 G'day mate 40 here So Notice a lot of people want to Pray their way out of a problem that they behave their way into all right, so I Don't think you can just pray the gay away for example without doing anything else Like if you behave your way into an addiction to gay sex I don't think you're just going to be able to pray your way out and I notice with a subset of Christians that the first response to a Problem they don't know how to deal with is well, I just ask people to pray for me And that's great, but I don't think you're going to pray your way out of a problem that you behaved your way into so let's say you have a problem with eating too much food or drinking too much alcohol or Looking at pornography or deading or under owning or Co-dependent relationships or An addiction to say an extreme amount of exercise or extreme devotion to sports All right, you behaved your way into a problem And I think you're going to pray your way out So I developed early on in my life a habit of maladaptive daydreaming. Well, I started out as adaptive. I would just Start daydreaming and my problems would disappear. So I just kind of bliss out when I was daydreaming But it's tendency for me to daydream and to Think of myself doing grand and fantastic and important things That that reflex of mine to just kind of bliss bliss out on fantasies of grandiosity I'm going to pray my way out of that like prayer can help. That's only one component So also, I noticed a lot of people think they can use religion to Get out of whatever problem that they're in. Well, if you develop neural pathways that lead you to eat too much to use porn or to have too much gay sex or Have an unhealthy relationship with credit cards or to under-own to debt To have unhealthy relationships, right? You behaved your way into that Then I don't think You're going to be able to simply use religion to get out of a problem that you behaved your way into when we do something we fire neural pathways in our brain and then Neurons that fire together wire together and so we develop Maladaptive reactions to stimuli and or recovery means that our reactions to stimuli service rather than hurt us and it's so easy with a lot of the say the the process addictions to fool yourself to think that you're Making progress when you're not making progress or to think That you're not making progress when you are making progress So I was just listening to somebody talk today About how his sponsor gave him a list of about 10 things to do every day And if he does like at least six of them, he's making progress So that might mean one might mean make outreach calls to people in your program Another assignment might be to read 12-step literature another Some it might be to get on a meeting and other assignment to pray. That's one component other assignments to meditate Another assignment may be to track your spending Another assignment may be to track your time So I notice a lot of people I know they haven't ever 40 hour work week, but they're only actually working Maybe 15 hours of that and they're just goofing off the rest of the time And then they're wondering why they're always getting fired or they're stuck in a cycle where they just They just can't bear to work. So they just play spider solitaire. Is that a game or Some other some of the distraction instead of doing their job and they know it's not good They know it's not gonna work out and they know they're gonna earn a path of getting fired And it's an awful feeling to go around Knowing that if your boss knew how you were really spending your time at work He would fire you if your co-workers knew how you're really spending your time at work They would see to it that you were fired. That's an awful feeling to go through life like that Because you essentially have to live a lie because you know that if people know who you really are then you are in big big trouble and I don't think you're gonna be able to just pray your way out of that as the one solution or ask other people to pray for you You have to set up ways to change your behavior and you have to get clear So clarity usually means tracking tracking your time. You've got an eight-hour work day. How much of the time are you actually working and Are you making priorities if you got too much work to get done in eight hours? You're making appropriate priorities and if you've got a Underrunning problem then then track your time not just at work But elsewhere are you watching three hours of Netflix a day? Is that serving you and then how are you spending your money? that you should be able to track how you spend your money so you know where everything's going and Make sure that you are using it to further what's most important to you and not get distracted So we behave our way into all sorts of problems with sex drugs food alcohol Relationships money and then it's so tempting to think there's like an easy way out Like I'm just gonna pray about this. It's gonna ask people to pray for me. It's gonna go back to church I'm just gonna go back to shul and doven three times a day. That means prayer and And Remember I'd often say to my therapist. I just wish there was like one small change that I could make so that then my life just You know completely transforms. Okay, I just want to Just want to make you know one improvement here that just has you know multiple repercussions positive repercussions all through my life And my therapist would would push me to make you know Big change large change dramatic change painful change And I just wanted to do the minimum. I just wanted to just Let me just make one little improvement here and then everything's going to be okay right, that's what I thought for decades if I just like Just change this one variable that everything's going to be fine or If I just embrace religion then that's gonna get a handle on my out-of-control sex life. I Just embrace religion. That's gonna get it get control of my out-of-control love life You know my need for constant, you know excitement and infatuation. I just get religion. That's gonna how we get control of my spending and my earning and my work life and my housing situation and my health and You can