A Mason's Work

In our last episode, we talked about hungry ghosts and unchecked desires.

I want to offer some hope and guidance for those of us that have desires that seem insurmountable,

that they are almost compulsions or addictions, if you will.

One of the things that happens with addiction is it's the result of,

it's a self-medicating behavior, right?

That's not to suggest that substances or you're, you know, doomscrolling on your phone

or, you know, the TV show, it's aren't wired to help make you want more, because that's true.

That's, you know, built into the biological and sociological systems that we're a part of.

This is how a lot of people make their money, so they're going to try and make it as addictive as possible,

so that you show back up.

But again, you have to become the master of yourself, so that you can then go be the master Mason on the world

and create the change you want to make.

But for those of us who struggle with this and this happens a lot, right?

It's very difficult.

Sometimes you feel like you've got a grip on it and then a couple of days later,

a couple of weeks later, a couple of months later, you find yourself back in the hole.

When you are struggling with this, there is some ways that you can move through

from a place of, let's say, low scale to a place of high skill.

First thing you want to do, right, is not demonize the desire or the need or the compulsion.

The world is going to do plenty of that for you in the words of a close friend of mine.

There are plenty of people that are going to be on the opposite team.

You shouldn't be one of them.

And so you need to be on your own team, which means you need to treat yourself with caring compassion.

That doesn't necessarily mean romanticize the behavior, but it does mean don't demonize the need.

It is coming from a place that either represents an area of unmet emotional, psychological, physical needs, what have you.

So step one, though, outside of that, I guess that's probably step one, step two, is try and move your desire from a place of maximum sort of detriment to a place of less detriment.

So move from maybe watching TV on, you know, laying down and watching television or watching your favorite show or whatever for, you know, four hours at a time to maybe move to standing up for that.

So you are reducing the physiological burden. You're also creating an action potential so that you could just move out of the room if you needed to.

Or you are, you know, moving from a place where sort of movement begins to be implied.

So when you start the process of reducing the harm, basically the harm reduction process for any of these unmet or unchecked desires, you're going to begin the process of healing and moving towards a place that's more productive.

So in the context of food, this might be, you know, replace the candy bars with apples, right, or replace the, you know, the chips with popcorn.

You don't have to go straight to, you know, psycho health, not you can, if you can handle it, if it's sustainable.

But more often than not, step change is the best approach. Now, for some of us, you know, you might find that step change doesn't work for you because, because it's a slippery slope and you find yourself back at the bottom all the time.

In those cases, again, work with somebody that can help you make firm lifelong commitments. Maybe that requires you to go purge all the junk food from your house or maybe it requires you to take all the alcohol out or maybe it requires you to turn off your interconnection or cancel your cable or whatever.

Whatever those needs are, you know, you're going to need to figure out how the best implement those changes in your life.

But that, that move from an unchecked unmet, you know, or an unchecked desire that is in some way self-medicating to something that is slightly left detrimental is an excellent first or second step here to moving through and not being a sense of the right.

And then that process, you move from a slightly less developed Mason to a closer to a master Mason. So with that, we'll catch you next time.