“This little dress would look amazing on me! And that suit over there—I’ve been looking for one like that for ages! Oh, and those shoes I spotted the other day… are they on sale?”
Deep down, you know you’re caught in an absurd spiral, frantically searching for something you are fully aware you don’t actually need. And you also know that behind this frantic quest lies something mysterious, something essential—a terrible, unfulfilled need that creates an abyssal void deep within you.
A crack exists within you, lurking in the depths of your being, creating an irresistible urge to fill it—by any means necessary.
Make no mistake! You are not just a fashion victim, a consumerism addict, or obsessed with appearances. That would be a misdiagnosis. Because behind these compulsive purchases likely lies something entirely unrelated—something directly connected to you and your soul, an existential void you have yet to recognize. In fact, this condition, also known as oniomania or, more commonly, shopping addiction, is not as rare as one might think, affecting over 1% of the global population.
How does one become a compulsive buyer?
When we dig a little deeper, certain expressions already point us in the right direction: “When I was younger, I was depressed, I had dark thoughts, I even attempted suicide.” And later, “I’ve always felt rejected, like I was just a ghost.” Goodness! That is no trivial matter. I would even add that if these feelings persist into adulthood, one might reasonably link them to compulsive buying. In other words, oniomania—this frenzy of compulsive shopping—has nothing to do with the desired object itself.
You might say, “Well, we suspected as much!”
Certainly, but isn’t it quite a leap to speak of an existential disorder?
Forgive me for contradicting you, but don’t you think that any attempt to escape, any obsessive search where the object itself is irrelevant, expresses a deep anxiety? And could we not imagine that to generate such profound anxiety, there is nothing more fundamental than what relates directly to our being, our existence, to what defines and constitutes us as thinking… and believing… human beings?
Why do we become compulsive buyers?
Let’s admit it, but how can we be sure we’ve got it right?
It’s very simple: when, on the very day of the healing session, the patient suddenly loses all interest in shopping, all desire to acquire things she doesn’t need at all—as if by magic.
To understand the process at play, imagine a little girl arriving in a family, carrying a karmic memory, apprehensive about what awaits her (the role of past memories). Very quickly, she senses that she is not being welcomed as she should be. Hence, the birth of the feeling of rejection. It’s like knocking on a door, keeping your foot in the doorway, yet no one wants to let you in. Rather frustrating, isn’t it? More than enough to create a fracture in the soul, a deep anxiety, an incomplete incarnation… and compulsive shopping comes to the rescue, accumulating “having” in place of “being.”
But here’s the real revelation: in the end, this experience is entirely positive. The soul came to experience what it is not (refusal, closure, rejection, sadness) in order to choose what it truly wants to be.
(“Life? It’s joy!” that same patient told me.)
In the end, patience itself found a place at life’s feast (without waiting for an invitation—that’s the solution!) and has since been able to nourish herself fully, with no trace of compulsive shopping.
After all, when you are everything, why seek to have?
So, when the body speaks to us, let’s not try to silence it, but rather, let’s listen—most attentively!
Don’t wait any longer. Take charge of your health, believe in healing—whatever form it takes—and give yourself the means to get better. You have the power to heal—take it.