Episode Transcript
We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships, we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Ann O'Hare, and this is The Spiritual American. Hello everyone and welcome to the spiritual American. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare and I'm your host. And today we will be talking about facing addictions. It's a very important topic. We're going to be going under the surface again, but before we get started. Please consider like sharing and subscribing as you know This helps YouTube to get the content out to more and more people and also consider sharing with your friends and family as well Thank you all so much for being here. So facing addictions. First of all, I want to qualify and distinguish What we're talking about because I'm not talking about life threatening addictions. I'm not talking about drug addiction, alcohol addiction. I'm not talking about substance abuse necessarily. What I'd like to talk about today is addiction of behaviors that we want to change, that we have trouble changing. So, I'm not talking about substance abuse. Or behavior to the point where it's destroying your family or like gambling or, not like that. I'm talking about being addicted to things that you know are not good for you, behaviors that you know are not good for you, but you can't seem to stop doing them. Like let's say you stay up too late at night then you don't get enough sleep or your eating habits are off and you can't seem to Change your eating habits not addictive. Not like eating disorders, but just like again, remember we were talking about how everything's on a continuum So i'm talking about the middle ground here I'm using the word addiction because it is an addiction in the sense that it's not changing even if you want it to change it has a force behind it. So we're not talking about those extremes Into the substance abuse and things like that But we are talking about behaviors that we don't seem to be able to change even like behavior like starting a fight with my husband or something and I keep fighting and I can't seem to stop fighting or I Can't seem to stop getting upset at work or I can't seem to stop thinking patterns and behavior patterns that we can't seem to stop. I'm calling them addictions because there's something about that thing that we keep going back to it, even though we know it's not good. And I'll give an example. So I grew up, as you know, in the seventies and eighties and My husband didn't grow up here in this country. He grew up in South America and he didn't see a television until he was 27 years old. He never watched television until he was 27 years old. So you can imagine, like I grew up, I had TV from day one and not only that, but movies, right? So we were watching horror movies, everything, watching it from day one. So very young exposed to all of that stuff. So. As I'm on this spiritual journey, I'm starting to be more and more responsible for my nervous system. I have anxiety history and everything else. So being afraid or watching something that makes me nervous or afraid is probably not a good idea. But I had noticed that I had been attracted to like the horror movies or still attracted to that thing. Why would I be attracted to something that makes me feel bad? Think about it. So hold that thought. I just want to say something about the addiction. So facing an addiction could be scary. So when I'm talking about these things. Maybe we're secretly like, I want to change it, but part of me doesn't want to change it. I like it. I like how it makes me feel. So I'm going to keep, but part of me wants to stop. Okay. Here's another addiction. Let's say at nighttime, like I mentioned before, let's say I watch TV too late or I get on the computer or whatever, and I don't get enough sleep. So I'm kind of addicted to the screens or I'm addicted to the games or whatever I'm doing at night instead of. Taking care of my body and getting enough rest so. Some intellect is there saying, you know, you really need to go to sleep, but I like the way this makes me feel. So I'm not gonna take care of myself. I'm not going to take care of my body. I'm not going to take care of my mind. Facing those things could be scary or maybe I have the attitude like, oh, I'll stop doing it someday. I'll stop doing it someday. That's the kind of thing I want to face right now because let's say we're really interested in getting better, getting healthy. Let's talk about health for instance and our daily routine maybe I like to watch movies or maybe I watch news or maybe I watch or maybe all the things, something that I'm doing is keeping me from being restful, let's say. How do I get to the point where I actually want to change that? So it's an addiction in the sense that there's part of me that doesn't want to change it and it has force, it has power, that part that doesn't want to change because even though the intellect is saying, Oh, I think I should get some rest right now. No, I'm going to do this anyway. So it has some power to it. So, I'm going to go through a couple of steps. If you have something in your life that you are doing or a pattern of thinking or a pattern of behavior that you would like to change, that you recognize as not being good for you or good for your relationships, we can look at these steps to see. It's okay if your whole self is not on board to