Addicted to Earth

Hi Everyone. Back Again.

Something has been coming to me lately that I think is important to us all and therefore decided to jump on here and chat a bit about it. To begin with, I’ve noticed that here on earth, it seems there’s a rather peculiar tendency built into humans to have an immediate reaction to each situation or event, especially one that is unfavorable or frustrating, instead of pausing to assess the situation first to determine what the correct reaction might be, rather than just going off on it. Most of us have experienced this ourselves, you know, where we’ve kinda lost it? And we’ve all at least witnessed it. As children we probably first saw it on cartoons like Popeye or Roadrunner or Daffy Duck - I mean, they just get creamed in those cartoons. When kids watch adults behaving in this way they pick it up too. It’s as if they’re being taught that when something goes wrong you should curse or throw things and stamp your feet - as if this is going to help or remedy the situation. So what’s behind all this? Is this just a spontaneous backlash, or do we somehow believe that this makes sense and the louder we curse and bang our fist the more apt we are to change or fix the situation? Or is it just instinctual? An innate brutish animalistic behavior, deeply imbedded into the physical human DNA - for survival maybe? Who knows? I’ve never been able to explain it, why under the same conditions one person reacts very benignly and another very violently?

This leads me to what I wanted to chat about today. Lately I’ve been contemplating what I would like to accomplish in the time that remains in my life here on planet earth. You know, kind of the deathbed scenario - where you look back on your life to consider whether you have any regrets. What would I wish I had done or had not done and what do I feel I was never able to accomplish or rise above? This has always been important to me, because I don’t want to have any bad habits lingering through to the end that I might take home with me. I want to clean it all up while I’m here on earth so I won’t have to come back through the cycle of reincarnation. You know, there’s a lot of emphasis on karmic cleansing, releasing all karma before death and some may see this type of reaction as karma - all these personal limitations and weaknesses we all have. I see them more as addictions, habits we may be holding on to. Why does he act the way he acts? Why can’t she seem to ever let anything go? These are the karmic ties that bind us to the earth cycle of reincarnation. It’s not so much that I did this to her and now we’ll have to come back into another life and she will do that to me. The way I see it, it’s what habits or behaviors own you? What are your needs? For example, do you act before you think? Or is it difficult to let things go and you play them over and over again in your mind - oh great when we go to dinner at Marsha’s house she will probably go on and on about her new BMW and of course if I say anything she’ll probably get mad at me and gossip about me and then I’ll end up without any friends at all. We create whole huge dramas in our minds that have never, and probably will never happen!

So again, what about these reactions we seem to have about any and all unwanted events that come into our lives? When it comes to this subject, my husband was one of my greatest teachers. He never reacted to a situation until he evaluated it. I never saw him throw a fit of anger. He never spoke harshly to me in all the years we were married, other than one time when I was going off on him about something he finally just calmly told me to be quiet and sit down, which I did. It was all my bad. He seemed, when it came to this sort of thing, to have the bigger picture and a knowledge that lashing out doesn’t do any good, in fact can just make things worse and even cause damage. I told him many times throughout our marriage that I wanted to learn how to do what he was able to do, to remain calm at all times, no matter what was going on around him. One of my spiritual teachers referred to it as remaining calm in the midst of chaos. A very high state of enlightenment for sure.

So it’s always been my goal to do it all in this one lifetime, because as far as I know I’m not coming back. So to overcome all my weaknesses, habits, limitations, I want to get it the first time, not the second or third. I really don’t want to be stuck or addicted to a behavior. Some people call this shadow work. But I don’t know, for some reason that sounds hard to me. I tend to just consider it as evolving, learning or realizing who I am and if this indeed matches who I want to be.

So what are these things I’m talking about? You know, at the simplest level, things like food cravings, sex, coffee, chocolate, alcohol or drugs. Like the guy who is grumpy until he has his first cup of coffee. Is the grumpiness who he really is or is his habit so deep that the grumpiness is just his need for a coffee-fix. Our brains have their own chemistry and our behaviors teach our brains how to react to that stimulus - the craving for a coffee hit, for example, or the first drag of that cigarette. The person becomes addicted to that release of neurotransmitters, like dopamine, in the brain and the habit is set up - and this can be something as benign as the craving for a chocolate bar or as destructive as the frenzied heroin addict who may even kill to get his drug.

Other habitual behaviors could be based on emotional addictions, possibly rooted in severe physical or mental trauma. Somewhat like PTSD this may eventually manifest as anything from anxiety disorders to erratic manic behaviors, or deep depression, where the trauma is lived over and over to a point where the brain chemistry is so affected that the person loses his ability to function normally and this may even develop into a reaction like self-mutilation or cutting behavior. Why on earth would someone cut themselves? Well, if someone has been abused to the point of becoming numb, maybe the physical pain somehow takes away the emotional pain? Maybe it serves as a means of feeling alive again? Or perhaps as a form of exerting control? Maybe self punishment? Or self empowerment?

