When i was 14 years old i had 4 questions: 1:who AM I ? 2:why i can not feel that God or a high power exists 3: what is LOVE? why i have to love others ? 4: is there free will? why i do things that i would like to avoid?.. Here in this following text i share few things that i have learned as i was seeking for answers.Please be patient with my english syntax because i m not a native fluent English speaker and this text is simplifying the meanings of some neurobiological functions as my purpose is that we all understand factors that effect to our addictive attitudes.
PRIMITIVE ANIMAL BRAIN + UNCERTAINNESS+DISFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES+INJURING ENVIRONMENT+NO EMOTIONAL TRAINING+TOXIC SHAME+NO FAITH => NO VISION => FEAR => NUMB CONSCIOUSNESS => ANAESTETISED CONSCIENCE =>NO AWE NO EMPATHY => NO LOVE => ALIENATION =>COMPETITION => PERFECTIONISM =>AGONIES =>ADDICTIONS =>VICIOUS CIRCLE
We all have an animal brain and a thinking brain.Our animal brain wants pleasure here and now and to avoid pain here and now ... This animal brain is maladaptive to lifes uncertainty and complexity. It only contains some automatic patterns of reactions, in order to motivate us when we need to make a fast decision without having the advantage of time to see what is the most wise thing to do. Another important issue with this animal brain is that it contains some defense tactics useful in a jungle environment (because you have a better chance to survive when you are not indecisive) but maladaptive for a civilized world with higher spiritual prospects and challenges. This has to do with a NUMBING EFFECT to our consciousness when we are under the influence of danger ,fear, high Stress,agony or anxiety . When an animal is captured by an other as victim ,brain opioids are numbing its consciousness so it cannot feel the tragedy that is taken place to its existence. The primitive animal brain is responsible for this . We could see this instinctive function as an neurobiological expression of a divine providence. But if we transfer this function to our human life we get problems.Since life is complex we have to react with wise and adaptive behavours.In a jungle we have two options run or fight but in our life here we have many options and challenges. We have people we need and we can not communicate efficiently and have conflicts. So we need a variety of alternate adaptive behavior skills different than fight or run to deal with them .Our thinking brain can take care of this. The problem is that our animal brain is more fast and blocks our thinking brain with numbing endorphins and brain opioids.For example we have prepared our public speech and as far we are going to pronounse it fear deletes everything from our memory and we look the audience embarrassedly.In same way daily anxieties refill this numbness depriving us of the only tool we could use to manage our life in a wise way. And i mean our thinking brain. Thins getting worse of the somatization of anxiety.When we feel anxiety and fear we squeeze our muscles .Finally many of our chest ,stomach, neck ,head muscles are tight and numb blocking the flow of the power of life-chi- .Emotions are projected over the muscles and if muscles are numb you are deprived from the template or screen to experience them .This can be illustrated with a video projector and the screen .If you wrinkle the cloth screen (muscles) the projection will be lost in the void behind. - so you see no film -. The somatization of anxiety is constant and very difficult to overcome factor and results in losing our self-consciousness. When i use the term self-consciousness i mean a deep feeling of our self as a separate unique being that is alive in here and now , a sense that we are the sovereign consolidated core who has the control of our forces and observes in clarity and deep focus the creation with AWE and appreciation. This is impossible to happen in a anesthetized blocked body,and most of us we did not have the chance to feel how life would be in a healthy relaxed conscious body. In fact subconscious is "part" of what we usualy call in religious concepts " heart ". This heart can contains consciousness and behavour patterns of our primitive brain or other maladaptive or adaptive patterns aswell that we got through our experiences . We can cultivate this part of our self .Usualy we focus to a small part of the reality and this is practical .Our subconscious releases us from hundred details that undertakes leaving our conscious to focus to more important or newer things.So it is important for us to cultivate a wise subconscious self a wise "heart".