change it right now. One of the things I've learned is that if I want to change something and the force behind it is so strong that it doesn't want to change, if I try to force the change, it resists. So I don't want to cause the resistance, but I have to assess myself, right? There are things that can be changed right away. I'm sure you all have done, made a change that was no problem. Oh, I want to stop this. No problem. But there are other changes that maybe you don't, that don't get changed. And they persist, right? These things that we, behaviors that persist. Those are the ones I'm talking about. So first we have to assess and see, what do I want to change? And I would, invite you all right now to think about one aspect of your life whether it's a behavior pattern, an activity, or something that you feel. Like you would like to change because you would like it to be more healthy or more loving or more cooperative or something like that. So think about that for a minute. Now think about one thing that you'd like to shift, even though that other feeling is there, we know it's there. Okay. So the first thing is If I say to myself, look, I really want to change this thing, I have to assess how much force there is. Like maybe I can give myself a percentage, how much percentage wants to change and how much percentage wants it to stay the same. So I'm going to say, let's say with the, staying up at night too late on the phone or something for me. I would assess that it was like 80, 20, 80 percent wanted to keep doing it and 20 percent wanted to get more rest or was willing to stop it to get the rest. So what I needed to do was make the 20 more and make the 80 less. How do you do that? Well, I'm going to go through the steps right here. So you can assess for yourself and give yourself percentage on the thing that you picked right now. And be honest because it's only you, it's you and you, right? So step one, observe without judgment. So tell yourself, tell the 80 percent or tell the one that's not, doesn't want to change. Say we're not going to change anything, I'm just going to watch, I'm going to watch how I feel. I'm going to watch what happens. It's okay. Do it. I don't, it's fine. Now I'm saying, again, these are addictions and behaviors that are not hurting anybody, right? These are just things that we want to change. So step one, observe without judgment. We also call that merciful self observation. I'm calling that merciful self observation, MSO, whatever. I'm trying to think of a catchy thing for that. Merciful self observation. Mercy means love, understanding, and detachment. I love myself. I'm trying to understand myself and I'm a little detached. I'm a little unemotional. I'm a little bit. apart from the, whatever the feeling is that I'm getting from doing it. Merciful self observation. The next one is look at the past, present, and future of the behavior. So like I said about the horror movies and stuff, I noticed that I was attracted to this, attracted to that, like fearful things. And I'm saying, well, why am I? Well, I guess it makes sense if I was exposed to it at a young age, it would make sense that that would be what I would be attracted to. By doing that, I'm giving myself. Some understanding I'm seeing where it came from and I see if I keep on doing it I'm obviously creating stress for the body and I don't want to do that. So I'm kind of expanding my view on the situation I'm not just looking at one thing and blaming myself or fighting with myself kind of looking. Where did this come from? Where did this behavior come from? Where did I learn this behavior? Yeah, I'm doing it now. I want to change it. But what happens if I keep doing it? Okay. What's the benefit of stopping it? Let me just take a look and see the past, present, and future of the situation, then give an opportunity for emotional healing and validation. So what does that mean? Well, maybe when I look back and see, that I've been fearful or having fear experience my whole life because of this, maybe there'll be a little feeling of loss. Maybe there'll be a little feeling of. Maybe I didn't get a chance to be calm or whatever. Maybe there'll be a little bit of emotional processing of that. Leave opening for that. That's okay. If you have a friend to talk to with this, it's good because it's a nice process and it doesn't take long. If you just let yourself go through it, it doesn't take long. So the first step is observing merciful self observation. Second one is past, present and future. You look. Third one is. look and see if there's some kind of emotional validation. Yes, I validate myself well and make sense that it was like that. And then maybe if there's some kind of emotional processing, that's okay. Articulate to yourself what you want to happen. So start talking to yourself, what do you want to happen? So this ultimately, I wanted to be able to get enough sleep so that I would be able to wake up early in the morning for meditation and not be exhausted and I wanted to feel rested and so forth. And I knew it would be better for my body too, right? It's not working. What I'm doing is definitely not working. So that's what I want. I want to be able to go to bed at a reasonable time so that I get a good night's sleep and then I wake up for meditation and I'm ready for meditation, rested and ready. That's what I want. The next one is. The last one