"Willingness: Principle of Change"

"Addictions Common Deceptions"

No one knows what percentage genetics play in our nature. It's possibly none. For sure, it's less than previously thought. For sure, it's less than is taught in schools. How much of our personality is due to DNA? We can't scientifically say that there is any. How much do we and our perceptions effect it? Certainly a lot. I was a very stubborn child. It doesn't matter why. This combination of stubbornness and durability allowed me to drink, do drugs, and hate until it damn near killed me. It was that near death state that provided me with the willingness needed to do something different.

I can say with one hundred percent assurance that every person will eventually stop practicing their bad habits. This will take place with or without our consent. We do have the choice of when it takes place. Life, gods, higher powers will not interfere, intervene or other wise affect that choice. Any belief to the contrary is at best confusing and at worst dangerous. Counting on this type of intervention is fantasy, that's just not how the world works.

Life is the provider of the means to grow. For physical, mental and all other aspects that we enjoy: all is provided. It's really a 'perfect world'. I learned this on the golf course as, once again, I watched my ball fade just right ( and short ) of a long par three. I thought ( my brain thought ) how it would be nice if just once I could get lucky. As I walked down the fairway I looked at that thought and what it would mean. After all, the ball is where it is because I had my blade slightly open at impact. It wasn't personal. It was just physics. If the brain was to get its wish and I could hit the ball wrong and have it go straight I would never again be able to count on anything in this world. It would all be operating under a different set of unpredictable principles and it just wouldn't work. No I just needed to square up my club and if I couldn't manage to do that I could get a lot of practice hitting my second shot from the woods. 'Perfect'.

So we got ourselves in trouble. We practiced habits and developed patterns. We went along trying to escape whatever fantasy world our brains created. We caused suffering for ourselves and at some point it got to be to much. We are the lucky ones. Many die, most live far below there potential, some develop health issues. The rest just suffer endlessly and needlessly their whole lives. No matter what the habit is we use to escape, eating, gambling, buying things, obsessive needing things, it doesn't matter. All fantasy leads to suffering. We want to escape the fantasy created by the brain from data given it by others who hold the fantasies of the ones who taught them and so on. It's no wonder we want out of it. The problem is that no one can really escape from the unreal. Its not real to begin with so there is no 'real' means of escape. Only more fantasy. Sometimes the suffering is great enough that we become willing to do something different. At some point I had suffered enough to finally say to some one,"OK , I give up, what do you think I should do? They told me,"You need to make some lists", so I did.

At this point its not necessary to do anything perfect. The nice thing about Life's principles is that its all in the doing not the doing perfect. In the doing its predictable, causal and can be counted on completely. If something isn't working out then its not a mystery it is simply that some principle is not being practiced. It's all physical. Life is physical. Ideas are physical: they have a structure. Nothing is mystical. Mystical is physical, spiritual is physical. Empty space is physical. We can pretend otherwise, but that won't make things different. The problem is that the results of the pretend world are physical too. We just find out what it is we need to do and do it. The best way to find out is to ask somebody. That's why A.A. has mentors, we call them sponsors ( which is grammatically erroneous ) to guide us to different things to do. Its not so much an answer to a question as just something to do. The reason I went on about life and fantasy and the golf story is that it may help with the lists. When you look at the list of fears you've made you can see that they came from a world based, to some degree, on fantasy. The most obvious fantasy is that these things have the power to scare you. Like our resentments, we are feeling a threat from something that hasn't the innate quality of being threatening. Ideas have what we gave them. The fantasy we deal with first is that things are making us afraid. Realistically we must say that we are making ourselves afraid. Anything else is an impossibility. A fantasy. When we ditch that fantasy, all the scary things go with it. Once that bridge is crossed we can move on.

Since I stopped taking heroin to escape the imaginary world, I've been able to decide for myself what the world is. This new picture is based on a lot of research. In short, its a completely different world than the one I grew up with. It's not scary. If we want to be free of fear, we must become willing to gain complete control over ourselves. When I decided to put this site together I found that if I wanted to be in complete control of the site I would have to write the HTML code myself, learn all that I needed to know about the web, servers, the whole ball of wax. I had to be willing to do this if I wanted autonomy over my web site world. I simply started out to accomplish the goal. The same is true for any task we choose. If we are standing beside a rock that has a circumference of five feet and we want three quarter inch gravel and the only tool available is a sledge hammer, then we have a decision to make. If we choose to use the available tool and are willing to keep hitting the rock we will have gravel. We do not need to know how to swing a hammer. We do not need to be strong. If we are willing to do it we will get better at swinging the hammer and by the end of the process we'll be much stronger. That's how life is. Whether its rock pounding, meditation or the ascension to *higher states it's physical and the willingness must come first.

*I really don't know anything about higher states, that was my brains idea.

From this point on we will begin looking at another aspect of the universal dis-ease from which we suffer. As we start to grasp the depth of how trauma effects us we will not only become completely free of our habitual conditions but we will be able to see how the entire planet has been in the grip of a common dis-ease. We will go through a healing and become healers. It's just the natural course. Understanding is power.

