Heather R. Butler, CSW

What's in your closet? And I don't mean where you keep your clothes.

WHY YOU NEED TO VISIT ME.

What have you locked away in your closet?  Do you have anger, disappointment or sorrow in your closet? What have you pushed into your closet that you don't want to expose in fear that no one will understand?  We all have some level of lack of peace and/or pain in our life.  Therefore, we are looking for peace, or meaning, or relief, or connection, or fulfillment.  In the search, we may form an excessive dependency on something like:  

• Alcohol or drugs
• Work, achievement, or success
• Money: such as overspending, gambling, hording
• Control: especially if it surfaces in personal, sexual, family and business relationships
• Food: "comfort foods", overeating, compulsive eating
• Rescuing patterns toward other persons
• Dependency on toxic relationships
• Physical illness
• Academic pursuits
• General perfectionism
• Materialism
• and so on.

Most of us find ourselves somewhere on such a list.  We turn to things because we are hurting and want relief.