GrowingUp

Weird thought I had as I was trying to explain to myself the concept that "I" or "my self" doesn't actually exist. And I thought about Gumbo. Gumbo is "a stew or thick soup, usually made with chicken or seafood, greens,and okra or sometimes filé as a thickener." It a conglomeration of things that we put the term "Gumbo" on. You put a bunch of separate measurable things in a pot - and then we call that conglomeration "Gumbo". Yet "Gumbo" is a concept - because actually - you really just have chicken or seafood, greens, okra, etc. together with a base. If you put a bowl of "Gumbo" in front of me, I could reasonably say - "Where's the Gumbo? All I see are chicken, seafood, greens, okra, etc." The "self" seems to be like that. There's skin, bones, blood vessels, nerves, a brain, neurochemicals, etc. - and then we call this human gumbo a "self". I saw Leo's video recently where he said there is perception, but no perceiver - which makes sense. I can see that "I" do not exist - and that my self is simply a gumbo of parts that creates an illusion of a self. The parts tell a story of a sell that the parts then believe and act from. Wondering if any of this makes sense or if there's another metaphor that works.

Today - I noticed that I "felt bad". I found myself really pushed to distract myself from the weird negative feeling... the heaviness in my head... with gum, food, social media, Red Bull. Then I stopped and did a "thought download". I just wrote down every thought swirling around in my head. And it was pretty ugly stuff. "I'm not good enough. I'm lazy. I don't know enough yet. I'm terrible". The stream of consciousness was really throwing the worst at me. When the last thought spilled out... "I hate me"... it felt good. All of the nasty stuff inside was there on the page. And in looking at it, I didn't see self-loathing, I saw fear. I saw "scared". A scared inner voice trying to do what? It seemed like it was trying to protect me. Protect me from what? The more I looked at what I wrote, the more I realized that all of the thoughts were rejecting me. Rejecting every part of me. My inner voice was trying to protect me from rejection "out there" in the world (as I launch a new business in a field I'm brand new in)... by rejecting myself first. My inner voice was rejecting me first... rejecting me in advance... to protect me from outside rejection. After all, if you say "I'm not good enough" or "You hate me"... well, I beat you to it. I already said that to myself - so the poison of your words really doesn't matter. Or maybe the self-rejection was to get me to stop. As in "You're not good enough. Please stop! If you go out there, it'll be dangerous. You could be rejected. Put on the brakes now and let's not even face the possibility of being rejection. I'm sorry... but I'm doing this for your own good". Either way, I saw the self-rejection as myself trying to protect me. And then I fell in love with my self-rejecting voice. Why? Because it's part of me. It's a part of me doing what it thinks is best in the moment to help me. Maybe going about it in a wonky way - but it's there, it's working (overtime), and it has a positive intent. And inside that acceptance of that part of me - it went away. Because I didn't resist it and instead shone a bright light on it and it's intent - it opened up a big space for me to love that part of me, understand the message, and allow it. Now - it'll probably be back. It's part of me. Just like the part of me that's confident. The part of me that's loving. The part of me that's selfish. The part of me that's so focused on being right. The part of me that feels anxiety all the time. The part of me that's a little too serious. The part of me the that loves fun new experiences. When I don't label the parts of me as "good" or "bad" and just accept that I'm a whole human being - I can stop running away from myself. I can stop worrying about how to life hack my way out of feeling bad... or how to turn off that inner voice... or how to be happier all the time. I simply accept all the parts of me... love all of the parts of me... and let them have their space. I listen to their real message (not the scared voice) and see that they're all here just trying to help me out. Nothing to change. Nothing to avoid. Nothing to hate about me. I'm just me - whole and complete and human. And now that I've loved on my self-rejecting inner voice, it's had it's chance to let the fearful chatter out - and I'm moving on with my big new project. If you're having a hard time "deleting" a part of yourself that's frustrating you, maybe it's time to go inside, identity it, see what it wants, and then love it for being part of you. When you love yourself fully and completely - you stop spending so much time trying to become "super human" - and you start creating and growing - even as the different parts of you pop-up from time to time. There's nothing wrong with you. You're a human being with lots of different parts. Accept it. Accept yourself. (I know it's hard. After all... C.G. Jung said "The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.") Just something that helped me today - that may help you, too.

