepy!”.
Similarly, a friend of mine had some very challenging months after her first child was born, she was having suicidal thoughts and called her mother to ask if she could come and stay with her for a while to support her. Her mother told her that the most scary thing to witness was how she could be out in her community laughing and joking and talking ‘normally’ yet at home the show would drop away.
Your swamp, and others’ swamps, might not be as visible to you or others as you might think.
During the weeks where I called someone on my team as soon as I noticed myself putting a foot in the swamp, sometimes I would call not knowing if I was entering the swamp or not. I would just feel something changing in my body, like fear without knowing why, or sensing my energy leaking out and my face going pale. Sometimes there were no conscious swamp thoughts, or I would not have noticed what happened that initiated the change. By calling up someone anyway and lowering my numbness bar to the emotions I got much more sensitive to the subtle shifts that told me I was entering the swamp, and better at distinguishing between swamp doorways and other states.
Swamp is a state. It can be anywhere from 1% to 100% intensity. A state is a 5-body experience, like a blueprint that you can sense in each body (mental, emotional, energetic, physical and archetypal). Your state affects the reality you create. For example there are times you will probably have experienced a ‘flow state’ where everything seems to just come together like magic without you needing to plan or control things. In a swamp state it is like the opposite; everything seems to go wrong no matter what you do. Building sensitivity to your states gives you power to navigate them like they would be rooms in your house. You get the option to walk past the rooms you do not want to enter, and to create rooms that empower you. Each room has a point of origin.
(Read Devin’s article for a more detailed description of what the swamp is)
What Is the Point of Origin That Feeds your Swamp?
I found out that behind all my different swamps was one main box-structure, which was an over-focus on the question: is what I am offering working or not working? The thoughtware behind this question is: my value depends on my offerings working. So when my offerings as a spaceholder were not working I would have this background swamp saying I should give people their money back, apologize for trying to offer something I am not able to offer, leave and never hold space again.
When they are not working in my relationship then my swamp would say she would be better off without me, I should just stop trying so she can leave me and find someone else. My point of origin was: I should be valuable to others.
I was speaking to a friend about this and she figured out that the part of her box behind all her swamps was: I have to do everything alone, so every time she would notice evidence that others are not available or capable to support her it would be a doorway to her swamp.
When you are in the swamp the stories and emotions that drive it get much more intense, so in my case I would really believe I am totally worthless. In my friend’s case she would really believe she is totally alone. Noticing evidence for any other story about what is really happening seems almost impossible.
Apply this now:
Change the question that you focus on.
E.g. instead of ‘is what I am doing working?’ I now focus on the question ‘what do I want to create right now?’, and whether or not it works is irrelevant because I can try things out, refine them as I go, and trust my teams for feedback and coaching instead of trying to do it by myself. By changing my question my point of origin changes from ‘i should be valuable to others’ to ‘I create what I want’.
Your swamp hurts others too
As far as low drama goes, I thought that my swamp was a relatively harmless one that did not affect others too much. I saw other people being controlling, blaming, complaining, having rage attacks, being manipulative, being addicted to drugs or alcohol, and I thought their dramas were much worse than mine. I was wrong.
The first hint I got about this is when I sent a message in one of my teams that I thought was thanking one of my teammates for her clarity. She had asked me to leave the team as I was not an active member. But the feedback I got about my message was that it was a secret underground attack on her by relating to her as an authority figure, putting her on a pedestal, and stoking the fire of any resentments in the team against her so that she could be attacked. I was shocked at the feedback, and when I looked deeper I found out a secret hatred in me toward her because she was being bold and courageously creating things in her life that mattered to her, and I was not. I thought that my self-destructive swamp was only affecting me, but after this feedback I saw that it was having repercussions in every team I was in, in fact every relationship I was in. Being constantly in and out of the swamp was the example I was giving my children about how to be an adult.
During one of my 15-minute calls my space holder just started crying to see me expressing the self-hate, and it really hit home how much it was hurting others by me hurting myself.
Hitting Rock Bottom
Hitting rock bottom for me was realising the impact my swamp had on my relationship. I had been going in and out of the swamp regularly for 7 years. It is scary to realise this. The time is past for apologies, and now instead I must change something, quickly. I also know that pressuring myself to change by ‘doing’ more or trying to be better is not going to work. I have tried pressure so many times. The only way left is to feel all the fear and sadness, anger and joy, to live in the terrifying space of just not knowing what to do, without being a victim of it, or glorifying it, or even making any story about it. Rock bottom is an ongoing navigation to storylessness, to noticing my bullshit; excuses, reasons, explanations, lies, positive thinking, fantasy imaginations, attempts to cover things up or be better or good or do the right thing. What is left are raw emotions and feelings and the unknown and a deep relief of letting the show fall away.
