Acceptance Through the Past

Acceptance through the past leads to a new future. Acceptance through addiction leads to recovery. In acceptance of our part in creating our own self-defeating thoughts and behaviors we permit ourselves the chance to surmount them.

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ACCEPTANCE THROUGH THE PAST


Many things in life are one way roads leading down a path to certain consequences that will never again leave us quite the same. That is the purpose of experience, to provide us with consequences, both good and bad, that walk us forward into the future. In that moment of futurity it becomes the present and our very being.

Experience has taught us many things… first and foremost that we cannot seek to remove the consequences from our minds once they have been justly earned through our own earnest actions. Be those actions positive or negative, pure or corrupt, productive or lethargic matters little. We reap what we sow in the form of actions and those actions stem directly from thought.

Having experienced the consequences or an action we are bound to it. Like the addict who seeks to rectify his situation. Before he succumbed to the addiction within him through his actions it had little control over him. After succumbing and allowing his body to become dependent upon the substance or emotion for whatever reason, be it pain or pleasure, he cannot go back. He is attached now to this consequence for the rest of his life or as long as his memory shall live. We cannot go back and erase the past… no matter how much we may desire it.

For the addict who overcomes himself and the desires within him he is still an addict on the edge of falling, the only way to keep from falling is to stay as far from the edge as possible. It is as a man afraid of heights, if he goes too near the edge he will get dizzy and may fall. The closer a man comes to his addiction in an effort to be strong the dizzier he gets. Once dizzy everything is distorted in his view and although he may be very brave he cannot see.

This will continue as long as he shall live, from the experience of having fallen so often in the past… it has left its mark on him and though he may wish to live again the days when he felt no fear, saw no dizziness, and was not even aware that he was addicted. Yet this is impossible in the scope of human existence. Once we have passed through an experience, seen an image, or thought a thought it remains locked away in our subconscious mind simply waiting a chance to resurface and touch our minds with its image again.

This becomes one of the governing marvels of the mind, its ability to recall on need. Though, as most things which are a marvel and a wonder, there is also the dark side. What the mind can recall works both ways, on the good and the corrupt. We can as easily recall a serene sunset among the peaks of the Himalayas as we can the feelings of worthlessness associated with our various personal vices. Yet wherein lies the difference?

It lies in the triggers we have created in our lives by our actions. Every natural fact is a type and symbol of a spiritual fact or truth. There is purity in nature… in the way things are… but as we life we begin to attach the spiritual to the natural. As we live in virtue we attach language of truth to nature as that is from where we move. If we live in corruption and seeking to fulfill our own pleasure that same nature takes on different meanings and things that were once pure become corrupted in our minds. It is the mind of the addict that is troubled and not his life. His life is troubled because of his mind and not the other way around.

In searching to find the cause of his weakness in his life he will find nothing, change nothing, and go nowhere. It is in the inward direction he must look if he is to save his soul. Over time those thoughts which have been corrupted and those natural things which have been misrepresented in his mind will become clear. In such moments there is a choice – to fight it or simply to accept it. If your mind has associated corruption of thought or body with a natural process the mind will not allow for its removal. The mind remembers all, both good and ill. To accept it is to move forward. In acceptance avoidance can be learned and mastery can be achieved. In denial avoidance is not possible for why would you avoid something that clearly cannot be so?

Accepting the weakness which we have instilled into our minds is the first step. Avoidance is the second. It is like the man who found himself addicted to alcohol and through denial attempted to quit by sheer force of will. Addiction has its own force, and sadly for all us here, that force comes from our own minds and is self created. How can a man defeat himself on ground his own mind wishes him to control? It must be a fundamental change in the thought processes of the mind. That other self, that addicted self within us knows us as well as we know ourselves yet it has a flaw, it is a part of us and thinks as we do.

In altering and changing the fundamental philosophies upon which we operate we alter not only our own minds but the mind of that addictive part of self. The addiction then takes on new meaning and a new form. The action itself begins to appear different to that other part of self and things begin to change.

The man addicted to alcohol must avoid the bar and friends with whom he has drunk his life away. It is the acceptance of being an addict which allows him the power to change. By acceptance he knows he cannot fight his unconscious self as he has hitherto attempted. He has failed in the past and what will make the future different?

Acceptance. In accepting his weakness he can bridge it and pass by it. In a man’s life there are many triggers created by him in his own denial. The smoker says he is not addicted and continues to smoke for various reasons until the day he attempts to quit and finds that he cannot. It is at that moment that realizes there is trouble but rather than fight it or discover why he cannot surmount he elects to remain in his comfortable state of denial and pretend to choose to smoke and thereby relegate himself to his own self-created fate.