Addictions are a symptom of not being okay with your human experience. You feel bored or lonely or anxiety or nervousness or whatever - and you want to distract yourself with something that gives pleasure and eases pain. There's nothing wrong with that. Our brains are set up to do exactly that - so you're right on course. If you no longer want to distract, you need to get good at being okay with being a human being - both the good feelings AND the bad feelings. It's not easy. As C.G. Jung said "The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely." So don't focus on your video games or anything else you're distracting with. Once you stop one "symptom" another symptom pops up. Instead, focus on being okay with the human experience of boredom, loneliness, anxiety, etc. If you can be okay with your downs as well as your ups, your addictions will quit you. Additionally, I would suggest that you stop treading water and start swimming. Many people are "nouns" ... stuck and static ... and wondering why they're bored with life. If I were a rock sitting in one place for eternity, I might become bored as well. Instead, become a verb. Go live your life. What new thing do you want to learn, teach, create, explore? How do you want to grow? What would you like to master? Where would you like to travel? Who would you like to serve? Start verbing. Start creating something fascinating and interesting with your life. When you get comfortable with the bad feelings... uncertainty, insecurity, fear, failure, rejection, etc. ... all of a sudden, going out and creating more with your life becomes possible. No more do you have to stay home and play video games in the safety of your room. You get to throw open the door and explore the world - because you're okay with whatever feelings come up. So the answer isn't to solve your addiction. It's to start accepting yourself ... positive and negative ... and then go and create a life from this space.

Everyone is trying to free themselves from the human experience. "If only I didn't feel humilation or rejection or unworthiness, I would all right". But the reality is - you are all right - WITH your feelings of humiliation, rejection, unworthiness, unloveability, etc. There's nothing to transcend. When we resist pain ... when you feel humiliation and you resist it ... you create suffering. And the mind wants to distract itself from suffering. So you go back into your addictive behavior. All addictive behavior stems from human beings trying to distract themselves from their human experience. Instead - embrace it. Open up to it. Accept your feelings. Accept your human experience. And in that acceptance is the path to releasing your addiction. When you befriend yourself ... all parts... the joy and the humilation ... the happy and the sad... the validation and the humilation... then there's no need to distract from any of it. You are now a whole, complete human. Sometimes you feel great, sometimes you feel like ass - and you realize - "Nothing has gone wrong here. I'm having a human experience." When you feel humilation, don't try to cover it up. Sit in it. Lean into it. Connect with it. Say to yourself "I'm feeling humiliation and I can feel this". Ride the wave of feeling humiliated - and then you may notice it dissipate. It may be replaced by a feeling of dissapointment. Or worry. Or fear. Or something neutral. Maybe boredom. Or exhaustion. And then that feeling changes into something else. Maybe a new wave of humiliation. Or loneliness. But once you start to allow yourself to feel all of your feelings without distraction - you see that all feelings are transitory. Right now, they persist - because you resist them. What we resist, persists. The more you push it away, the more engaged you are with it. Let all of your feelings - positive and negative - just be. And something interesting may (or may not) happen: As Alan Watts said "One is a great deal less anxious if one feels perfectly free to be anxious" You don't have a porn problem. Your porn addiction is simply a symptom of your resisting your uncomfortable feelings. Stop thinking about solving your porn problem - and start getting okay with feeling any and every feeling you have without resisting, escaping, distracting, or avoiding. When you've done that, your porn addiction will quit you.

