The Abe Forum

abrahammer117 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 25, 2024 9:07 am Reminder: Look for excuses to laugh, excuses to have fun

I want to do this too!
Thanks for the inspiration!

abrahammer117 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 25, 2024 9:07 am I heard recently a description of addiction as 'the progressive narrowing of things that give you pleasure'.

oh that's an interesting one! It makes so much sense!
The more you're addicted to one thing, the less time you give to enjoying other things. I never thought about it like that - it's so true!

So often people see stopping an addiction as a "taking away" of something pleasurable - but actually it's the opposite. When you take away that one thing - you open up a world of finding pleasure in a much wider variety of things - That's such a feel-good way of looking at it! I like it!

spiritualcookie wrote: ↑Thu Jul 25, 2024 9:19 am

abrahammer117 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 25, 2024 9:07 am Reminder: Look for excuses to laugh, excuses to have fun

I want to do this too!
Thanks for the inspiration!

abrahammer117 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 25, 2024 9:07 am I heard recently a description of addiction as 'the progressive narrowing of things that give you pleasure'.

oh that's an interesting one! It makes so much sense!
The more you're addicted to one thing, the less time you give to enjoying other things. I never thought about it like that - it's so true!

So often people see stopping an addiction as a "taking away" of something pleasurable - but actually it's the opposite. When you take away that one thing - you open up a world of finding pleasure in a much wider variety of things - That's such a feel-good way of looking at it! I like it!

Glad you like the post

On the narrowing of things that give you pleasure - it's more about overstimulation and desensitisation. From a biological point of view all addictions relate the the dopamine reward centre of the brain. So cocaine gives you a walloping hit of dopamine. The brain responds by then reducing your natural dopamine levels for a while before they return to baseline (so you feel crappy for this time and find little or no pleasure in every day things like reading or healthy food). Repeated use causes the brain to both reduce your baseline dopamine levels AND reduce the dopamine receptors, so the longer you use cocaine the more normal life stops yielding any pleasure to you and you need cocaine to feel normal.

With broadband internet though you can access these supranormal dopamine hits in an even more dangerous way because of the 'Coolidge effect' - so if you seek out and watch a random YouTube clip you get a little dopamine buzz which wears off. But novelty allows you to keep getting more and more hits forever i.e. browsing new videos as soon as you get bored. Hence the doom scrolling epidemic

Interestingly Cold showers are the opposite of an addiction process - they feel rough at first but you feel better after and they heal your dopamine reward system.

Day 17 / 90: WONDERFUL 90 DAY CHALLENGE:

• No computer games, no news, no football, no YouTube at all, no eating between breakfast and evening meal, no work email out of work.
  40g+ protein first thing. Walk 10,000+ steps a day
  Only 2 deliberate work email checks a day (and be aware if this actually causes any issues at all)
  Take Sunday+Monday off work.

Day 1 : 30mins meditation on stool first thing. 15mins after work. 15 mins before bed. Verbalise in the mind 'breathing in, breathing out'

Reminder: Look for excuses to laugh, excuses to have fun

Something dominating right now is being more sincere about quieting my mind. Alongside avoiding addictive behaviour it feels like the most important practice for me.
Quieting the mind also feels like dis-identifying from the mind which is good stuff for me The most reliable way for me to do this seems to be with a verbalisation aspect, so I say out loud in my head 'breathing in, breathing out'. Important thing is that these are completely neutral verbalisations, no positive thinking which is too far away from where I am and causes tension. The longer I keep verbalising the more I can feel the difference between my deliberate thoughts and the noise in my mind, or the noise in my mind looks more and more like the noise it is rather than valuable guidance lol.
It's funny looking back to stressier periods because I can see how my mind kinda took charge and the thought of genuinely quieting my mind seemed dangerous as all of the bad feeling beliefs in my head relate to trying to keep me safe.
But what I should be really saying is I do feel actual genuine relief from this practice and I'm committed to keeping it up.

Right now I feel like if I really stick to these basics every day I'm gonna be pretty unstoppable

abrahammer117 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 30, 2024 8:51 am Interestingly Cold showers are the opposite of an addiction process - they feel rough at first but you feel better after and they heal your dopamine reward system.

Oh! That IS interesting!

spiritualcookie wrote: ↑Tue Jul 30, 2024 10:18 am

abrahammer117 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 30, 2024 8:51 am Interestingly Cold showers are the opposite of an addiction process - they feel rough at first but you feel better after and they heal your dopamine reward system.

Oh! That IS interesting!

yep!! I'm staying off YouTube but dug out this video for you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XsH2WtkjjI

Day 19 / 90: WONDERFUL 90 DAY CHALLENGE:

• No computer games, no news, no football, no YouTube at all, no eating between breakfast and evening meal, no work email out of work.
  Only 2 deliberate work email checks a day (and be aware if this actually causes any issues at all)
  Take Sunday+Monday off work.

Day 3 : 30mins meditation on stool first thing. 15mins after work. 15 mins before bed. Verbalise in the mind 'breathing in, breathing out'

Once again I feel like my average mood is improving downs a little less down and ups a little more up.
I'm having a lot of success right now understanding that the thoughts 'breathing in, breathing out' are better feeling thoughts I can always go to.
I've found that meditations without consciously verbalising words are too subtle for where I'm at when my mind is really screaming for more tense thoughts.
All day for the last couple of days I keep going back to 'breathing in, breathing out' and it's great for catching upstream thinking at very early stages.
People would think I'm mental if they could see what's going on in my head

abrahammer117 wrote: ↑Thu Aug 01, 2024 10:48 amyep!! I'm staying off YouTube but dug out this video for you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XsH2WtkjjI

aw I appreciate your wanting to share something helpful with me! Thank you

spiritualcookie wrote: ↑Thu Aug 01, 2024 11:15 am

abrahammer117 wrote: ↑Thu Aug 01, 2024 10:48 amyep!! I'm staying off YouTube but dug out this video for you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XsH2WtkjjI

aw I appreciate your wanting to share something helpful with me! Thank you

you're welcome!

quick post today - I got the impulse this morning to do some positive aspects writing. I've started this many times over the last few years but always drop off fairly quickly. When I go back to it I always re-read the chapter in 'ask and it is given' because I know that my mind always remembers the instructions with an upstream bias - and when I re-read Hicks exercises I usually spot something I'd remembered wrong. What stood out this time is that the instructions say to write about something you already feel good about. In the past I'd drifted towards using it to try and improve my vibe on stuff I'm struggling with and gave the whole thing a non fun upstream bias. I wrote for 20mins this morning and by the time I finished each list some other good feeling subject had popped into mind for the next page which is great (and hicks says this will probably happen). I really enjoyed this exercise for what feels like the first time due to actually following the instructions and I'm looking forward to doing it again tomorrow.

Day 24 / 90: WONDERFUL 90 DAY CHALLENGE:

• No computer games, no news, no football, no YouTube at all, no eating between breakfast and evening meal, no work email out of work.
  Only 2 deliberate work email checks a day (and be aware if this actually causes any issues at all)
  Take Sunday+Monday off work.

Day 1: Cold shower first thing after waking followed by Ab Hicks abundance meditation

Average vibe still creeping up. Definitely getting more relaxed and finding more fun in every day things.