get control save your porn addiction But then you're I found that my addiction to acting out on social media Just like skyrocketed like when I stopped using porn that I started like posting like crazy on Facebook Not things that were necessarily my best interests You get I find I get control of like porn addiction the sex addiction the love addiction then the you know the acting out for attention or Food or watching too much sports starts rearing its ugly head and I've always wanted to take the easy way out Let me just finesse this and Taking the easy way out has been really really hard path for me. It has not been been pleasant Like I developed habits in school or cheating and I've managed to break that habit by the time I got to community college I only cheated one time in community college and never did it again. So I managed to break that habit but still that Instinct of trying to take the easy way out It's just it's just there under the surface because I fed it for so many decades of my life Like let's look for the easy way out here and sometimes for me seeking the easy way out is seeking repair of my life through religion when Religion is not going to be the primary component to repair that aspect of my life. I can make this radical transformation From atheists to converting to orthodox Judaism But that's not going to change any of my addictions because I behaved my way into these addictions and I'm pleased with my religious conversion, but it didn't shift any of my addictions. It didn't shift any of my habitual Expressions of bad character such as being inconsiderate. That's something I really struggle with being sloppy careless and inconsiderate of other people and considerate of how my behavior and my words and my choices and my effort or the lack thereof Impacts on them. So lack of consideration for others major a Character defect of mine that I just can't pray my way out of prayers being a component But I behave my way into these character defects I Can't just use religion and doesn't just like wipe out my tendency to lack of consideration I just take my tendency towards lack of consideration for other people and for myself Into my new religion. So I've not tended to behave with much consideration towards myself or with others So I find that people treat themselves considerably tend to treat other people with consideration And people who don't treat people with consideration tend not to treat themselves with consideration Then dishonesty I developed a habit early in life to avoid getting hit I would tell lies and so I developed that habit of dishonesty when under pressure to try to avoid punishment and Prayer and religion are just a small component of dealing with that character issue that that bad character addiction of dishonesty Self-seeking selfishness. All right, another The two major characteristics of my behavior over the course of my life, and I just can't pray those away And it's not that on the other hand from a toss but perspective. I don't I Don't work on my character, but there are all these things that I do to bring God in So God's there in the small still voice I believe or if you don't believe in God then embrace reality like reality is there and You can listen to reality or you can ignore reality and I want to have a positive relationship with reality so if I'm able to turn down the unnecessary noise in my life and Reduce the clutter in my life and the small still voice of God or the small still voice of reality however you Frame it then I can start to hear it So when I'm overwhelmed, I find it really helpful to clean and to organize. So I think yeah Wednesday After noon, I spent three hours carpet cleaning my whole place Moved everything off the carpets moved everything around took three hours just carpet clean the whole place Figured out what was wrong with my carpet cleaner You know took care of the issue, you know got everything clean looking good smelling good It was tiring. I'm so tired from that. I don't know what what muscles I don't know why my hamstrings are so tight from Carpet cleaning and and moving and shifting things around So, you know 36 hours later my hamstrings are tight Still a little tired from that exertion, but cleaning things organizing things possession consciousness Really helps reduce my overwhelm Also, when I'm frustrated with people I find writing a long email to them and not sending it So do not put their their email address on the the Gmail draft Just just write it all out So I've been like waking up at 4 a.m. Sometimes like last Sunday and just like writing a long email to Person who was frustrating me and didn't send it. I just wrote it made it shine. It's a fine piece of writing talked about it with a with a friend and Then my inner drama queen kind of started to quiet down So, yeah writing everything out. I find Incredibly helpful because I tend to be overly dramatic overly excitable like respond in an excess way to a stimulus, you know jumpy and Yeah, the natural tendency to to seek out drama To feel dramatic when there's no inherent need for drama Be just excitable overly sensitive And so if I just write out everything that I'm frustrated about or feeling or perceiving I find it incredibly calming it never ceases to calm me and Never ceases to give me a feeling of satisfaction. It's like wow, that's a that's a great piece of writing Even though it's just a rant about my emotions. It's Fine stuff. Good job 40 Yeah, so writing things out talking them over with with other people who I respect and then prayer and meditations a component I find spending time around people I respect is a component making outreach cause is a component of a successful life getting on a 12-step meeting sponsoring and being sponsored reading 12-step literature Listening to inspiring talks or watching inspiring videos or reading inspiring books. So I'm reading a book right now by a guy I interviewed about two years ago Herb Lobdell So he's a judge and you wrote about Navigating the legal system and finding a spiritual path It's like, whoa, you know finding a spiritual path while navigating the legal system It's a pretty good book on Kindle That's it. Bye. Bye