Some of THE hardest work we'll ever do is to realize that other people and other circumstances don't actually cause our feelings. Our feelings are a direct feedback of our mind's thoughts - not outside circumstances. You said "I feel really rejected because of my family". In reality, you could say "I feel really rejected because of the thoughts I'm having about my family". This basic concept has been taught again and again... *** The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but the thought about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral. It is as it is. (Eckhart Tolle) *** There’s “what happened” and there’s “my story about what happened”. Assuming these two things to be the same is the source of much pain and conflict. *** We don’t see things the way they are. We seem them the way we are. (Talmud) *** It isn’t the things that happen to us in our lives that cause us to suffer, it’s how we relate to the things that happen that causes us to suffer. (Pema Chodron) Your current life experience ... your feelings and actions ... are based on your internal thoughts and beliefs. * You believe they're making you feel bad. * You believe they're preventing you from moving forward * You believe you can't get a job because of them * You believe you're really depressed because they're ganging up on you The most painful way to live life is to believe others and the world are causing your feelings. It makes you a "victim" to others. And victims need villains. So family and bosses and the economy and everything seems "against us". When we take responsibility for our thoughts - and, in that process, the feelings they generate within us - we're now an "owner" in life. We see circumstances as neutral - and how we react or respond to them as our responsibility. (Response - Ability) Yes, your family may say and do things toward you. But you have the power to make what they say and do whatever you wish. You can make it mean something about you... Or you can awaken yourself to the fact that it really simply says something about them. When a family member says something to me that's negative, I think... "Hmmm. They have a fascinating viewpoint of me. Very interesting. My own viewpoint is completely different - and very more positive than theirs - so I'll just let them have their idea - and I'll live with my own." And in that - they get to be who they are... and I get to be who I am. And I'm much happier. Angry family, I'm happy. Happy family, I'm happy. Rejecting family, I'm happy. No family, I'm happy. My happiness has to do with me. Their anger or anything else is about them. And I don't have to label their words or deeds as anything about me. I own my thoughts, feelings, and actions - and create my life from there. Family, no family, angry family, happy family. I let them be how they wish to be - and I do the work inside myself to be who I want to be. No approval or acceptance needed. I've got enough for myself - regardless of anyone else. When we've practiced so long to believe we're the victim of others - it can be difficult to let this go and take responsibility. But it's the best work you'll ever do. Let go of your blame of your family - and start to accept yourself fully - regardless of what they say or do. You own your life experience. It's all you.

It's interesting. Your post is a statement - not a question or request for help (i.e. "How do I stop being so resentful?") I think you're perfectly fine. You're having a human experience of "resentment" which millions (possibly billions) of humans have experienced and/or continue to experience. So you're in fine company. Nothing wrong here. In fact, what you have is kind of a gift. You have a strong emotion - some might categorize it as a "negative" emotion - that you can use as a window into your deeper self - to see where other people's actions have touched a "wound" you believe you have. Something happened "out there" (in reality) - and then you labeled it "in here" (in your mind) - and then you resent those who did the thing - because you believe "the situation" created your inner feeling/emotion. But it's your mind that crafted the emotion from the situation on the outside. And your mind crafted the emotion because of some internal soft spot you have that you believe it touched. If we have a deep well of feeling unworthy - someone doing something that we judge as "rejection" or "disrespect" can touch that wound of inner unworthiness. Instead of investigating our wound and learning to drop our own inner story line - we often react or repress. In this case - with resentment - we hold up the wall of anger in order to keep them from touching this soft spot within us again. We hold onto this resentment to keep guard... knowing that at any moment they may do it again... so we continue the thoughts and feelings that block them. If we see that what they did is neutral - and it's our own mind that created the pain - then we can drop the walls of protection - and look inside at what soft spot we believe they touched. What inside me felt rejected, unloved, hurt, fearful, unworthy, disrespected, etc.? We go inside to learn about ourselves and our story of ourselves - instead of repressing our learning and simply building walls of protection. Our painful emotions can be our greatest teachers. When we feel someone or something has touched a soft spot inside of us... when we feel an inner pain... that's our alarm to look within and see what inside of us was touched. Not to blame the outside world for causing it. We create our own feelings from the inside out - and we can solve our own feelings from the inside out, too. Your resentment is a very bright spotlight on a prime place for you to grow and create deeper compassion for yourself - and ultimately, for others, too. Just a thought - from someone who is walking on this exact path, too.