The man addicted to pornography who keeps a high-speed computer with internet connection in his room is dooming himself to failure. He is in denial as to his own strength and sets himself up for failure as he permits his own mind to push him into the very thing which he would avoid. It is by acceptance of his circumstance that the man knows he must remove the computer from his room and from a private location. It is this same man who knows he cannot be near a computer in private or with nothing to do save browse the web. His denial will punish him with its own form of self-loathing. His acceptance and adjustment will allow him a sense of confidence which only comes day by day and moment by moment as he follows his sense of what must be done.

The alcoholic who will not give up the bar is a good as dead in his addiction. The smoker who will not sacrifice drink is as good as smoked out in most cases. A smoker usually drinks and after a night at the bar drinking will leave and have a cigarette. It is a habit as deeply engrained in his mind and body after years of smoking as breathing is engrained in his body’s need to survive. He cannot avoid it if he places himself there. He will fall because he is there. How can he resist the urge when he has removed all inhibition with drink? Will he be strong enough once inhibition is gone and his strength of will has been stolen by the very drink that would make him forget his pain? It causes the same pain over and over again, the very pain he would avoid. Is this not insanity? This is why recovering from addiction is so difficult. It requires men and women to accept that they are addicts and can do nothing about it.

People try to deny this but it is so. They are addicts and will be, there is no sudden end to it or destination in this life where they will never struggle again. Now that they have, by their actions, awakened that other part of self and created a dependence upon some substance or emotion… they must accept what they have done. Denying that they are addicts leads them to rush headlong into and confront the very actions they wish to avoid. Why do they rush toward those very things? Because they are attempting to prove to both themselves and others that they are in fact, not addicts of any kind and not only in complete control of themselves… but that they choose to drink or smoke or perform their addictive behavior.

What is the purpose of this self-denial? The protection of the ego goes back in the ages as a part of the very fundamental nature of man. Ego is paramount to each individual and he or she will do all in their power to protect the ego, even unto the destruction of self.

In order to succeed in crushing the addiction within you it must be acceptance and avoidance which pave the way. As a fire blazing in the bush, it must be starved of wood and air in order to burn lower. If we continue to feed it the blaze will continue to burn just as bright. In addiction we have a blaze within our bosom for that which we do not want. As we go about our day we put ourselves in situations which add fuel to the fire. If we do not avoid those fueling situations the blaze will continue to burn brightly.

Sadly the blaze cannot be extinguished completely for once a blaze has been set in the mind and body it is remembered by the body always. That spark in the mind is there to ignite any tinder or fuel placed upon it. Once the blaze has died down to an ember it is buried in the mind but do not think that it is gone. The ember of addiction has been kindled in the soul and will exist always. An addict is an addict still, even forty years after the fact. Forty years and ember is an ember still.

Accept that and you accept the power to change yourself. Now stand up and as that blaze burns within you let it simply burn and stand and watch it as it burns towards the ground. Remove yourself from situations, experiences, and peoples who fuel the blaze within you.

An obstacle arises after we have accepted ourselves and what must thus, consequently, be done. It arises in the fact that we have been and are attached to the very things, peoples, places, and circumstances which do feed the blaze within us and thus keep us securely to themselves.

Attachment is spoken of in Buddhism to great extent and they mention that pain is brought about by attachment. This is the reason why denial and attachment go hand in hand. A many may feel selling his truck to provide for his family the necessary thing to do but may be attached to the truck after spending thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours working on it. When he denies that it really must be sold he keeps himself in the exact same situation as he was in before. Knowing what must be done but unable to do so because of his attachment. Because of his denial and inability to accept he causes himself pain twice… once because he knows he must be rid of and second because he cannot bring himself to do so. The pain caused here is two-fold and the solution is simple. Acceptance. In accepting what must be and removing the attachments he feels the path before him is clear and there is no pain. This is what must be done and I will do it. There is no regret… yet this is not what it means to mortal.

We are human and thus as human beings, filled with emotion. We create attachments everywhere we go and we see only what we want to see. But we as humans also have another ability that not another creature on this planet has. We can step outside ourselves and watch our thoughts and actions. As we step outside ourselves we have the unique ability to see both cause and effect, as well as everything in between. Thus when we speak of acceptance it becomes an acceptance of what has been and will be if we continue as we are. It is an acceptance of what things, peoples, experiences and places have caused us to be where we are today and the acceptance that if we continue to associate with them we will be where we are today, in the future.