actually, find the middle ground. So what's the middle ground? You have the one that's addicted. You have the part of you that is maybe not resisting, but not too keen on stopping what it's doing. And then you have the one that's just articulated clearly what we want to happen. Well, inside yourself now. Come up with a course of action that doesn't feel threatening to you. I'll give another example. So as a nurse, I've given this example before, but if you're talking to patients or anybody about food, people have feelings about food. They have their family stuff, the way they were brought up and their feelings about it and so forth. And if you tell somebody, well, you got to change everything you, you do about food. Everything you're doing is wrong. You have to change this and this and this and that. You think that person is going to do it? They're not going to do it. So what I used to do is I used to say, okay, what do you eat for lunch? And they would say, I eat a chili burger and fries. And I would say, okay, can you, instead of the chili burger and fries, can you do a hamburger? With a salad. So it's the thing is you want to be able to move yourself towards change without disturbing or threatening. There's no point of disturbing or threatening because then they dig in right? Then it's going to keep on going. What we want to do is we want to ease ourself out of that. I'm calling it addictive behavior because it's negative and it's repetitive and you're having a harder time breaking out of it. Right? So we're moving our way out of that into a more healthy or a more desirable activity or action or pattern. But we want to do it without Resistance, no force, no resistance, understanding. We're doing it with understanding, observing, understanding, figuring out what I'm saying exactly what it is we want, what we want to do, and then working with myself. So what I did was I talked about it with myself. I said, okay. Okay. Okay. Should I stop doing screens at this time? What time should I stop? First I said, I'll stop at 6 p. m. And I was like, that's not late enough. I need a little bit more. Cause I, what if I have a meeting? What if I have to work on something? I needed more time. So I was like working with myself then I said, well, once I get ready for bed, then what if I start getting bored? Well, I started telling myself, well, at this time, then we can do this kind of meditation. Which is more active like let's do this or let's do a little Hatha yoga before bed. So you're doing something Maybe that'll help feel a little bit more active instead of feeling like oh everything's cut off and now I have to go towards my addiction. I hope this makes sense what I'm sharing. I'm sharing my experience with this, but what I found is, wait, and then the last thing is once you do that, then do it that day, if you can do it that day. So you're starting a new pattern, but you have to find that middle ground. And once you start the new pattern, then you have a precedent to build on of the new pattern. You could also adjust it. Well, this doesn't work. Let me adjust it a little bit. I actually had to adjust that one I just shared with you because it didn't work. Like it wasn't late enough. Like I had to kind of adjust the time. So it wasn't exactly what I described, but it was better than what was there before. I think that, I don't know if everybody has had this, but I think I grew up with a, with a feeling like if something's wrong, you have to correct it with force or with anger or something like that. Nothing needs to be changed like that. So when we're facing addictions, I would say think about this process. It works for me because I, any kind of resistance or force is going to be the heels are going to be digging in. They're going to, it's going to keep wanting to keep going, but this is working. So it's like, okay, I'm just gonna, I'm not going to change it. I'm just going to watch. Not going to change, just going to watch. So it's merciful self observation, then past, present and future, then give an opportunity for whatever validation or emotional processing, then articulate exactly what you want to happen and then work it out. What action can we take now? That's not going to feel like a threat. As I'm saying this right now, it feels like psychology. I know that psychology has done this as well. So some of this may sound very similar to psychology, but if it works, it works. I mean, I think one of the things that maybe is spiritual about this is the merciful self observation. The merciful Observation of your mind and the idea that there's no judgment. Everything has a reason for being there. So there's no need to judge. I can respect myself and ease myself into a healthier behavior. Ease myself into a pattern that I feel good about, that I feel proud of, and that's more authentic to me and healthy, right? Healthy. Again, I'm saying healthy because that's the main thing, right? So I'll leave it there. I hope that that has given something to work with. I know that it's definitely worked with me. This kind of easing myself out of one thing into another, the more I practice it, I'm really have been able to transform quite a few things in that way. So I'll leave it there. Our slogan is heal, empower, and serve. And remember, as we get better, everyone else gets better. And so until next time, thank you for being here. Take care. Yeah. Yeah.