By the way - as an aside - when you've allowed yourself to feel your urges without responding to them - you may discover that you were simply distracting yourself from negative feelings caused by your thinking about a "problem" you may have. For example, some of my clients drink because they're lonely and have no relationship. So they create a drinking problem as they try to distract themselves from the psychological pain of loneliness. When we get them to a place where they can feel loneliness without drinking - well, guess what... they still don't have a relationship. So I explain... "The Fastest Way to Escape a Problem is to Solve It". In a client's case without a relationship, that becomes their new goal - and they take massive action toward that new goal. You might discover that after you've figured out your addiction - that you, too, have a foundational problem that was causing you psycholigical pain. If so, that's a perfect time to solve it. (If you already have an idea of what that problem is - you might just solve it now WHILE you're working through feeling your feelings). Just an additional point. I don't know your entire story - but this is common with my clients.

@Jedd Meditation is a good idea. If you want to allow the urges, putting yourself in the situation where you feel the urges gives you an opportunity work with the urges, including using meditation. Also remember that you either win or learn in this process. The only wrong way to do it - is to believe there is a right way. If you try to allow the urge through meditation - or simply by feeling it fully, naming it, and describing it to yourself (a solid process) - and you still respond to the urge, that's not a failure. That's a learning opportunity. You look back at what you tried, look at what worked, what didn't, and then you create a new plan. Plan B. Rinse, repeat. Allowing urges is like any skill - it may take time to master. If you try something and it doesn't work as you had planned - and you beat yourself up - you're creating more psychological pain that your brain will want to solve with... you guessed it... your addiction. So instead of trying to "beat yourself up better" ... simply look at it from a scientific view, see what worked, learn from what didn't, and try again. And again. From Plan A to Plan ZZZ. Then you'll start to get positive results, bring the control back from your "chimp brain" to your thinking brain, and see that those specific urges disipate completely. It's all a process - and worth the time you invest in it and yourself. Be kind to yourself. There's no value in thinking you're wrong, bad, broken, etc. You're just a human with an addiction that you're working to resolve - like about a bajillion other humans.

Another thing to think about is that you don't have to rid your life of the fear of aging to live a rich, full, meaningful life. Meaning - this fear of aging is uncomfortable for you. Let's say you stop resisting it and you simply let it be. You say "Ah yes - today I'm really feeling a fear of aging. Time to go do some amazing things and let the fear do as it wishes" - and then you go take action on meaningful things you wish to accomplish - with the "fear of aging" tucked in your back pocket. Sometimes it's tiny - and sometimes it's big - but you can "have" a fear of aging - and still take action on your values and things you wish to accomplish. We often think... "I can't do anything UNTIL my fears are gone" OR... "Something is WRONG with me if I have fears" Not so. Our feelings are a direct feedback of our thoughts. You're having fearful thoughts around aging creating these feelings. You don't like how they feel - but the human experience is having BOTH feelings you like and feelings you don't like. Having feelings you don't like simply means you're human - and you can take action - while you have those feelings. You simply acknowledge the feeling - and go about your life knowing you're having a perfectly normal human experience. Nothing wrong. You may want to remember that S = P x R Suffering = Pain x Resistance You're feeling the fear of aging (pain) and you're resisting it with everything you can. I don't want it. I want to get rid of it. Help me! But when yo stop resisting it and just allow it - you may find that it dissipates over time. Another way to think about it is that you're always driving the car. "Fear of aging" is sitting in the backseat, yelling at you. "You'll be old too soon" and "You'll never find a mate" and "You're dying every day!" ... and you can nod and acknowledge the wacko in your back seat ... but you're still the one driving the car. There's no reason to give over control of your vehicle to the wacky person in the back seat. So again - don't try to get rid of it right now. Live with it. Love it. Accept it. Feel it. Stop fighting it. AND - simultaneously - go out and take massive action and live your life and create things with your life. The voice may still be there - as may the feelings - but you'll take the force out of it all if you act in spite of what you feel. There's nothing wrong with you. I spent last night with a table full of people all worried about the same thing. You're just resisting it because it feels bad - and, well, some feelings feel bad. Welcome home.

