Overcoming Addiction - The Root Cause Of Every Addiction 7 Day Challenge

[JevinR]

Addiction: 2 days of Pmo

Date:  4/20/16

Time:  8:18 PM - 8:54 PM 

Day #: Day 1

Feelings Felt Psychologically: Distress

Feelings Felt Physiologically: Not many feelings

Questions You Asked Yourself: Why am I doing this, how will this benefit me, why did I start watching porn and am forcefully yet consciously trying to destruct myself?

How Do You Feel After Your Session?: I broke down crying, the porn was just a form of self sabotage, I was trying to destruct myself so I could feel intense feelings of bliss and alleviate suffering, so I needed to be enlightened, to be one with the void. Suicide was the answer, now I know what I was chasing, an escape from a very,very deep neurosis ; Clarity

Edited April 21, 2016 by JevinR

[Saarah]

Intention: (see post 1) 

Addiction: Junk food

Meditation method: Do Nothing for 1 hour a day 

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Day 4: 21/04/16

Levels of motivation upon waking: Felt I'll easily avoid junk, once again knew I'd be restless with distractions, listened to Leo's addiction video 3 times since last post 

Meditation time (complete?): 1 hour from 9:50pm to 10:50pm 

Feelings during and after meditation: Day 4 meditation brought a considerable shift I'm glad to say! Where yesterday it felt like I was 'putting up' with the hour, today I was so much more open to it and just present without being annoyed, I was actually quite content, I was just grateful for it because of my day full of stuffing, it felt like it was finally able to move onto what I'd been running from all day in a positive manner just accepting it, and trying to learn to love it, during that time at some points I thought of how peaceful this is and how I should do more of it, life feels less stressful and hurried from this place, I also had a question during it where is asked 'What is this purpose of doing nothing, what am I trying to get from sitting here like this, if I spent my time like this a lot what would it be doing for me, what's my aim?' (OK, maybe more than one question) 

Thoughts/struggles throughout the day: I've found it very easy to avoid the sugary snacks, the only thing is I've noticed how my other distractions are increasing and especially video games has gone up about 3-fold, all that Mario kart got me hearing a ringing sound in my ear at one point during meditation of a red shell chasing me! I was procrastinating all day on uni work so I understand why, but I felt for every distraction someone chucked a bucket of mud on me, for tomorrow I decided I'm going to plan what I'm going to focus my energies on, and any time I'm not doing those things I'm just going to sit with nothing, if this goes right it could potentially mean hours of meditation in one day, something unimaginable for me a few days ago, even yesterday 

Triggers for addiction: /

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I remember once a few years ago looking for tips on how to get yourself to do something, someone said you should stop and do nothing and after 10 seconds you'll end up just going and doing the thing

At the time I thought this was just because by stopping you would end up weighing up your priorities 

But now I realise it works because we're so unwilling to sit with nothing, it's so painful to face it that we'd just give up on that and would rather do the work we were avoiding cos it's better than nothing 

It's just using our weakness to make us productive! It's nice to find a new level of insights into something you previously came across, it's like this quote 

 

[JevinR]

Addiction: Avoidance of Nothing

Date:  4/20/16

Time:  8:03 PM - 8:54 PM 

Day #: Day 2

Feelings Felt Psychologically: Bliss,Confusion

Feelings Felt Physiologically: Some neck strain

Questions You Asked Yourself: Wtf is going here? Who am I? Why is this happening? Who am I suppose to meet? Is my Life Pre-determined

How Do You Feel After Your Session?: The sessions weren't complete, they had disturbances and were made of 20 minute chunks due to the disturbances. I felt a lot of confusion as to what's going on.

