Recovery Nation

I'm struggling with the concept of rituals. I'm trying to identify any that are unhealthy in my life. I know I have issues with romantic delusions and obsession. I know I have a problem with seeking out new relationships and letting things get too sexual much too quickly, but I'm not sure how to view things I do as a ritual. Can someone explain it so that I can continue on with the lessons? I'm on lesson 22 and I'm kind of losing steam because I'm not sure how to apply it.

Pixie,
From my own experience, a ritual is just a series of thoughts followed by actions that are repeated again and again. In looking at my past deeply and openly, I can identify a beginning thought or urge that then leads to the next step in my ritual, which again leads to the next step and on until that specific ritual is complete. Maybe it's the word "ritual" that you're having trouble with as to me it sounds religious. Try substituting a repeated pattern of events that happen in your life. A good ritual/pattern would be getting up in morning, turning on the heat, making coffee, brushing my teeth, visiting with the kids and leaving for work. I get up every morning follow these steps and repeat them every morning so they are my morning ritual. I could change them if I like, they aren't compulsive, just a good way for me to proceed in the morning. In the case of unhealthy rituals, it has it's own series of steps and applies to the things I do compulsively without considering the long term effects on my life.
Hope this helps a bit
skrelon

_________________
"Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway." --Mother Teresa

Hi Pixie,

Skrelon gave you a good answer; perhaps you are getting caught up on terminology. Think of a ritual as either a pattern of thoughts, behaviours or actions that have been emotionally ingrained, whereby you have engaged in them long enough that they follow a distinct pattern and each step is associated with specific impact on your emotions (ie. the emotional elements talked about in lesson 17). Usually, think of rituals as where you are consciously on autopilot. This doesn't mean you don't have conscious control of your behaviour; it means that you are basically acting solely on an ingrained pattern based on what emotions you know will be comforting/stimulating for you.

As skrelon said (which is an excellent point), not all compulsive rituals are "bad." Some, like brushing your teeth, allow you to quickly do standard behaviours in a way that saves you mental effort. Now, this could be argued from certain standpoints that you should always be present and aware of what you're doing...but that is an argument for a different place. The point here is for you to identify what compulsive rituals are destructive to your life (ie. your sexual/romantic rituals) or even detrimental to your life (for example, in the case of poor time management, something I still struggle with myself).

In terms of addiction, "addiction" is not comprised of a single compulsive ritual...rather, it is made up of multiple compulsive rituals, some overt, many others subtle. Your task, at least in the beginning of recovery, is to identify ALL the unhealthy compulsive rituals you can, and come to understand and stop them. Having had experience with both (and this is only my opinion), overt rituals that have to do with sex/porn tend to be easier to identify than overt rituals having to do with love addiction and romantic delusions, since the latter are more contained within your perceptions (whereas it is pretty easy to tell when you're masturbating or using porn). However, I would recommend identifying ALL your major overt compulsive rituals and breaking them down...not necessarily to the extent of lesson 22 (though eventually, you will be able to approximate that lesson rather quickly with rituals in your head), but at least to the level of understanding each step and its emotional element...as a major part of detaching from the addiction completely (and therefore putting yourself in a good place to start reconstructing your identity) will be to stop your overt rituals. Then, after that is done and your skills start to improve, you will automatically start to notice some of the more subtle rituals you have (some of which are so ingrained they're undoubtedly outside your conscious awareness at the moment). And that's okay. Just focus on understanding and stopping your major rituals now (and positively focusing on your vision, of course). The rest will come in time.



Romantic delusions and obsessions can be one of the trickier aspects of recovery to deal with, as it requires highly tuned awareness and a lot of self-honesty. Well, all recovery does, but here for different reasons. The reason is that unlike overt compulsive ritual behaviour, which usually follow a distinct pattern and sequence with a starting and ending, and can typically be recognized once a person has will to do do so...delusions only exist as a distortion of your perception. And since they are contained internally within your perception, the person who is deluded doesn't realize they're deluded. And so they remain deluded until the point where they objectively recognize the irrationality of their thinking, at which point they usually separate themselves from the delusion and then it can be taken care of much like any other ritual (looking for the root cause and the emotions surrounding the delusion). The tricky part is becoming consciously aware of irrational thinking that is ingrained in that consciousness.

What I'd recommend in this case if you're just starting out, is to analyze yourself and make a list of as many of your own delusional thinking as you can (and also be aware that romantic delusional thinking can lead to rituals, and vice-versa). This is where the hyperawareness comes in. You will then want to watch yourself as you go about your daily life, and catch yourself when you start thinking like this, then start probing your mind: "Why am I thinking this way? What was I feeling emotionally prior to the onset of the delusion? Etc." You basically must consciously recognize when your perception and emotions twist in a way that runs contrary to your healthy self.

To give you a personal example of this...one of the delusions I battled was a feeling where every girl I saw was "perfect" (as Jon mentioned in his writing, I have come to loathe that word ) and thought about making her my wife. This then led into additional rituals...but it was a delusion at least to me because it was constantly there in my underlying perception. Basically, I found for me, once I kind of took myself outside the delusion and questioned myself objectively...I realized that obviously, nobody is perfect and that everyone has flaws, but they're only flaws if viewed in that way. Once I consciously recognized at my core that my thinking was fundamentally irrational, I think this caused the delusion to separate from my core identity...then when you identify the root cause and emotions that trigger it (in this case, loneliness and a feeling that I would be alone forever)...the delusion is gone, and you'll be somewhat amazed you ever thought like that in the first place. For example, that's pretty much all the details I could go into there, as I can't remember much else...that behaviour is so far gone now that I'm have to go back in my recovery thread for more details.

Anyways, I hope that helps. Hyperawareness really is important. Not until it becomes obsessive itself...but I found my recovery really took off when figuring out my mind kind of became a fun game to me...like I examine something I'd never examined before and then unlock a pattern in my head and instantly feel clearer and further along my own path.

Also, did you read this guide I wrote to lesson 22? viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19223

Boundless

_________________
"It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell."

"Be a lamp unto yourself."

- Buddha

I think that is the part I am struggling with. To me so much of what I am dealing with is just thoughts. I'm not sure how to translate thoughts into rituals. I have gotten pretty good about "catching" thoughts when I start to have them. I ask myself why I'm thinking about that and why. I feel like I am dealing well with the thoughts. I did have one ritual that I recognize as being very unhealthy. I will think about your descriptions of rituals and see if I can recognize any others. I can see how love addiction makes it harder to identify them. So very much of it is mental processing.