It's funny. I went out with friend's last night - and I'm in my mid-40's and they're in their mid to late 30's... and it was weird how much they talked about aging. About their salt intake and how they had to go to bed earlier and couldn't drink as much. They work with 20-somethings - and they were a little over-focused on the comments their younger counterparts were making about 30 "being old". I guess I don't focus on that - because I'm not focused so much on "who I am" or "how I'm perceived" - but on what I'm doing, moment to moment. The entire "let's talk about being an adult" conversation was incredibly boring - because it was just complaints on age. Who cares. It's like complaining about the sun. It exists. Let's move on. What's EXCITING in your life? What are you DOING? What are you LEARNING? What are you TEACHING others? How are you SERVING? I'm not some static noun - I'm a VERB - verbing regardless of my age. And I'll be verbing all the way to the grave. I guess I didn't understand your question - because I'm way more interested in what I'm doing in the moment and how I'm growing - than a process that continues in the background on it's own without my help. I hope you get some perspective on aging - because I'd hate for you to waste valuable time focused on a fact of life - instead of actively living life moment-to-moment and enjoying the experience of being and doing.

If you want to stop any addiction, the way out is through. Addiction is simply repeating something that distracts you from what you're currently feeling. Usually the thing you choose as an addition releases dopamine in the brain - so you feel pleasure. Since the brain's limbic system wants to minimize pain and maximize pleasure (and do it efficiently), things like drugs, alcohol, porn, etc. are the perfect fit. For example, if you feel bad - the older part of our brain - wants to not feel bad. Bad = death to the older, stronger, faster part of the brain. So you have a few go-to's that work for getting out of feeling bad. Porn, food, etc. Distraction. If you're busy doing something, that's the distraction. When you're not busy, here comes the psychological "pain" - and you have some efficient go-to items to distract you, release dopamine, etc. Do it enough times, and it becomes a habit - because the brain is good at habituating actions that are rewarded. The brain says "This thing is a solution to pain - so let's do it often when we feel pain". People believe that addiction is a problem - but for the brain, addiction is a solution to pain. And the "pain" in this situation is how you're feeling. Back to the solution: The way out is through. Or, as Marcus Aurelius said, “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” What stands in your way is your ability to allow and feel all of your feelings. You're distracting yourself from your human experience. Instead of distracting yourself with pleasure-inducing things - lean into what you're feeling in the moment. Don't resist it. Don't distract from it. Really feel it. Name it. Think about how it feels in your body. Feel the sensations. See the thoughts. And let it be. The feeling will pass - and your brain will start to see that it can feel strong emotions and strong urges without "death". And, if it's a habituated activity, it may return again - this time more powerfully. But you ride those waves of emotion ... sitting in them ... and letting them flow in and out. No distraction. No TV. No running off to the gym. Just sitting in that feeling so you - maybe for the first time - see what the experience of this feeling is an an observer - and not as a human avoiding pain. Something interesting happens as you do this - your strong painful emotions may to start to weaken: As Alan Watts said, "One is a great deal less anxious if one feels perfectly free to be anxious" Then - if whenever any feeling comes up ... "good", "bad", or neutral ... you will have practiced that the feeling comes and goes of its own accord - without needing a solution. Just as thoughts come and go naturally - so do feelings. And you find you can feel sad, lonely, bored, disappointed, nervous, anxious, unworthy, unloved, etc. - and those feelings well up... and then they go away. When we deny our human experience with distraction (often because we think no one else is having this same painful human experience) - we think we're doing something wrong or something is wrong with us - so we need to get rid of it fast. And a fast distraction is anything people get addicted to. If you'll just develop the skill of feeling all of your feelings - I can promise you that you won't need to distract yourelf - because you'll see there's no real monster to run from. When you stop resisting your feelings, you release their hold on you. Give it a shot. It's how I released my addiction - and how I help my clients do the same.

