Meditation To Overcome Addiction and Addictive Behaviors
Nobody likes being called an addict. More often than not, when we think of addictions, we usually confine our thoughts to cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, and the likes of these. But the truth is that in this time and age, we are all slaves of addictions in one way or the other. Perhaps you have never smoked a cigarette, maybe you just drink occasionally, but does that entitle yourself to be called free of addictions? Isn’t it possible that you are not an addict of some sort of a drug, but there are a few habits that have turned into an addiction for you? For instance, don’t you think it’s your addiction to the smartphones that push you to check for notification after every couple of minutes? Haven’t you heard of someone who is addicted to sex? Isn’t the multibillion-dollar industry of pornography is entirely premised on addiction?
In the simplest of terms, addiction is nothing more than an urge that gets out of your control. Having an urge, a severe craving to do something is a part of being human. Fortunately, most of us are capable of keeping our urges in control especially when they are vicious in nature. For the addicts, however, it’s a constant struggle to fight these urges; a battle that they most frequently end up losing.
Since addictions fall in the realm of your mental health, it is understandable for psychology to have a say regarding the matter. As per psychology, a comprehensive plan for recovery must include a few techniques of the ancient practices of meditation and mindfulness. One such common technique that is referred to as “Urge Surfing” has the potential to be the simplest cure to pull someone out of their addiction. The entire concept of this technique is based on the fact that having an urge is natural for a human being and all of these human cravings are temporary in nature. Since it takes around 20 to 30 minutes for these cravings to naturally fade away, it is possible for an individual to surf through these urges without submitting to them if only one is capable of keeping his focus on their transient nature.
If you have been fighting an addiction for so long and were just about to give up, today is certainly your lucky day. We are here to guide you through the step by step procedure that you can follow for Urge Surfing and effectively overcome your addiction once and for all.
Urge Surfing
You Need To Identify The Urge
The first and the foremost step for Urge Surfing in an attempt to overcome your addictions is to pinpoint your cravings. If you don’t identify the urges of your mind and body, you would never be able to devise a comprehensive plan that helps you pull out of it. Simply put, the sooner that you get an understanding of your addictive behavior, the better it will be for your plan to get out of it. More often than not, we make the mistake of waiting for our addiction to be in front of us and well within our reach before we start to fight it. The problem with such an approach is that stepping that late into the battlefield enables the urge to already get too strong for you to have a chance of winning this war. Therefore, you need to have a proactive approach for the identification of your cravings.
You’re A Scientist Who’s There To Observe
Once you have identified your urge and it has come knocking at your door, the next step for Urge Surfing and protecting yourself against submitting to your addiction to take a deep breath and make yourself completely aware of your craving. All that you are required to do here is to prevent yourself from acting impulsively. You sit back, relax, and accept the existence of the craving and confront it. There’s no need to opt for self-denial and try to ignore the very existence of your urge. Be aware of it and accept it completely. Think of yourself as a scientist who is working in a lab and has something under his microscope that he needs to observe. Your only goal is to observe the craving and not act upon it.
Focus On Your Feelings
Remember that Urge Surfing is a technique derived from meditation and mindfulness. This implies that keeping your focus and using your observation is going to be a prominent part of it. Now that you have identified your craving and have observed it, your next step is [restrict] to familiarize yourself with the associated sensations. What does it feel like to have the craving? What are the physical sensations associated with? What are the mental thoughts and patterns which are being accentuated in your mind? Perhaps you are thinking that smoking a single cigarette won’t hurt you? Or probably that a glass of wine can’t possibly be escalated into a drinking binge. Whatever is running through your mind and whatever it is that you are feeling, you are required to create a note of it in your mind. Once you understand these sensations and feelings, you would be able to better scrutinize your cravings.
Identify The Addiction Triggers
If you have been in a battle with an addiction, you better know how our environment is usually the greatest of all triggers that push us back into our addiction. For instance, on a Sunday evening, if it is a habit for you to hang out with your friends at a nearby bar, it is going be remarkably more difficult for you to fight the craving of having a glass of drink. Once you identify such triggers, your next move should be to replace them all. If you used to hang out with your friends at a bar, now would be the time to fix your next meet up at a café instead; a place where you can perhaps have a healthy salad with a delicious cup of coffee as a replacement to alcohol.
The Idea Of Impermanence Is The Key
It is to be kept in mind that through the process of applying Urge Surfing to fight your addiction, it is likely that you will continue to have the cravings from time to time. What’s important under such circumstances is to remind yourself of the idea of impermanence of these urges. All you have to do is recall that other than not submitting to them for a few minutes, you don’t have to do anything at all to ensure your victory. A show of patience for 20 to 30 minutes is all that it’ll take for the urge to naturally fade away. If you can focus on the transient nature of your addiction, you will soon get the upper hand in this battle against the addiction.
Create A Personal Mantra
An effective tip to ensure the success of Urge Surfing is to create a personal mantra that you can repeat either loudly or inside your head at times that your cravings come knocking at your door. Statements like “I’m strong than this craving”, “It’ll go away in a few minutes”, “I refuse to submit to my addiction” etc. are known to be highly effective in lending you a helping hand to stand your ground for the 20 to 30 minutes that your craving will take to naturally fade away. Constantly repeating such a personal mantra in your head helps a great deal in pushing the negative thoughts aside and replacing them with a helpful thought pattern.
Practice Makes A Man Perfect
Last but not least, as you may as well be aware of, winning the war against addiction is not as easy as it sounds. If you have experienced it first hand, you must have already tried multiple techniques to no avail. The good news for you is that Urge Surfing, being a part of meditation and mindfulness has the potential to help cure your addiction for good. But like any other technique, it is going to take a fair amount of effort and practice before you can apply it impeccably and be effective in overcoming your addiction. Therefore, if you fail to see the results for the first couple of times, don’t lose hope and give into despair. Keep practicing. There’s light at the end of this tunnel, that’s a promise.
Conclusion
The ancient practices of meditation and mindfulness have been proven by the modern world to be highly effective for restoring the balance one’s mind and body and optimizing the mental and physical health. With the use of a simple technique of Urge Surfing, mindfulness promises to be the guiding angel that flies you out of the deepest ditch of your addiction. You’ve already tried so much and have failed. What do you have to lose in giving Urge Surfing a go as well? What if this is the wonder drug that you have been waiting for? [/restrict]