[Truth]

Alright day 5: having more thoughts and insights into addiction, very subtle distinctions, during meditation yesterday I got to thinking why I couldn't really focus, yesterday I had insights, new techniques, all these new ways of thinking made me realize that's when I attach to thoughts the most, anything that really serves my self agenda I can't seem to stop thinking about, that's when addiction to thinking and thoughts become a force of nature, I go completely unconscious on autopilot, I fall completely asleep, it isn't until I've exhausted the thinking and have done this purging of thoughts is when I can relax, the monkey chatter calms down, I've known this but I've gain a little more consciousness of it from a new perspective, It's hard to build my awareness when I believe thoughts best serve my self agenda which is what I need to be questioning further. I also had an insight today about accepting the present moment, when I accept the present moment with whatever is happening, whether I feel I'm stuck at work or don't feel like being there, resisting, it's acceptance and surrendering to where you are is really key detachment and non neediness which is one of my intents. It seems as though resistance is also my ego resisting the present moment no matter what situation I find myself in. My ego wants to be somewhere else, but its stuck because it believes it has control which is what I confirm more and more that it doesn't. Surrender, letting go, accepting what is, the present moment, and detachment all seem to be keys to non neediness, and to just ultimately be happier with whatever is happening. There's a lot less you struggling against reality. Just you being aligned with the mundanity of reality and being totally peaceful with where you are, what you are doing, and accepting what is.

Edited April 22, 2016 by Truth

[Saarah]

@Nickfury7 Keep going with the doing nothing, the more you do the closer you come to burning out all the fire of your inner demons! The more you become comfortable with nothing through constant exposure, the easier it will be to not need a distraction from it, you will be fulfilled without the porn 

[Saarah]

Intention: (see post 1) 

Addiction: Junk food

Meditation method: Mindfulness meditation for 1 hour 

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Day 5: 22/04/16

Levels of motivation upon waking: very motivated, listened to podcasts in morning including addiction one 

Meditation time (complete?): 11:50am-12-50pm and again for 15 minutes some time around 3pm

Feelings during and after meditation: Very happy that I did the meditation earlier on in the day after waking up, was very happy to do it and changed technique to mindfulness to learn to be more with the present, the first half was great but the second half had me getting lost in thought more and itching to check the time although i was more ok with just sitting there than the first few days of meditation. During the day before I was going to pick up a book, I thought I'd fit in a quick 15 minute meditation just to get used to not jumping from doing one thing to another but starting to create meditation breaks between the activities I do so I don't get lost in them all 

Thoughts/struggles throughout the day: No struggles, today I was less stuffed than I have been the past few days but there's still a long way to go  

Triggers for addiction:  /

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Edited April 23, 2016 by Saarah

[Truth]

Day 6: I've had a massive breakthrough tonight and I'll continue to build on it but, wow, something so obvious staring me right in the face, I can be so busy running around both internally and externally that it can blind you from seeing what's so obviously in front of your face. first off, I realize that doing nothing counter intuitively is actually more productive and healthier than distracting myself with YouTube or movies, porn, that's the first obvious insight, the second thing I had a massive insight was into what I believe about the world, truly believe internally, not logically, I realize if I can Identify those and create new more positive beliefs this can be massive to creating change. I was doing nothing and I went over my self mastery structure thinking about what the most important thing that I could possibly be doing, and I just got to thinking more big picture, and the obvious thing was self mastery, truly learning and understanding how to master my beliefs, my mindsets, ways of thinking, emotional control over myself, discipline level, mental techniques, visualizations, affirmations. I guess to some degree this is what I've been doing, but having a more focused conscious thought of it makes me realize it's true importance, it's true potential to getting these things down. In fact that's where my technique came from, really digging in and understanding my beliefs, learning how to not create new problems which is massively important. And the final insight that really hit me and actually made me quite emotional when I heard it after doing nothing for an hour, I thought about how my ego wants to be comfortable, wants to resist, rebel, get angry, and that's all petty stuff, but the point I realize on a deeper level, what's truly worse than death? I mean death itself is death, I mean it's over, but, as far as me being alive, my whole belief about death, how I try to keep me safe, avoid rejection, avoid failure, avoid negative emotions, all to ultimately avoid death. What's worse than death as far as me being conscious and alive knowing and being aware of my death? Regret, regretting the opportunity's I could miss, all the things I was scared to do, wasting my life, and this is so pain painstakingly obvious but my beliefs about reality stop me from ever being conscious of this fact, and it's scary to think about what other false premises I believe about reality could be. What else is so obvious? I'm so busy running around with all these false premises, it's like there's this beautiful perfect magic show going on right in front of my face and I can't see it because since birth I've been lead to believe this show is just the way things have always been and never had the wisdom to ask myself or even question the premise of this perfect magic show. I need to continue to ask myself, what is so obvious right here that I'm missing? I realize I've been living on this pile of false assumptions my entire life and now I need to work and start recognizing the obvious truths about reality and align myself with them and understand the practicality of doing that, ultimately undermine my entire world view and stop living in falsehood , which I expect to be very emotionally difficult but worth it. This whole post still doesn't even scratch the surface of what I need to be more conscious of.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Truth