I'm curious what your exact fears are about aging. What do you fear about aging and the aging process? You mentioned looking older - but so what? What are you making it mean that "your body and face became older". To diagnose your specific thought error - it's important to know your specific thought or thoughts. Share those with us - what your lovely brain is making "aging" mean to you - and we can delve in and see what's up.

The challenge with "personal development" is that there can be a belief that if I'm feeling bad, that's bad - and that "feeling good" is the end goal of personal development. There's an idea sold that "If I do enough self-help, I'll feel up, motivated, excited, etc. most of the time - if not all of the time" or "If I'm ever feeling down, I'll be able to instantly change my state and emotion". The reality is that your emotions are a direct feedback of your thoughts - and when your thoughts are "down" - you feel down. When your thoughts are "up" - you feel up. If you have more down thoughts than up thoughts, you'll feel more down than up. IF you're doing self-help to stop feeling down - but you still feel down regularly - you'll actually make the situation worse. You'll be angry, upset, sad, frustrated, etc. about your down feelings. It's called a "secondary disturbance". You're angry you're sad or you're upset you're in a bad mood. So you just stack more "negative" on top of "negatives". When you understand that the human experience is contrast... sometimes up and sometimes down... you stop resisting your "down" feelings - and start accepting them as part of being human. After all, you wouldn't even know what "happy" felt like if there wasn't a constrasting "sad" feeling. We only feel the "up" feelings fully because of the contrast they have with our regular "down" feelings. The goal of self-help and personal development isn't to transcend the human experience. It's to understand the human experience so you can surf it more intelligently. We want to life hack ourselves to superhuman - but often the way out of suffering is to simply understand all parts of the human experience and accept it "as is". The weird thing is that when you stop resisting or distracting from "negative" emotions - you start to see them as the transitory emotions they are. When you stop obsessing about why you aren't happier - you allow for anxiety and sadness to appear - and then flow away as your thoughts change. Sometimes you're up. Sometimes you're down. Sometimes you're neutral. But you start to see it as all a part of the river of life - not good or bad - just existing. And you stop all of the negative thoughts and beliefs around your experience that make you feel even worse. When I feel anxiety, I think "Hello again anxiety. Nice to see you" - and I let myself feel and be in that anxiety. And weirdly, anxiety only rests for a moment before moving on. When you start accepting your human experience - and stop resisting it - you'll start to open up to the fact that you're perfectly fine as you are and there's nothing to be fixed.

