{"id":20215,"date":"2020-11-19T09:00:01","date_gmt":"2020-11-19T17:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=20215"},"modified":"2020-11-09T10:37:19","modified_gmt":"2020-11-09T18:37:19","slug":"freedom-from-addiction-becoming-aware-of-your-whole-being","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2020\/11\/19\/freedom-from-addiction-becoming-aware-of-your-whole-being\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom from Addiction<\/em>: Becoming aware of your whole being"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some moments, I am okay, thankfully. Some moments I am good, content, grateful, peaceful.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, however, I suddenly feel like I\u2019m starving for something. It\u2019s an emotional or psychological something, but it feels like intense hunger, so I might eat something, even though my body is not hungry. This is how addiction works: we are hungry for one type of nourishment, but we don\u2019t know how to get it, or may not even know what it is, so we unconsciously seek something we can get\u2014something easier to control and understand\u2014like cereal.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Freedom from Addiction<\/em> is a column exploring issues relating to addiction (graphic by bestdesigns).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Knowing an addictive behaviour from a healthy one can be challenging. After all, there is nothing inherently wrong with eating a bowl of rice puffs\u2014it\u2019s hardly even a real cereal! It\u2019s just puffed rice. But that is not the point, really. What\u2019s worth looking at is what drives me to eat when my body is not hungry.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve noticed something interesting in my own addictive patterns. When driven by addiction, I am not inhabiting my body with any conscious awareness. I\u2019m not aware of my breathing, of gravity, or of what my body\u2014not my mind\u2014needs or wants in a given moment.<\/p>\n

If I listen to my body it tells me when I need to eat, stop eating, drink water, go for a walk, dance, hug someone, stretch, work out, sleep, meditate, take a bath, be with a friend, and so on.<\/p>\n

One problem in our society is that we rely too heavily on our mind to tell us what we need or want. But the mind does not have all the answers. In fact, it may have far fewer answers than we tend to think. Moreover, the mind can convince us that we want something that we actually don\u2019t want at all. Do we really ever want to eat when we are not hungry? Does it ever feel like it was a great idea after the fact?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also noticed that any time I am taken over by addiction, I harm my body, because addiction is always an excess of something. Addiction involves excess, and it involves a lack of conscious awareness, and it interferes with the body\u2019s self-regulating functions.<\/p>\n

So, I implore every person who struggles with addiction\u2014that is, with excess in any area whatsoever\u2014to pay close attention to the sensations and movement of their body, even for a moment.<\/p>\n

Realize that you are not your mind with a body below. You are the whole being. You are as much your toes as any other part of you. Don\u2019t try to intellectualize your wholeness; try to experience it. Let go of living as a \u201cme\u201d in the mind for a moment. Be the rhythm of your breath instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some moments, I am okay, thankfully. Some moments I am good, content, grateful, peaceful. Sometimes, however, I suddenly feel like I\u2019m starving for something. It\u2019s an emotional or psychological something, but it feels like intense hunger, so I might eat something, even though my body is not hungry. This is how addiction works: we are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20216,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20215\/revisions\/20216"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}