Mindfulness For a Better Life

 

The Thinker (French: Le Penseur) is a bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin.

 Image by Johnnie Shannon from Pixabay.

Addiction is a thinking disorder.  It is a disease that attacks our minds and distorts our thought processes.  We are not able to think clearly about what is happening and why.  There is no space between stimulus and response.  Our minds become filled with obsessive thoughts and we have no idea where they are coming from.  We feel some strong emotion, we feel upset, angry, sad, lonely or even happy and excited and nearly instantaneously we feel triggered and compelled to act out.

One of the important habits I have learned in recovery is to simply be aware of what I was thinking and feeling.  To pay attention to what was going on in my heart, mind and body throughout the day.  This is a good definition of mindfulness and usually works alongside meditation.  The key difference being that with meditation, we take a portion of time and set it aside as a spiritual discipline, with mindfulness being a part of meditation.  Mindfulness on its own is something we try to practice throughout the day as an ongoing practice.

Mindfulness is learning to watch carefully what is playing on the screens of our minds.  If we find ourselves feeling triggered to act out, we can pause, take a deep, relaxing breath, and ask ourselves why.  What is going on to make us feel that way?

We learn to practice awareness, and pay attention to our mental, emotional and spiritual state.  We take stock of things and learn to put out fires before they grow too dangerous.  We listen for when we are feeling angry, sad, lonely and disconnected, and even hungry and tired.  When we become aware of these issues we purposefully find healthy ways to deal with them so they do not lead us to act out.  We learn to tune in to what we are thinking and feeling and when those mental and emotional states pop up that we know are difficult for us, we practice new and different strategies that strengthen our serenity.

It is similar to learning how to drive.  When we learn to drive we have to expand our awareness.  As passengers, we can simply pay attention to what is going on in the car, talking to the people inside, reading or entertaining ourselves in some way.  But as drivers, we have to learn to look down the road, both near and far while also scanning our peripheral vision and mirrors for any hazards behind or beside our car, all of this as close to simultaneously as possible.  We have to know what is going on around our car at all times if we are going to drive safely.  At first, this is difficult, we have trouble moving our gaze and taking in so much information, but as we practice and gain experience, in time, this expanded awareness becomes second nature, almost instinctive.

Through most of our lives we have gone through our days with a sort of tunnel vision, getting tasks done, without ever thinking about what is going on within us.  Practicing mindfulness means expanding our awareness to take in not just what we are doing, but what we are thinking and feeling.  Not just what is going on around us, but what is going on in our hearts and minds.

Early on in recovery, this sort of mindfulness and processing was done mostly retroactively, after the fact.  I would get triggered, act out with porn and then wonder what in the world happened?  Why do I keep doing this?  Why can't I stop?  There was no space between stimulus and response.  If something upset me, almost immediately thoughts and urges around acting out would swarm my body and brain.  I had no awareness as to what was leading up to or causing those obsessive thoughts.  With time, I learned to examine the situations, thoughts and feelings that led up to the acting out, then gradually, one day at a time, I was able to pull further and further back from those situations and feelings that used to trigger me.  I learned to pause and let myself feel whatever emotions I was feeling.  If there was anger, sadness, loneliness or other negative emotions, I practiced taking those burdens to the Lord in prayer and also reaching out to friends and family for support I might need.

Mindfulness is also being aware of what we are feeling in our bodies.  If there is discomfort or pain, if we are feeling irritated, hungry or tired, we want to take stock of that and deal with those issues.  A common acronym in recovery is HALT -- Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired -- I like to add a couple letters and take away "hungry" to make BLAST -- Bored, Lonely, Angry, Stressed or Tired.  Hunger alone doesn't bother me unless it causes me to start to feel tired.  These acronyms remind us of situations when we will be more vulnerable to triggers and we want to deal with those problems in healthy ways before they lead us into temptation.

In the addiction I was always escaping reality, dissociating and living in a fantasy world, completely disconnected from what was going on around me, in the world, and in my own heart and mind.

Mindfulness is the practice of connecting with all those things, pulling the strings together.  It allows us to move away from the constant state of dissociation, of "checking out," we did in the addiction.  We  are no longer bumped from one stimulus to the next, bouncing around like a ping-pong ball.  Instead of just automatically reacting to whatever bothers us we can relax and mindfully engage our feelings and emotions and respond in sobriety and serenity.

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