Often our thoughts/feelings are based on a simple misunderstanding. For example, if someone likes me = I'm likable. So we look outside of ourselves for proof of our worthiness. Bob likes me = I'm a good person, I'm worthy, I'm likable. Mary doesn't like me = I'm a worm, I'm unworthy, I'm unlikable. So we're up and down all over the place when we look outside of ourselves for approval. And here's the EXTRA challenge - we have our own viewpoint of our likeability based on experience with others, socialization, school, parents, etc. And we believe that our likeability is also based on what WE feel. "Since I feel like a worm, I must be a worm" ... or "Since I feel unlovable, I must be unlovable". (Emotional reasoning... "Since I feel it, it must be true") The reality is that YOU are an object of people's (including your own) thoughts and feelings. But let's take YOU out of it for a moment to explain... Let's say there's a red rose blooming. On a scale of 1 to 10, Bob loves that rose at a level 10+. He's infatuated with roses and they're his favorite flower. Mary, on the other hand, HATES roses. She thinks they're a waste of space and she hates them at a -8,000 on a scale of 1 to 10. And Fred - well, Fred is neutral about the rose. He doesn't care one way or another. Fred prefers cake over flowers. How much the rose is loved has zero to do with the rose itself. The rose is just the OBJECT of other people's thoughts and feelings. The rose has maximum loveability. You can either love the rose completely - or hate the rose completely - but it has zero to do with the rose and everything to do with the person perceiving the rose itself. How much a rose is loved has everything to do with the person LOOKING AT the rose - and nothing to do with the rose itself. The rose is merely the object of love or no love. When we add ourselves back into this equation, we complicate this a bit - because we take those "love" or "no love" messages we get from others and instead of seeing them as each person's individual preference - we adopt them as a truth about ourselves. ("Since Mary hates me, I must be a worm.") So the key is to see how other people like/love us as about them, not our own actual loveability - and even seeing how we love ourselves simply about our own thoughts/feelings about our loveability - not actual fact. You see, like the rose, whether we love ourselves fully or not at all has nothing really to do with our loveability. Our loveability is infinite. We may choose NOT to love ourselves very much - but that's not due to reality. That's due to our simply choosing to love ourselves at a level we think (incorrectly) is accurate. But honestly, we're just the object of our own love/no love. Just like the rose is an object of how other people love it. You are the object of your own love - and it's based on your thoughts/feelings - not fact. When you realize this game, you can drop the need for getting people to like you - and decide to love yourself at whatever amount you wish - because it's all made up. Bob, Mary, Fred, You - you all have different mental opinions of your loveability. All made up by each of your minds - and none of it "true". Just a story. So when you see it like that - you can let it go - let people live in their own stories about you and the world - and you can pick your own story about how lovable/likable you are. It's all a story anyway - might as well pick one you like.

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. We use substances to distract ourselves from our psychological pain (painful emotions) - but here's the crazy part... Our brain creates the pain in the first place by adding meaning to circumstances - and then it launches into action thinking "Pain is imminent. I need to avoid this pain!" That message comes from the chimp mind - our limbic system - so we distract ourselves with weed, alcohol, food, etc. - anything to drown out the psychological pain. The way out is through. Meaning - you simply stop avoiding your psychological pain and start feeling it fully. You practice feeling whatever it was you were avoiding - and get comfortable with being uncomfortable. When you can sit in loneliness, sadness, depression, anger, self-loathing - without resisting or distracting - you train your brain to realize you can feel any emotion without "death". And you also learn that once you allow your emotions without resisting or distracting - they start to flow a bit freer. Meaning - when you let go of resisting anxiety, you actually allow anxiety to do what it wants - which often is to flow out when your thoughts change. As you stop resisting/distracting - your emotions and thoughts begin to flow and change and you don't get so caught up in fear about them. I simply mention this as a method - because I've seen people successfully drop one addiction - to simply pick up another. They thought their main goal was to "quit weed" - but in quitting weed, they simply started distracting themselves with food or social media or porn. Your goal isn't to quit weed. It's to stop distracting yourself from your psychological pain altogether and start being okay with your full human experience. Once you're okay with you - there's no reason to distract with anything.

Alcohol starts a process that releases dopamine in your brain - which is a "feel good" chemical. Your brain releases dopamine when you do or ingest something that gives you pleasure. Alcohol specifically releases dopamine into your brain - while most things in daily life (work, taking out the trash, buying groceries, etc.) don't. If we could rewire your brain to release dopamine when you took out the trash, it's likely you could create an addiction to taking out the trash.

