Have you taken up a life of activity or inactivity to attain temporary relief from your mind?
The easiest and most easily relatable example here would be addictions. When people hear the word addiction, they most probably think of drugs and alcohol but if we take dictionary.com’s definition which is: the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit forming to such an extent that its cessation causes extreme trauma.
This basically describes a conditioned mind with little or no awareness. The mind is extremely habitual in nature and if we tend to stray away from its deeply ingrained habits, it can cause feelings of nervousness, fear and general discomfort. This is because the mind fears the unknown. It is a survival tool and finds change unnecessary and threatening.
There are a few different forms of addiction that I want to discuss here, the first is substance consumption such as recreational drugs, alcohol, sugar, coffee or anything consumed that gives you a high. These highs make up feel good and temporarily numb out any undesired thoughts and feelings. They also affect you physically as over time your body adjusts and becomes habitually accustomed to these states thus requiring them in order to feel normal. Instead of feeling the highs that you felt when you first consumed them and returning back to normal when they wear off, those highs become your new norm and without them you experience lows.
The next one is, anything that you do to distract yourself from or avoid situations that will trigger undesired thoughts and feelings to arise. This also includes anything that feeds your ego as your ego is just a distraction that has built up over time to help cope with your insecurities. Gossiping is an example of an ego feeding behaviour; people think bad and talk about others to make themselves feel better. If they were to stop, it would free up space in their minds which would allow for their own insecurities to arise causing trauma, this is what makes it a psychological addiction. The ego feeding thoughts would distract you from your insecurities and with time become habitual making it harder to break the cycle. Gossiping is just one example of a distraction addiction. There are many more such as watching TV, never wanting to be alone, always keeping yourself busy, sexual pleasure and so on. You have to be honest with yourself in order to uncover these addictions in you and to move towards freedom from the influences they have on your life.
The last form of addiction I want to discuss is habit. We are creatures of habit. This is especially true if you lack awareness. Over 90% of most people’s thoughts are the same as the ones they had the day before and most of their day to day activities are the same too. The breaking of habits, especially mental habits causes unease from the mind and as a result, people are more likely to revert back to their old habits to retain temporary relief from this unease. It is the same as a drug addiction in this respect. Mental habits can be anything from getting involved in certain thought patterns or cycles, routine, and a monotone life in general. The more your life stays the same, the less chance of fear arising.
The saying ‘old habits die hard’ pops to mind here and this is true, you have to ride out the unpleasantness of the cessation of your mental habits just the same as someone would who is detoxifying from drugs. The level of discomfort experienced depends on how deeply ingrained and how big a part of your life these habits are. The choice is yours whether you want to stay prisoner to them and opt for temporary relief through various detrimental or life suppressing methods, some of which were mentioned here or if you want to free yourself from them for good.
All of these forms are interlinked but I wanted to break them down to give you the best understanding I could so it’s easier to become aware of their possible presence in you and start on the path to freedom from them. (Coming in part 2)
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