Another aspect of rock bottom I found was coming up against a terror of holding transformational spaces (my main work), especially having recently moved to a city where I hardly knew anyone and had to grow my circle almost from scratch. After months of offering workshops and coachings and trying and trying and trying to get momentum, I was getting almost nowhere, except deeper into a self-destructive and despairing state.
At some point there was nothing left to do but break down in despair and grief, which I did, twice. During two separate team meetings. I do not think there is any method to hitting rock bottom. It is unpredictable, unknown, and can not be faked.
Addiction stops you from hitting bottom and the swamp is an addiction. Two movies that portray hitting bottom in regard to healing addiction are: Flight with Denzel Washington, and Two for the Money with Al Pacino and Matthew Conaughey. Though I am not saying you should aim to make as big a mess as they did! I do not think there is any need to make a bigger mess than you are already creating, what is important is to get real about the mess you are already creating. There is one scene in Two for the Money where Al Pacino stands up and talks in a gambling addiction meeting about the joy / ecstasy of having nothing left, after losing everything in gambling. There is a Gremlin joy like this behind every addiction, which is an important part to get real about.
Apply this now:
Watch one of those films at a time. After each write down all the ways you are creating distractions, lies, excuses, cover ups, fantasies, reasons and masks to avoid getting real about who you really are. Share what you find slowly and clearly with your team. Let yourself feel about it.
Emotions Cycle
One of the things I found during my 15-minute feeling calls was that the main two emotions I would express were fear and sadness. It really helped to express them! Especially in the beginning it took me some practise to be able to express the fear without going in my head and explaining it. It helped to say “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know….. “ as many times as I needed until some other information came. After I could shake and cry and make all the sounds, things loosened up in my heart space, meaning that by 15 minutes I was out of the swamp.
After about a week of doing this every time I noticed a swamp starting, one of my team members coached me to navigate to the anger and the joy, and this was a game changer.
Expressing anger brought outward movement in my system that let me go into motion, whereas the sadness and fear would tend to keep me cycling internally.
Expressing joy was difficult and scary. There I found the Gremlin ecstasy part — the unconscious joy of how it hurts others when I hurt myself, and that I destroy the precious trust and magic in relationships. The ecstasy continued; if people would leave the relationship, then I would get to torture myself by imagining them having a better life without me, rubbing in the self-hatred and self-obsession even more.
After I had expressed that unconscious joy and been confronted with the shadow purpose of my swamp, I broke down crying. After that it was much more difficult to enter the swamp again, I would say this was one of my major turning points.
The practise of experiencing unconscious joy is trained during Gremlin Transformation Chapter Zero in the Gremlin ecstasy work.
Apply this now:
Go through the whole emotion cycle with a space holder. Start with the emotion on top, and keep going until you can authentically express all 4 emotions; fear, sadness, anger and joy. Let go of any ideas about what those feelings will be about, especially any idea that the joy will be positive.
Your swamp is not ‘your truth’
It is an easy trap to fall into, that when someone asks you how you are, you think that telling them about the swamp you are in is the same as telling them ‘your truth’.
How could the swamp be the truth? When you are in the swamp you are in the swamp, that is true, but does that make any of your swamp stories and emotions true? Of course not. They are just a story world you make about whatever is happening.
Sharing about it as though it is your truth just snaps you deeper into the story world.
I found out the hard way what impact it can have on a relationship to repetitively share from the swamp. Another possibility is to name that the swamp is happening and at what % intensity, then do not let it take up any space in your precious relating. Do your writing. Create a team around you of people who you could do 15 minute feeling calls with. Research it. Name each swamp. Find out exactly what circumstances set it off. Consciously navigating out of your swamp takes practise.
When you are in the Swamp, Relax.
Remember the scene in the first Harry Potter film, where they get stuck in the vines? The vines get tighter and tighter the more you struggle until they strangle you to death. However, the way out is to totally relax, then you simply drop right through to the room beneath.
That is exactly how to approach a swamp when you are in it.
Relax. Breathe. Look around. Feel. Observe. Navigate to a small now. Do the practises in Devin’s article and this one. And at some point you will drop through.
Devin writes in his article, “even if you can only do this with 5% of your presence, it is still enough to start”.
Life Is A River
A friend of mine told me a story from his white water river-kayaking days, where he asked one kayaking expert, “what is the best stroke to use when I get pinned by the river against a wall?”
The answer was; “there is no best stroke to use, the best strokes are the ones to use before you get pinned — recognize where the walls are and do not go there!”
Navigating swamps is the same kind of thing — first you need to know what the ‘walls’, or swamps look like. As soon as you see one coming, you recognize the circumstances that initiate it, then you take the strokes to avoid it. If you are not aware enough of what the swamps look like and feel like then you will be in them before you have a chance to navigate past them.