Compare please with this statement that Christ made before 2000 years "“But pay attention to yourselves that YOUR hearts never become WEIGHT DOWN with overeating and heavy drinking and ANXIETIES of life" (LUKE 21:34) With a weight down numb anesthetized heart and a disabled thinking brain we have everything we need to make our life unbearable.That equals to more PAIN.(Add please and the guilties and self rejection as and the results of our irresponsibility to take care of our life ,lost relations, loneliness ,resentments and what else you can remember . The amount of pain we have to repulse is getting really tremendous. )..So we are trapped in a vicious circle of compulsive obsession to escape of emotional pain . We have two options now 1) escape of the increased pain with new anesthetizing or doping tactics= addictions and following the primitive animal brain & 2) activating our thinking brain and take the control by finding adaptive solutions step by step, while we learn to bear the resentment of the things that cannot change as fast as we would like. . When our primitive emotional defenses are not enough to handle the increased pain we usually choose to experiment with new alchemies and detour the proper but more painful process. (loll) .Here is taken place a birth of GREED . We seek for pleasures with greed, and we push our self to the edge in order to escape in transmuted state of consciousness by using alcohol ,drugs, overeating or by immigrating in artificial virtual worlds (games) and enjoying fake successes overcoming the risk and the uncertainness of a frustrating real world . -From my experiance we need also power given from God to get out of this vicious circle , but i will not make more comments curently on this even if it is MORE IMPORTANT for our spiritual development .- I have to notice that as we grow up the animal brain gets an inventory of maladaptive patterns,shapes of reaction that guide automatically our behavior . These patterns are often named in psychology traps of life.This traps are activated from several triggers when he are not present in guard and spiritually alert. Inflexible standards, perfectionism ,fear of failure,catastrophology and pessimism ,dependance to others or isolation are few of them.. I am Greek ..... a Greek famous rock song says in the refrain " I do not exist and here i am" . This is the drama of loosing our valuable SELF . Lots of us we grow up in life having deminished self-consciousness . This is a result of increased emotional numbness and an almost paralyzed lazy thinking brain.A reality test we can make to see if we have awaken full present self-consciousness is the test of AWE . Do we feel AWE as we realize that we are alive here and now at this moment in a vast universe? How often we feel AWE?This AWE is an enormous feeling of deep appreciation and admiration as our full existence united observes in a deep concentrated clarity the creation .This is called the i-am-ness or the great I AM .It is no strange why God is calling him self -o ΩΝ- the ONE who was IS and coming - who exists- ,.Actually a great I AM feeling is emerging when we are in that healthy awake clarity.But if we do not understand this ,then we have to realize that we have a mental spiritual and emotional defection,a mental disorder.Mental disorder is the degree we are driven inwards , away from reality, away from love, lost inside ourselves, the degree we live in our fantastic inner world overwhelmed by our personal self-delusions ,the degree we are absent of reality zoned out ,the degree we do not EXIST & -ARE NOT conscious-.
.Most of us in a more or less degree that varies from time to time we experience a NUMB , anesthetized , zoned out or depersonalized quality of self existence .Yes especialy addicts probably never had the opportunity to experience this amazing feeling of the healthy consciousness and awareness. Here we must be careful this is NOT a matter of how clever we are. It is emotional intelligence.... or better true spirituality As i noticed when i was 14 years old i had 4 questions ! 1:who AM I ? (i had already lost my self in numbness in order not to suffer) 2:why i can not feel that god or a high power exists?(actually how could i feel if there is god while i could not feel & have awareness of either MY self?) 3: what is LOVE? why i have to love others ? why i do not feel love and i have to pretend that i am polite and friendly to them? why this can not happen by a natural physical way instead of pretending? (I often listen that is almost impossible for us to give an accurate definition of LOVE..... i would say that if a blind from his birth man can understand what is color then and a frozen heart can give a definition for what is love without spiritual experience..awakening ).love is understood only experientially ......The one who had the opportunity of experiencing the pure ,awaken ,healthy existence can say in awe ... I AM YOU..YOU ARE ME ..we are the same person in DIFFERENTIATED SEPARATE REPETITION .... we were both by mistake calling, feeling, and behaving to our differentiated repetition as OTHER , even if it was only OUR SELF..This emerging awareness would make this person mourn with every single cell of his body for the DIVISION ,ALIENATION and loneliness of those he was thinking as OTHERS but were always his self.....would cry for him self in all his separate forms ..and pray for his enemies !!!............(yes how i could feel others and that others were me and LOVE them as my self while i could not even feel in awe even my self? we have to BE in order to feel and then love) 4) Free will? ...someone driven by a primitive brain and a disabled thinking brain? someone who has never been taught how to cultivate the power of will ? someone who does not know that he has to EXERCISE THE MUSCLES OF WILL= (free will) ,step by step ,through even surrendering him self to PAIN for sort term if it is more proper or postpone and even deny inappropriate pleasures in order to set him self truly free?...someone without strong solid FAITH and HOPE to a fair VISION or a BASIC TRUST that GOD finally rewards every commitment we undertake to do what is truly GOOD and avoid what is truly BAD.........?.In next post i will say more about this issue .YES THERE IS FREE WILL BUT IT IS OPTIONAL WHETHER WE CHOOSE TO UTILISE AND CULTIVATE IT..........