Mostly what I’m talking about here are the material things and behaviors, such as, I have to have a beautiful house, two cars, a beautiful partner, the right clothes with the right brand names, you know, wealth and status. Or it can also be things like the adrenalin rush of a sport like rock climbing or hang gliding, bungie jumping or the excitement of sitting on the couch or in the stadium watching your favorite team win their game. Now let me make this really clear, there is nothing wrong with any of those things. These can be some of the most enjoyable activities in life and can inspire and thrill us and in many cases these are the main reasons we come here, to experience the stimulation of exploit and adventure that this planet offers. This is wonderful!

So, what I’m rattling on about here is to not allow ourselves to get caught- up in the need for these things, food cravings, smoking, alcohol, sex, or drinking too much Pepsi, for instance. It’s fine to do it all in moderation, as long as we realize these desires are all transient conditions and we should not be dependent upon these for our happiness, because when we leave earth, we leave behind all these things. We should ask ourselves, can I be happy without this? If we cannot see ourselves being able to survive without the internet, for example, it owns us.

So basically, most of these actions are not wrong, although some can be harmful if overdone. For example, a good steak can be delicious, but if that’s all you ate it could be pretty detrimental to your health. Just the habit of being fearful all the time can ultimately lead to bizarre behaviors. Like the guy who believes if he doesn’t open and close the front door 17 times before he leaves the house his family will die. Sometimes this is a brain disorder but these are the sort of behaviors that come from one who is caught in a fearful place. Then as I mentioned, there’s the heroin user who would rather starve to death than to miss his fix. Then to go further, there’s the abuser, the person who gets a thrill or some kind of gratification out of mistreating another, physically or mentally, even killing. Obviously, this is the most dreadful example of what we’re discussing.

So why is this so important? Because this material habit, or any habit, has within it an addiction to a low frequency and those patterns of behavior that give you the physical or psychological sensation you crave becomes an attachment that exerts control over your life, your attention, your reasoning mind, your thinking, until you have no will to refuse. So are any of these things really enough to pull us back into the loop of reincarnation? Ask any near-deather and they will tell you that during their NDE experience when they were given a choice to stay or go back, the very second they had even the tiniest thought about what they would miss in their human life, ZIP! they are back in their body again, sometimes in horrible pain. So I’m just hoping to point out that it might just be a very wise thing to consider that really any link to the material world is enough to bring you back to earth again, and I’m simply suggesting that not only is this a perfect opportunity to advance our conscious awareness, but to be able move up in the frequencies to enjoy life in some of the other magical realms of infinite potential and possibility.

Well, for me it’s bananas. Yeah, I know, pretty pathetic right? But I crave bananas and feel like I just have to eat at least two a day. So a couple of years ago when I realized how strong this craving was, I forced myself to give them up for a short time until I felt I could live without them. I did the same thing with chocolate. It seems like my thing has always been food. I don’t drink or smoke, but I eat. Many years ago it was peanut butter. And I drank coffee for awhile, but gave it up when I found out I was pregnant and never went back to it.

We all have something we feel we can’t do with out. As mentioned before, today it seems to be electronics, the internet, smart phones and tablets. Well, I’ve never had a smart phone because I don’t want to be one of those who can’t live without it, however, I do have a laptop and an iPad and I’m pretty hooked on to those. I also love streaming British comedies and detective shows on Acorn TV and even though I Iook forward to watching a show in the evening, I’m hoping to convince myself this is only entertainment and not an addiction that I can’t do without. Kinda silly right?

The other thing I have been a fanatic about for most of my life is exercise. After a year of being disabled when I was a young woman, and not able to walk, when I healed I began exercising like a fiend and became a long-distance runner, then a ballet dancer, then an avid hiker, now a daily walker. It’s all the same craving. There have been many times when I’ve had a real anxiety attack when I haven’t been able to get outside for a walk and feel like I’m crawling up the walls. Yet I try to reassure my self that at least none of these habits in general are harmful. My husband used to joke and say I had all the good habits and he had all the vices. Not true, by the way.

Anyway, each one of these things I’ve mentioned, and others that I haven’t mentioned, I have tried to admit to myself and face head-on and at least release the fanaticism, the habit, to then be able to enjoy it as only a pleasure rather than a habitual need.

We have a real chance here, while in this human life, to tie up all the loose ends and be able to take pleasure in the fact that, if we can accomplish this while here, we are unencumbered and free to play the game without restriction and this way when we leave this life we aren’t dragging any material baggage along with us and can take this gift of freedom back home to our higher self, to the realm of the Divine, Source itself.

Well good or bad, that’s my rant for the day!

See you soon and thanks for listening! Bye bye...