...the home of addiction “You are not your mind” Anyone who’s read even a little in the way of spiritual literature will have had this phrase rammed down their throat many times. It is true though. But so what? In what way is that useful to addicts in recovery like us? The answer to this lies in the place where addiction resides: It is a repetitive thought pattern played on a loops again and again by an over stimulated mind. The over stimulated carves deep neural connections that turn into ruts that, once in, are difficult to get out of... as we well know. So using the mind to change the mind doesn’t work. You can’t think your way out of an addiction. Something else needs to be done and that something MUST involve reining in the mind by some means. it is the only way if we mean to go from genital-men to gentlemen. The path that was shown me was that of meditation and Yoga(and later Qigong) and I will try to do it justice here. Let me use Yoga as the example: The practice of this discipline involves 100% attention on the posture. You COULD go though a whole session of yoga thinking about that utter dope from the marketing department, about this or that hot chick, about whether or not to buy that cool jacket you saw... but you’d be missing the whole point. You must be totally absorbed in what you are doing. There you are in some posture, Tadasana (standing to attention) and you have to make sure your balance is even on both feet, weight slightly forward, breathing easy and diaphragmatic, neck in right position etc. And this is an easy posture. You are constantly correcting the posture. The moment your attention moves from one body part, it goes to another and then another. It’s all about reining in the mind and teaching it the discipline to just do your exercises. All other thoughts and worries can wait until after. Just do your exercises. Doesn’t have to be yoga. anything utterly absorbing could do it if you approach it with the same discipline... No wait. Not ANYTHING. Yoga calms the mind. Some activities give you hit after hit of dopamine and flood the system almost simultaneously with high levels of cortisol and adrenaline. So porn is out, video games are out. You obviously have to choose your total absorption activity wisely. I suppose most sports would be good, dancing, martial arts... all of these things if approached as a total absorption activity. Maybe this way, we can heal the rut in our minds that convinces us to throw our lives away rubbing away at our manhood. Maybe this way, we can stop being genital-men Maybe we can learn again... to be gentlemen.
Excellent stuff. I'd add gentle middle-distance running also as it can be a sort of meditation-in-movement. Plus it's natural and healthy.