This is also the beginning of a course in uncovering any more severe underlying conditions. It is not necessary to end our relationship here but it is time to offer other avenues and resources. One may need a setting that provides a more face to face in depth work. The rest of the story is still contained here and total awareness is offered. But we must be in tune with where life is leading us. The point is, there is no facility on line that can hold a hand or lend a shoulder for support.

A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: the Trauma Underlying Addiction

Author: Sarah Jenkins

Sit down, and let me tell you a story, a fable that tells of a wolf in sheep's clothing. It is a fable, written by Aesop, that you may be curious to learn, and can tell us of addiction's common deceptions. Perhaps you will find the lesson in the beginning, or even at the end, but you will be curious about what you will soon learn, as you read on.

"A wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so the wolf put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep.

A lamb began to follow the wolf in the Sheep's clothing. So, leading the lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal of her. For some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals."

What's Underneath: The Wolf

Appearances are deceptive. Aesop's famous fable, as in many stories from our own lives, makes that quite clear. Certainly, we can "think" we know what is causing our struggles, and often the causes can be quite obvious. Nevertheless, for those in recovery, what is on the "outside," what is "seen," is not always reality. Many times, it is the wolf "underneath" that seeks to drive the addiction, maintain it, and feed its hunger.

Think about yourself, or someone you know, who may be in recovery. On the outside, the addiction can "look" like the primary focus, and paradoxically can be. Yet, what I often speak of with clients, is that something underneath, within them, is painful, and is consciously, or subconsciously covered, protected, and held at bay. Beneath outside appearances, there is an often-painful event, experience, or history that the outside behaviors, the "pelt," addictions, seek to cover. It is the "wolf on the inside," trauma, that seeks to be hidden from view. Certainly, the wolf is not kind, nor is it tame, but the stories, and experiences, can still haunt people without their awareness. They are hidden under the pelt of addictive behaviors, and can look like something different than what they really are.

Sexual and physical abuses are some of the strongest wolves "under the pelt." For example, they are the very things that can first drive people to engage in addictive behaviors. Even if the conscious mind struggles to know exactly what the underlying cause is, the addictive behaviors often seek to cover the trauma underneath. Addictive behaviors are often ways to cope with pain, whether conscious, or not. Sometimes the painful memories are so great that they split off and are stored in ways that even the conscious mind is not aware of.

There is a part of you that wants to be healed and wants to express the painful stories. This is the part that wants to get help, feel better, and recover. Nevertheless, sometimes we seek to "push the trauma away" to prevent the wolf from rearing its ugly head and attacking. The mind often grabs onto drugs, alcohol, sex, relationships, even chaos, to keep the wolves at bay. We cover it with a pelt. Nevertheless, the wolves are unrelenting. They seek to have their stories told by giving people flashbacks, body memories, fear, anxiety, and nightmares. Ironically, by letting the wolves out, by sharing the trauma, and processing it, the wolves lose their power. The nervous system can eventually release the trauma, and the physical, emotional, and spiritual symptoms.

Shedding The Pelt The wolf's growl comes in the form of the feelings, emotions, body memories, and experiences that surface. It is loud. Yet, why would the wolf, the trauma, want to come out from under the surface in the first place? Why doesn't it want to stay under the sheep's pelt, stay hidden, and keep feeding the addictions? The answer to these questions lies in an "internal healing mechanism" that seeks for us to feel whole, safe, and protected.

Ironically, this internal healer may be the same part that thinks that addictive behaviors will quell the trauma. Yet, the wolf is so overpowering and strong, trauma often wins out over those addictive behaviors. The pain is still there, somewhere. The trauma story must be reprocessed through a more healthy perspective, and its hold on the nervous system, released. It is the trauma, the wolf, that needs to shed the pelt.

EMDR Consider that our brain has two hemispheres; the left is more logical and the right, more emotional. Trauma causes the hemispheres to get out of sync. For example, you may know that what happened to you "is over" but it doesn't feel true. Your logical left brain and subjective right brain are in conflict. As a result, the upsetting, scary, or traumatic experience stay "stuck" or "frozen" in the nervous system. In addition, negative beliefs such as "I'm not good enough," "It's my fault," or "I deserved it," feel true, even though logically, you know that they are not.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) is an evidence-based therapy that often gets to the wolf, the underlying trauma. EMDR unfreezes the trauma, and helps the nervous system "let go." The nervous system learns that it doesn't have to be in a state of alert. The brain shifts out of the "fight of flight" mode that causes symptoms such as anxiety, body memories, fear, and flashbacks.

EMDR combines elements of several different therapies with alternate right and left (bilateral) eye movements, tones, or tactile stimuli. In essence, the bilateral stimulation encourages the left and right sides of the brain to communicate effectively. The brain releases the fight or flight response, thus the wolf underneath of the pelt is exposed for what it is. As a result, clients find that they feel more in the present, less controlled by what lies underneath. They learn that they can release the wolf, and its hold, and move forward.

About the Author:
Sarah Jenkins, MC, practices counseling and therapy in Tempe Sarah helps people feel safe, validates their experiences, and helps people to resolve their issues. Sarah can be contacted for questions or scheduling here: Good Therapy and Therapist Rolling Hill Estates

Article Source: www.articlesbase.com

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