Question: Let's say, for example, that you focused on "being" and you had an experience of enlightenment. Or could "be enlightened" at any moment. I'm wondering how you would spend your time. Meaning - There's a Zen proverb I like that goes ... “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” Which I take to mean that the requirements to sustain life still remain even once you attain enlightenment. Life goes on. You still drink. You still eat. You still take shelter. I'm guessing you still work and make money and pay bills. (or not. None of that is required, obviously, as "living" is not a requirement) So I'm curious ... IF you do attain enlightenment, what next? Or what then? If you see that the world is caught up in the chimp mind - and you're enlightened and focused on "being" - how do you spend your days? Time will continue to click by I imagine. And your body will require water, food, movement I imagine. IF you're enlightened, should you choose to live in a cave and just "be" on a minimal amount of water, food, and shelter - and just "be" until your body's expiration date? Or - within the knowledge of "being"ness - you choose to pick something to do with your life - simply knowing you're playing "the game" and disconnected from what you think "the game" will get you? My thinking was... I was non-existent for billions of years - and after my relatively short period of consciousness - I'll be non-existent again for billions of years. So I'm used to the concept of "non-existent" - but while I have this short blip of consciousness - it might be interesting (disconnected from any particular 'end goal') to just play within the realm of consciousness. Not really "because of..." anything in particular - but just because one can. A different experience gives you different opportunities. I'm just wondering what the thoughts are around what you do with the time you're conscious - even while you choose to pursue self-inquiry and enlightenment. Thoughts?

@Nahm Ah, thank you for the additional info/explanation. That's very helpful. As far as a short version of what works on changing a drinking habit, it's a combination of things. I first work on beliefs around alcohol (helpful vs. unhelpful thoughts) - because people build up a story around their drinking that actually makes it harder to quit (i.e. I have a disease, I'm an alcoholic, I'm powerless, etc.) So I first focus on moving them from "victim" to "owner" of the situation. Then we work on the fun part - which is to stop trying to resist the urge to drink via willpower - and allow the urges/feelings in each moment. It's funny - because I just saw Leo's video on addiction today about how all of these things are distractions from feeling - and that's mainly what I teach my clients. It's a distraction from psychological pain that the mind itself created. So when I teach clients to allow their urges and so-called "negative" feelings - instead of resisting or distracting (with alcohol) - it takes the energy out of the urge. Once they've allowed a certain number of urges, the urges start to dissipate and disappear - because the urge/feeling is no longer rewarded with alcohol. It's obviously a bit of discomfort for a bit - because your limbic system really cranks up the anxiety when you don't respond to an urge - so that's why I equip my clients with ways to allow the urges and ride the waves all the way through. A little bit of discomfort is the currency for change. The side benefit is they also realize they can feel any feeling without "dying" - so it can also stop other addictive habits at the same time. Anyway - that's a short version. Thanks again for the info. Much appreciated!

Okay awesome! I have a "life purpose" already (one that I'm very passionate about. I coach people to stop overdrinking) - but in watching some videos about how work, jobs, etc. are distractions from "being" - I was just curious about the thinking about putting so much attention into a purpose if it's a distraction from the work of "being" and enlightenment. I appreciate the feedback!

I'm just curious - if your "purpose" is made up - does any "life purpose" work? Because if your purpose is just living/being - wouldn't anything else you add be "made up"? I'm just curious - because the message from some of the videos I'm seeing is that work, money, life, etc. is a distraction from "being" - but what do you do with the time while you're focused on being? If work, family, marriage, business, etc. is a distraction - can your "life purpose" be following a distraction? Or is that okay - as long as you also focus on "being" and understand that the distraction is just a distraction - and you're able to be above it. Kind of like getting really involved in a game - but knowing that it's all just a game that will soon be over - and if someone were to tip the table over and all of the pieces were to be scattered on the floor, you wouldn't care - because it's just a game. So you're both "IN" the game - and yet disconnected from it. Is that making sense? Just trying to wrap my head about both choosing and living out a made-up "life purpose" while also hearing that everything within that "life purpose" is a distraction from being. Thoughts?