The more I explore emotions, addictions and physical sensation, the more I recognize that we are all just seeking ways to "feel good". Unfortunately, in our pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain, we can just as easily get hooked on negative emotions (chemicals) as positive ones. As the movie "What The Bleep Do We Know" so clearly showed: we are all chemical producing machines. Our cells get addicted to certain chemicals and we get our organs to produce more and more so we can continue to get the "rush".
I have almost always avoided drugs. I avoided illegal drugs for the obvious reasons and pharmaceuticals for my stance that "they only offered symptomatic relief and were addictive with horrible side-effects". I actually was a bit righteous about this since I thought drug users of any kind were just not courageous enough to heal the problem at it's core.
I've spent most of 2012 doing a lot of research into addictions and I realize that all of them seem to be producing the same thing....Drugs! This drug is most often some form of Dopamine but ultimately it produces a HIGH. All these years of righteousness, I was just substituting the Dope of substances for the Dope of; Romance, Sex, Praise, Fantasy, Rejection, Fear, Martyrdom and Compulsive Thinking (which is usually just a way to avoid The Now and ponder our own separation and not-enoughness). What a hypocrite! Oops, that was a self-abusive comment and it produced a chemical that fed my "not-enoughness" which in turn makes me crave it's anti-venom.....Praise.!
Dopamine is produced by so many of the things we get addicted and attached to: Shopping, Gambling, Intense Movies, Eating, Sugar, Coffee, Energy Drinks, Chocolate, Alcohol, Drugs, Performing, Working, Making Money, Spending Money, Fantasy (which includes sex, lifestyle, finances, justice, peace on earth, etc). Even things that might appear to be painful like self-sacrifice, being a victim and complaining, can often trigger a sense of pride and/or pity that has it's own Dopamine-like chemical payoff. In other words, we are all just medicating.
For the last 16 months I've been experimenting with Deep Meditation for approximately 2 hours per day. I even explored a few "entheogens" to see what all the hype was about. My new take on all of these drugs is.....Meditate or Medicate! Meditation seems to produce it's own "feel good" chemical often referred to as DMT. This comes from our own pineal gland and produces an altered state where we hallucinogenically imagine that we are.....perfect, all-loving, children of the universe, connected to all other matter. It also may highten awareness about unresolved issues. Isn't that what happens when we commit deeply to a spiritual path or spiritual course of study? Isn't that the absolute reality anyway and not the one our egos have imagined?
What if cravings were merely a guidance letting us know that we need more quiet, contemplative time to remember who we really are? What if we are using the "satisfaction of distraction" as a way to numb out the pain of believing a lie that we are small and separate? I'm not criticizing drugs of any type. I now believe that anything can be used to raise our consciousness or to medicate and numb out. The more I learn about alcohol, refined sugar and pharmaceutical drugs, especially those used for mental and emotional conditions, the more I am amazed that they are so available and legal, when many things with a fraction of the side-effects and negative repercussions are illegal and demonized.
So my question to all of us????.....Medicate or Meditate?
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