[Saarah]

Intention: (see post 1) 

Addiction: Junk food

Meditation method: Mindfulness meditation for 1 hour 

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Day 6: 23/04/16

Levels of motivation upon waking: lazy 

Meditation time (complete?): 1 hour from 6:40 to 7:40pm

Feelings during and after meditation:  Switching to mindfulness has made it more difficult but that's why I decided to do it, my focus goes down in the second half. While Im sat there, the whole day's  busy-ness is just halted and I think why can't I just be like this more, why is it only when I set this time I can focus, why can't this be my norm, I hear all the cars on the main road and think about how everyone is still constantly moving and doing something, and how crazy it is that we can constantly do stuff and never break from it. I'm a long way from the point where i could do nothing more often. During meditation as before I got confused about this whole thing, it feels so nourishing one moment and the next I'm stuck in a dilemma cos I'm like, what am I facing here? How much am I 'supposed' to do this, is this supposed to be the norm, what is in human nature, and yet I feel that this could greatly benefit me, right now I'm keeping going for the hope that I notice my addictions withering away week after week and more so noticing improvements in my being. 

Thoughts/struggles throughout the day: I didn't struggle with junk except a few moments I was hungry and was thinking of how I just have to wait for a day, but I felt like I don't want to eat it after this week because I don't want it to become an addiction again, I may end up avoiding it after this week is over as I move onto other addictions, my biggest struggle is all my other distractions I keep turning to because I'm having a hard time focusing on my work, the more I engaged in my distractions I noticed a feeling of frustration in me 

Triggers for addiction:  frustration (unless it's a reciprocal effect) 

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Edited April 23, 2016 by Saarah

[Allison]

Here is an update of my attempt at a day of doing nothing. After I got home on Friday morning after another 50hr working week I abandoned my attempt at doing nothing. I was expecting a new central heating surveyer to come to my house & think I was last in the que. After he left I attempted once again to do nothing. It was so challenging, observing the constant steam of thoughts, desires to put on TV, YouTube, Facebook, emails. I decided to cut short the journey after questioning if it was what I needed after a long working week and with only having two days off I had stuff needing doing lol. Decided to get organised & attempt a partial retreat the next day. I got up & sat with self, it was a revelation the experience, & I'm re-evaluating what exactly is good & or a treat & nurturing for myself. So is doing violent & or stupid TV series marathon a worthwhile thing to do. Is endless YouTube conspiracy theory videos a productive way to spend precious time. Eating for emotional comfort, boredom & entertainment. Smoking, drinking, drugs.  ( I'm Still off the fags 20 days now) eBay & Amazon window shopping & buying. Scrolling all email subscriptions, other social media . I'm more aware than ever how much I'm dependant on things & addicted to stuff. 
I wrote 3 A 4 pages of the thoughts, feelings & emotions that went through my head throughout the day, too vast to put here & boring too in its predictability. 
I had an afternoon talk with a Buddhist Lama visiting from  Samye Ling Temple & the message was fantastic & right on track for getting self cleaned up. I continued my retreat when I got home. At times it was deliciously peaceful & other times the noise of wanting to do stuff, planning things dominated my field of vision. 
Found myself on eBay at one point unconsciously lol. This whole exercise has shown me just how unmindfully I actually live & how it's impacting me negatively. 
Further adjustments in what I put into my body by way of the senses is afoot. I also intend to have distraction deprivation days on a regular basis. 
Apologies for the massive post, and thank you for bringing this challenge to me. I feel more connected to myself & better for it.
I will now begin the 7 day challenge from Leo of an hour a day 
kind regards