Acceptance of this allows us a choice in the moment. I can continue as I am and see nothing change, though I want it badly changed. Or I can realize and accept that this is the path before me now and I have a choice, now, at this forking of the road and I choose the road less traveled. The road less traveled is a frightful thought filled with newness and unease. A road we have not traveled down before carries with it a sense of loneliness for a time. It is after having been down a road for some distance that we find ourselves traveling in the company of others and they in ours. If we do not part ways with the things, peoples, experience and places of our past at the forking point we are still on the same road with the same people, even if unbeknownst to us.

If you would change your life change it. Do not wish it changed and do nothing. Accept your past and what it entails in your future and stop denying yourself and who and what you are and have become. To change the future you must accept your past or you will be destined to repeat it.

For those struggling with acceptance of their past, addiction of any type, or self defeating thoughts and behaviors I hope this has been helpful. Accept your past and being to part ways with the things, peoples, experience and places which hold you fast to them. Let the blaze burn down to an ember and then keep yourself aloof from these things. In such a manner you may guard the ember safe from the fuels which would allow it to burst the bands you have set and consume you for a moment.

New Publication

Good morning,

Recently I put together an article and am pleased to say that it is first published article I have written. I invite you to read it and comment on it.

The article was written for the Edgewalker Magazine and was included in their first issue this past January. To find the article online go to one of the web addresses below.

http://www.edgewalkergroup.com/
If you choose this link click the Edgewalker Magazine link in the bottom right corner and then the Articles link from the menu on the right.

http://blog.edgewalkergroup.com/2009/01.aspx
If you choose this link it will take you to their blogged archives where you can comment on the article itself and any other articles included in the magazine.

Keep smiling,

daniel

Perspective

The reason why our generation looks oddly at people who love to keep everything, ie. Packrats... is because in our society today everything is easy to acquire from anywhere. Those of generations before us were taught to save everything... They grew up in the depression. You had to save everything. Little wonder it passed on to many in the next generation. Little wonder.



So when we think of packrats in a negative light in our culture that is simply the result of our cultural programming. We were raised buying what we want and not making due with what was there. They were raised being forced to make due with what was there because it's all they had available. Today we buy new things rather than fix the old. We have junk yards full of old things which work perfectly well that have been exchanged for the new.


It is hard to see clearly when we see through unclear perceptions and preformed judgements. What is real? And what is real only because we accept it as true... Yet have never sounded its depths? Our perceptions and judgements stem from things we hardly ever seem to see and seldom realize or look upon. Let us consider some of the simple things we simply accept as the way things are when in actuality there was a point in time when it became that way. Now those ideas color how we see the world and what we see as right or wrong and common sense or nonsense.
 
 
Why do we drive on the right side of the road or steer from the left side of the car? Why do we read left  to right instead of right to left? Why is our alphabet what it is? Why is goal setting so important? Why is money many times more important than anything in our society? Why are Americans known as business men and adventurers? Is it well earned? Why is the keyboard laid out as it is?
 
 
How many other simple things are there all around us that we take for granted without knowing why? Why do we sit in chairs instead of cross legged on the ground? Why is it unprofessional for men to have long hair or a beard today when it was more than acceptable in the past? What changed?
 
 
We think these small things don't matter and yet they color everything we see and do. They color how we treat people. These things that simply are change everything. Yet we accepted them at some point in our lives as true. They may or may not be true... simply another way to experience reality. If you go to another country... life is very different and they see things totally differently than we do. Why? Those same small things that they believe simply are. And we wonder why we are sometimes shocked by other cultures customs and why they are shocked by ours? Perspective.
 
 
What are the little ideas in your life? Look at the things you believe simply are. What is common sense to you? Is that nonsense to someone else? Why do you behave as you do in social situations? in relationships? in school? at work? What underlying ideas brought about your interpretations of your surroundings?
 
 
All things originate in thought. It is the beginning of all we see, and know, and experience. Thought becomes motion and motion, action. Action brings us life as we experience it and yet we seldom think of thought as the origination point of all we have, possess and experience. It is the small and simply thought which truly does move mountains and change the course of history. What underlying thoughts have been accepted as true in your mind? Where do they lead? What has happened in your life as a result? Are your expectations realistic? or does that come from another thought somewhere deep down about what is expected or, even, realistic?
 
 
Thought is the hardest of all work and that is exactly why a great man once said "that is why so few engage in it." Take a moment and figure out the underlying thoughts of your life and your family and your culture. Where have they led you and where will they lead you?