The key is reinvent

I recently watched an interview with a well known psychologist who claimed that in his experience, he observed that those that successfully defeated their addictions all displayed one trait, the ability to completely reinvent themselves.

He stated that more often than not for someone to overcome an addiction, it requires a complete overhaul of the lifestyle, beliefs, and personality traits of that person. When I heard this I asked myself, how is it possible to completely reinvent oneself ?

I remembered back to a time, before all of the grief I have experienced as a result of my porn addiction (if you're interested in the specifics look at my previous post), a time when I was driven, spiritual and focused on bettering myself. The contrast between that former state of mind and the mindset I developed during my descent into the most cruel and pernicious demon in all of the addiction world (save maybe heroin), was stark. I realised that I no longer needed to ask the question of how it is possible for someone to completely reinvent themselves, I already had. What started out as a thrill, a love affair with pornography, had completely changed me, I had come to fully identify with the drug as so many addicts do - mind, body, and soul.

I begged whatever higher power exists, often calling out into the night to free me from an addiction I felt I no longer had any power over. My addiction continued and eventually caused the greatest tragedy in my life. Since this event, I have completely quit porn, and what I thought was an unflappable adversary no longer seems so have any effect over me whatsoever. And I believe I know the reason why, and i'm about to share with you what I have discovered in this short time, and the methods I have unintentionally used.

This event I speak of (check my previous post), has shaken up my life, and the realisation that the only way I can ever rectify the damage I have caused, is change. This is the first domino so to speak. I recommend that you meditate of what could happen if you continue using porn, what is the worst case scenario ? I assure you it's not worth continuing using porn for.

The second best thing I ever did, was pick up the book "man and his symbols" by Carl Jung. Before my porn addiction I had been interested in spiritual practice, but upon a series of life struggles I had fallen out with "god" so to speak. This book by Jung, in one fell swoop, was able to rationalise the meaning behind spiritual practice for me, it's a tool for rewiring a broken mind. Jung proposes that the meaning behind spiritual practice of any kind isn't to connect with an omnipotent being in the sky as often we are led to believe, but is rather a method to initiate dialogue between different parts of the psyche, one advantage of this being a heightened sense of clarity, self, and the upheaval of repressed trauma in an intentional (mindful) and ecological manner (rather than airing your dirty laundry in public so to speak).

Another revelation of Jung's is that spiritual practice should never mean the literal and dogmatic pursuit of a doctrine, we should cultivate our own relationship with our spirit or "god", and whatsmore, any constructive activity can be used as a spiritual tool so long as we pay mind to the positive elements we can extract from participation. Say for example, you're a sportsman, a gamer, or even in your career. There will be events in the course of your exploration of this activity that will stir up emotions, potentially even frustration or anger. Now imagine in that moment when those feelings arise you pay full attention to what triggered that emotion, feel the effect that emotion has over your body, and then allow yourself the time to recover or deal with that emotion before you manifest your feelings in the physical world (through aggression to another person, shouting, arguing)... yep you just turned gaming, sports, or your career into a spiritual practice.

For me my spiritual practice has been yoga, intense exercise, and reading. I am a week into my DAILY practice, and I feel its had a significant material effect on negating addictive tendencies. On top of this, I feel my relationships with people have improved, I feel lighter of heart, and I am gaining rapid insight into my self including previous trauma, heartbreaks, and what I want from the future. Whatever your explanation for these changes doesn't matter, it's that the practice is bringing about positive change, and this is precisely what Jung alluded to when he talked about spiritual/ritual practice.

This has been a key step in me reinventing myself.

In addition to this, exercise is further changing my self perception, and reading is instilling in me a greater knowledge of the world around me including that of my yogic practices which now I know I will continue forever.

These are but a few ways I am reinventing myself, and I will continue to incorporate new elements into this transformation. I recommend that if you're at that point in which you've lost sight of why you would even quit porn, I would say you have reached the point of fully identifying with the addiction, and now is time to kick yourself up the ass, swallow your pride, and dive into your inner world through deep spiritual practice (Jungian definition).

Recommended reading:

Man and his symbols - Carl Jung
Modern Man in search of a Soul - Carl Jung
Magician, King, Warrior, Lover - Moore
He - Alan Roberts
She - Alan Robert
Chakra Meditation - Swami Saradananda

Love,

Anewera