The war is won within.
Once we win the battle on the inside, the battle on the outside is also won.
Happiness is a choice. The motivation to pull ourselves out of lethargy, or detrimental habits, comes from our resolve. All this is in our own hands. We have fate, and we have free will; the above is an example of our free will and the power of our will. When we use our will, our resolve, amazing things can happen.
Yet, The spiritual path, and path of life, are swirled with one's 'will' and the divine 'will.'
Persistence and Surrender are the the two sides of the same coin of a successful life. Our will and resolve, along with persistence and follow through with our actions lay the foundation. Yet surrender and acceptance to what may be the fruit of our action, the results of our action, quickly show one its importance. In the Vedas it says we are entitled to our actions, but not to the fruit of them. Clear external action, comes from clear internal insight and equinimity. Take Simone Biles, she trained and practiced, but that day and time of the Olympics, she gave her all, but also many things where out of her hand. She also had the complexity of her inner world sabotaging her outer world.
How can we make proper actions in life when our inner world is clouded with smoke of an internal war...?
Addiction is an attempt to solve an internal problem. But the inner war is not won by all the soldiers getting drunk, doped up, or mindless infinite scrolling on the phone. We are in a time in the world where there are more vices than ever, all for the sake and in the pursuit of finding happiness.
Here is a secret; we need nothing to make us happy.
We use food, clothing, sugar, caffeine, movies, music, friends, gamble, sex, or other recreational activities, all to combat the inner problem. Addiction can come in many forms, all are means to escape the problem.
All are short term solutions.
In Ayurveda, food , herbs and lifestyle suggestions are the tools used to solve physical and mental problems. Medically herbalized enemas and herbs we have seen used for seizures, schizophrenia, etc.have been helpful. But the simple mood of happiness, can not come from these things. We may be able to remove the things that would otherwise be stifling the feeling of happiness, but happiness arrises from within. Happiness is not just a response to life, but is our natural state of being.
An addict is a yogi in disguise.
Addict's use the external route of sense gratification as their misunderstood solution. They just need the confidence and support to change the route from external sense dependence, to the internal meditative state.
Addicts know there is a problem with 'life'. All that they have found life to be, is unfulfilling.
Like an angel having been kicked out from heaven, they try to make this world their heaven, and are sorely disappointed when life doesn't match up to their fantasy. Their response to this, is to go deeper into a world of illusion, until the illusion has them caught in its own web. Check mate.
To be human is to feel the waves of emotions. We feel them, act from them and become apart of them.
Emotions are incredibly powerful; grief causing us to stop eating, anger causing us to get irritable bowel syndrome, depression causing obesity, anxiety causing tachycardia, stress causing premature loss of hair or cushings syndrome. We have seen it all. Yet, too often do these emotions skew our perception of reality, and we fail to think clearly or even see things clearly. Try taking sense into one in a manic state... right? Not going to listen. This is where emotions go bad. Many never want to leave the victim state. It is up to the person to see, how to get intouch with their heart, but get out of their habitually unhealthy emotional reactivity.
You are your own beginning and your own end. You are your champion and your worst critic.
You have everything you need, You are everything you need. You are the seeker and the sought.
You are your way out, and only you, are the one that got yourself in this situation. But you can get yourself out.
Knowing that there is support, that there are efficacious ways of healing, this eases the mind in its chatter of helplessness. It is helpful to 'Reclaim your will.' There is a process; Surrender to the process, understand it thoroughly before one pulls themselves out, so that they may never slip back into it again. But if one does slip, one does so with awareness or ' Bodham.'
'Bodham' is what we need in our lives. The awareness to see life's changes and not be disturbed by them. To see the wrinkling of our faces and welcome the change. Awareness of our emotions, our mental defeatist attitudes, our self sabotage, the victim stories we replay in our mind- all these can breed addictive behavior. With our will, each moment we can choose happiness.
Rewrite our past, by affirming happiness in our present.
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