WEEKLY MEDITATION
The appearances of things change according to the emotions, and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.
-Kahlil Gibran
As today’s quotation points out, our experience of the world is primarily a subjective one dictated by what is happening in our mental and emotional reality at a given point in time. It is actually this very subjectivity that creates and enables addiction since we can use our addictive substances and behaviors to manipulate this inner reality. Of course this manipulation isn’t usually sustainable, and if the addiction is strong enough it will inevitably create enough outer havoc that no level of manipulation to our inward reality will be effective enough to counter it. This is usually the point where we start looking for help. And the process of successful recovery is also one of changing our inner reality, but in a substantial and long-lasting way. Recovery should still be an effort to change our inner consciousness in such a way that life feels fulfilling and safe enough to support our non-addicted selves. Although it is often important to make changes to our outer lives—having a safe home, gaining employment, gaining necessary material possessions—it is the changes to our inner experience that will actually bring the type of growth that will successfully combat the need to fall back into our addictive behaviors. As we successfully change the way we feel internally, the way we feel about our external life will naturally feel right, too.
