Addictions ... what are you addicted too ?
Addiction is a massive subject, and so I'm gonna keep this post short and sweet, this is more of a note to self, and maybe it will jolt some folk who come across this post to think about their own addictions. Instead of me writing a ton, I will link a youtube post to seminars which explain all about addiction - after reading this post, I highly recommend you to watch this link here > Expectations and Addictions seminar
Originally today, I wanted to write about my recent 'Giving up Facebook' addiction, as it's been very interesting to not have it in my life any more, I will blog about it very soon. However, a little spurt of inspiration came to me just now to write a little on addiction, and so I wanted to follow through with that inspiration as I have not written anything for sometime... So here goes.
The thing with addiction is, it can be sometimes hard to tell if you are actually 'addicted' OR taking actions from a pure place of Desire and Love. (actually the easy way to know if are addicted to something is to take it away and see how it makes you feel, if you get angry, even mildly frustrated, then it was probably an addiction )
Over the years I have been looking at my own addictions, to see how they play out in my life. I have asked myself 'Is this thing that am doing Loving to myself, to others, and my whole surrounding', and if the answers was 'NO, it is not', then my next question has been ... then why the hell am I doing it ?
When giving up an addiction, you often hear the term 'Will Power'... 'Strong will power will help you give up an addiction'. However, as I started to look at my own addictions, I realised that 'will power' alone was not strong enough, and what I ACTUALLY needed to engage in order to stop my addictions in the most powerful, ever lasting way... was to change my 'Will'.
Errrm ...Is that not the same thing you might be thinking... actually it is not. 'Will power' is a change of 'Mind', whilst 'Will', is a change of 'Heart'. You can use your will power to stop smoking for example, however, if you have not changed your 'Will', then 'Your Heart' will still be eager to crave a drag on a cigarette, and effort on your part is needed to stop the action. If you had stopped smoking because you had a change of 'Heart', then you would not even think of wanting to smoke, on the contrary, you would not even need to TRY and not smoke, it would be like you have never smoked, there would be no desire at all, you wouldn't even think about it. I feel its very important to understand the difference between the two. 'Will power' may help the alcoholic stop drinking in the short term, which would prevent further damage to the body, however, the alcoholic will only really heal themselves when an acknowledgement is admitted in the 'Heart' for WHY they wanted to drink in the first place - 'not feeling Loved' for example. Only when the alcoholic feels the grief of not feeling Loved will the desire for a drink go away - as the grief is felt, Love can pour into the hole where Love was once absent. With Love now lodged in the heart where once the feeling of loneliness used to abode, the alcoholic would not be driven to drink - For Love would not do such a thing.
I for example gave up eating meat after 29 years - I do not use my will power to try and not eat meat, there is literally no desire in me to want to eat it - So how did I do that ? Well, I was able to cultivate self love, and as the love accumulated, I just felt like I didn't want to eat meat any more, it was easy. I gained this sense of compassion for animals, which was once literally not there, I couldn't care less about animals before this moment. I could never understand how vegetarians could not eat meat. I literally never thought it possible that I would become a vegetarian/vegan. In fact, vegetarians used to annoy me.Only when I used my 'Will' in the direction of Love was I able to grow in Love, this Love continued to fill me to the point where I then had a 'Change of heart'. Through this process of growing in Love, I had a lot of grief to feel about the way I had been treating myself and my environment, including animals. I learnt from this experience that Love can do the impossible, and whence I'm filled with this substance, great changes can happen !
Every choice and decision we make in Life is either driven by an Addiction or Love
If you pursue an addicting, it will keep you imprisoned into a life void of Love. We often choose an addiction because we can't feel Love. Addictions gives us a feeling which we believe to be Love, or in a lot of cases, we are just so full of grief, and don't know what to do with our emotions, that we just think 'Oh fuck it' - then drink the booze, or snort the coke, smoke cigarettes, eat the junk ... the list goes on. Every action has a consequence, so be careful next time you say 'Oh fuck it' ... because if that action is not Loving, then eventually the 'pain' of that addictive action will have to be felt - one way or another. There are many addictions at play in life, physical and emotional. I'm still personally full of many addictions, not so much physical addictions these days, but many emotional addictions (which in the end drive physical addictions) - I can only hope that one day I have more changes in my heart and grow further in Love x
