Unspoken Addiction

In today's society it is quite clear every aspect of life is meant to put us in a state of consumption and to keep us trapped focusing on the external world. Nonstop stimulation, dopamine hits, and consumerism at every corner. Food, video games, porn, nicotine, alcohol, social media, TV the list goes on indefinitely. This isn't to demonize any one of these forms of consumption, but to address the amount of overall information we are attempting to process on a daily basis. It is no wonder why majority of society is depressed, anxious, dis-eased, or on some form of pharmaceutical. As a society we simply are over consuming. 

We can consider consumption like an input, as we are inputting and uploading data to our system each time we consume in any way. The amount of consumption and input is so high and coming in so rapidly that it is impossible to fully process and integrate before moving onto the next input. Not being able to process each input essentially leads to not being able to process each thought and emotion which ultimately leads to a lack of integration, presence, calmness, and stillness. In fact, quite the opposite it results in a racing mind, overstimulation, up regulation, and the urge to continue inputting even more to continue feeding the pattern and addiction.  

On one end many of us are consuming in order to avoid our boredom, our stress, our fear, anxiety, lack of self worth, or any other internal struggle we may have. We have been trapped into suppressing and repressing our internal world either consciously or unconsciously and often times completely severing our connection to our inner world and emotions as a defense mechanism. Distracting and avoiding may seem like the easier path, but in reality this will guarantee that we continue to carry the weight of the past. Instead if we embrace the temporary uncomfortable state of eliminating consumption and heading straight into our inner turmoil where it can be felt and released, then liberation can be discovered on the other side. 

On the other end many of us are consuming under the disguise of being productive. There is a drive within us all to be productive and therefor not waste time. Especially with modern societies' programmings and expectations we are constantly focused on achieving and financial gain. So often when we find ourselves with free time and automatically look to fill the time with podcasts or reading in order to be productive and make the most of the time. Our goal with this is to be continuously growing and evolving so we are always seeking new information. This can be a beautiful thing and can allow us to gain an immense amount of knowledge and value, but this also can be preventing us from finding stillness and processing the past. 

Our degree of consumption may be what is preventing us from moving past previous traumas and may also be the reason why so many of us struggle to meditate. We sit down to meditate and feel like we are failing because for once we are having no input and our mind begins racing trying to process all of the input that has been going in. When we limit the input we will eventually process our thoughts, emotions, experiences, and BE in a state of calm presence where meditation comes natural. 

Through processing our thoughts and emotions we are cleansing and purifying our mind, body, and any stagnant energy. This ultimately allows us to process and release old patterns and experiences while simultaneously regulating our nervous system and creating space for us to embody new patterns and beliefs outside of our past experiences, false programmings, and repetitive loops.

Beyond keeping us trapped in traumas, negative patterns, and repeating cycles is the fact that consumption disconnects us from our true nature of creation. Within the eye of stillness and nondoing we can experience peace, limitless potential, and healing while also having a new found state of presence and awareness that gifts us a clear state of being in order to begin creating. The reality of this is if we are focused on input, then we are eliminating the awareness and energy going into output or creation. In order to be more productive, create, and bring value to the world we actually need to decrease the amount of input first. Throttling back on the amount of information we are uploading allows us to integrate, embody, and then apply the previous inputs in our own creations.  

This is a friendly reminder to those reading and also myself as I write this that we are all creators at our core, designed to create and express our own passions, desires, and interests. Slow down, be present, be conscious of our degree of consumption, and ultimately give ourselves permission to do absolutely nothing. By simply doing nothing and being still, we allow the incredible intelligence of our mind and body to go to work for us. Stillness is where intuition, inner wisdom, and creativity can be awakened within each of us. 

Where our awareness goes our energy flows. Consumption or creation, how will we choose to utilize our energy?