In the course of my recent search for freedom from pornography and other sexual addictions and heavily rooted in the Candeo program I am engaged in, I’ve seen realized the absolute necessity to correctly understand who I am and conversely, who I am NOT.
Falling in the mud doesn’t make one mud, nor does even willfully playing in the mud while having an understanding of the consequences lead to a transformation of a man back into the elements originally utilized to form his body. I am NOT my addictions.
It was truly refreshing to hear the strong refuting in the Candeo program of the “Once and addict, always an addict” philosophy so heavily taught in the social sciences. I had come accross this same firm stance that we are more than our behaviors a couple years back while reading The Alcholholism and Addiction Cure. In so many subtle and convincing ways we can come to believe that we are merely what we think or do. Even Batman said it so persuasively, “It’s not who I am underneath, it’s what I DO that defines me.”
Wow, I’m just realizing now just how harmful that philosophy can be to the thousands that find themselves trapped in bad habits and addictive behavior and who are looking for answers in fear.
I have definitley struggled against believing I was worthless. I haven’t always succeeded is seeing right, but at times I’ve felt a love beyond description that has surrounded me, made me to feel completely safe and that has given me sure confidence in who I am – a being of eternal light and infinite worth. In those wonderful moments I’ve glimpsed the eternities and felt assurance that everything would work out for the best. It’s that vision of myself to whom I aspire, to which I seek to conform my life to and it’s THAT being that so much is this world seeks to supress.
Through our actions & thoughts we can convince ourselves that the philosophies of man – that man is only man and can succeed by their own strength a – humanism – is true. By doing so we lose sight of the divinty within us, that part that understands truth naturally, that part that reaches out to others in love and concern for their well being, that part of us that truly realizes that we are all one, children of a living God. We can also begin to worship pleasure (hedonism), the mind (intellectualism) or the things which we can create (materialism); again, all leading to the same drab conclusion: that our existence has an end in ourselves.
The “true self” of which I’ve caught glimpses – by cutting through the darkness & filth of negative self talk, indulgence in the physical appetites & idleness – can only be understood by one seeking to find it. This means that behavior and thought don’t define us, but rather, that if properly practiced can lead us to understanding and seeing our true selves.
This leads me my next an investigation on the nature of truth, how to really know it or rather, how to see things as they really are & how to keep from being deceived by those who would tell lies & falsehoods for their own purposes: riches, popularity, power & gratifying the lusts of the flesh.
Glory to God
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