Allison 

[Allison]

Wow blown away by the posts in reading, isn't it amazing how doing nothing can bring so much good stuff. It's nice to be able to interact on this forum with the members on it. I plan on participating more often. 

Updates on this 7 day challenge of distraction deprivation & mindfull meditation

peace 

Allison 

[Truth]

Final day 7: I would have posted this yesterday but I literally just came home after work and slept til I had to go to work again although I did have some insights they were just progresses of what I've been having insights about so far but anyway, Well, I learned a lot about addictions, although it's still hard for me to step away from YouTube and other distractions, I'm becoming more conscious and aware of how these things are affecting the quality of my life. I feel like I'm on the right track towards my intentions, this posting has been an interesting experience for me giving me new ideas and insights into how I should be growing myself. I hope @Argue hasn't went too far off  It's been an experience and look forward to more challenges! til next time.

Edited April 24, 2016 by Truth

[Saarah]

Intention: (see post 1) 

Addiction: Junk food

Meditation method: Do Nothing for 1 hour 

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Day 7: 24/04/16

Levels of motivation upon waking: Didnt have desires to engage in all the distractions I'd been engaging in the past week thought it'd be a productive day 

Meditation time (complete?): 1 hour around half 10 to half 11pm

Super surprised I got through the 7 days, I thought I'd be really rubbish at this even though I felt super motivated after watching the video at the beginning of the week. Ive only gone one day where I felt like meditating at the beginning of the day other than that it's just been pushed away. Although I don't actively choose meditation over my distractions just yet, I do feel much more comfortable than I ever have before with sitting for an hour doing nothing! Up until now I've only consistently managed to meditate 10 mins every day so I really jumped a giant leap with this challenge. I'm happy I avoided all the sugary type junk foods and snacks etc for an entire week, and I feel a lot healthier in my body, it's a bittersweet kind of feeling because the last two days I have been thinking more about it and whether or not I should break the trend or just continue it. I'm definitely going to be working on more addictions every week as this is a very basic and tangible thing to tackle for the journey of self actualisation, when something so basic is holding you back from progress that we do on a daily basis, all my addictions are just staring me in the face everyday and I can't ignore that and carry on back to normal. I certainly feel myself growing in emotional maturity from this!

Well done to @Truth and hopefully @Argue! It's super cool to see the first steps in the journey of addictions. Good luck @Allison and anyone else attempting! 

 

[Richard Alpert]

I recently got ill and had to spent 2 weeks on my bed/couch. I was able to view my life from 3rd person perspective and fuuuck there is a lot of dark shit. A lot of addictions and dark shit that i wasnt aware, there is the inner emptiness that im trying to fill. We have to be very carefull what kind of influences we put in our minds.

[renegade_bee]

I'm doing this.

addictions: overeating, laziness, internet, negativity

meditation: Do nothing + strong determination sitting simultaneously (1h)

Day 1

Feelings Felt physiologically:

I had to move several times because my feet turned blue. I'm using a chair next time.

feelings felt psychologically:

boredom and pain. I often found myself slipping away into fantasy and I couldn't control it.

How Do You Feel After Your Session?:

a bit dissapointed that I didnt do it properly.

some insights:

I've been lying to myself about not being able to control my eating or not being able to study.