The Root Cause Of All Addiction & The Resolution

[Voyager]

OK, the penny has finally dropped. I'm going to apply this to my sex addiction (porn/masturbation particularly). And also start using the technique to "Grow Up" through the stages of consciousness evolution. 

A paragraph of Ken Wilber's Integral Meditation. Highly recommend you buy this book!

When a drive arises, if you haven’t completely transcended and included it, it will temporarily take you over; it will have you, you won’t have it. And that means it is remaining as a “hidden subject” in your awareness, in your identity. Some part of you is still identified with this stage. When this drive arises, then you won’t simply have or possess that drive, you will be that drive. It will be experienced as a part of your core-self feeling, as part of what you are. You will be <desire>, looking to be satisfied. And at that specific point, nothing is more important. All other concerns will be shoved aside, as the driven-ness of the desire completely dominates awareness. You want one and one thing only: to make this painful unmet need go away; to satisfy it and thus eliminate it, at least temporarily (until it raises its head again, and again overwhelms you). When you were first at this stage, all of you was identified with it. You did not have the desire, you were the desire. Some part of your identify remains fixated at this early stage. This drive has remained as a real but hidden part of your very self-sense, your actual feeling of being yourself. It has remained a part of your subject, your self, and that is why seeing it as an object- using mindfulness on it, it to actually begin to let go of it, to dis-identify with it, to look at it instead of using it to look at and grasp the world with, to have it instead of being had by it.

So particularly the next time the desire arises, truly give it attention, give it mindfulness awareness. This is just like videotaping something: you’re a perfectly neutral camera, seeing everything just as it is without any judgement. You don’t want to criticize it, condemn it, or identify with it; simply be aware of it neutrally, and pervasively, from all angles.

Where is this hunger desire located? (head, mouth, heart, stomach, gut, hands, feet)?
What colour is it? (just whatever comes to mind)
What shape is it? (also, whatever come to mind)
What does it smell like? (whatever comes to mind)

Really feel the primitiveness and urgency. Make that subjective drive an object of awareness. Really look at it, long and steady. Feel it directly, with feeling-awareness, which can be seen as another term for “mindfulness”.

Edited September 29, 2017 by Voyager