As a swamp addict it will feel normal to go in and out of swamps, maybe even every day. It may feel so normal that you think “this is just what life is”. Your Swampiness is invisible to you. You forget that life is actually a river! In the river, the forces of life are at your back. It is the wildest ride on earth!
Apply this now:
Every time you notice yourself in a swamp, track it back to the exact moment it started and identify what happened. It helps to be as specific as possible about what starts your swamp, e.g. if certain memories start your swamp, which memories? Does something trigger the memories? Even if this swamp is a constant background noise in your life, there will be circumstances that make it stronger, and identifying those is going to help you build a gap between you and the swamp.
Hint: ‘Feeling alone’ is not an entry point to the swamp. It is already one of the swamp sentences in your mind “I am alone” + whatever emotions accompany it. The start point might be when you are alone at your house and no one is contacting you, for example. The entry point is what is happening before you make any story about it.
Find the unconscious fears
These are some examples of unconscious fears that might be lurking behind your swamp.
Fear of:
- not knowing what to do
- being judged
- coming across as trying to convince others about anything
- trying something that doesn’t work and being seen as a failure
- being useless / saying useless things / having useless contributions
Apply this now:
Discover the unconscious fears that are connected to your swamp and record them. Find a partner and practise doing the things you are afraid of on purpose. For example if you are afraid of saying useless things, say useless things on purpose! If you are afraid of being judged try to do things that you will be judged about! This is high level fun.
Doing this practise will help to transform your swamp doorways into discovery doorways.
Unmet Childhood Needs and Your Swamp
Just as a sapling tree needs shelter from the wind, nutritious soil, warmth and sunshine a human child has five basic needs too: the need for certainty, uncertainty, significance, love and belonging. These needs can be met by knowing:
- They are physically safe, and can depend on someone (certainty),
- That they can discover and learn new and unknown things (uncertainty),
- That they are noticed and listened to (significance),
- That they can be loved independently of the way they are behaving or feeling (love),
- That they belong to something bigger than them such as the earth or a healthy Archiarchal culture (belonging).
One useful definition of an addiction is that it is a behaviour pattern that meets 3 or more of your childhood needs simultaneously (definition from Ana Norambuena).
In reality almost nobody had all their childhood needs met, meaning your box stayed crystalised in survival mode, un-prepared for the shift to expansive mode that accompanies authentic initiation to Adulthood. Your familiar survival strategies now meet these unmet needs in non-linear ways. For example being addicted to the swamp is often all about me me me (significance), is a safe state where you are not able to take risks (certainty), and maybe you have other friends with similar swamps who you can be in shared misery with (belonging), or your pattern of dealing with your swamp is to run away and go on some adventure leaving your family behind to clean up your messes (uncertainty), or you have a rescuer in your life who consoles you when you are down (love). However as an adult people tend to be repelled by your neediness, leaving you in a desperate state of needing something from the outside and not knowing what to do about it. Being a slave to your childhood needs must end for you to live an Initiated Adult life.
Apply this now:
What main needs are you trying to meet by entering your swamp? How could you experience getting those needs met in a conscious way? for example:
- get a partner to represent your mother and let your needy child part speak to her unfiltered. Tell her you need more time with her breast, you need more love, more touch, more more more… go all the way. Then another time do the same thing with your father. After each session get your partner to hold you for 20 minutes.
- do 20 minute holdings every week for 3 months.
- ask your team if they can be with you for 10 minutes while you are the centre of attention, and you just brag about yourself, tell them what is so great about you, talk, dance, do whatever you want to be seen doing.
- make up your own way of meeting a need that you sense you are incomplete with.
The last step is only possible after you have authentically expressed your neediness, as you will have done in the above experiments.
Now, when you notice the force of a childhood need coming up, say to yourself: my childhood is over, that need will never get met. And move on, leave it as an unmet need in the past.
There are plenty of trees that grew up in very terrible conditions, yet became adults nevertheless, and are beautiful in their gnarly wind-swept presence. And the same goes for humans; You are reading this, which means you survived your childhood. Leaving your unmet childhood needs in the past, so that they do not influence your actions and behaviours in the present is a real possibility. Going through the process of leaving your needs in the past is an act that creates your own certainty, uncertainty, belonging, significance and love from the inside out, in the small now, as an Adult.
You were built to ride the river of life.
Part of the skills required to become a competent river rider is to smell the swamps a mile off and navigate with elegance to stay freshly skimming on the living waters, rather than festering in stinking hell-world swamps. May this research serve you on your journey to being in the river of life your heart knows is possible.
Written by Tristan Girdwood
