Personal Research

Category: addiction

  • Miscellaneous Traps for the Soul

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      A trap is only a trap if you don’t know about it. If you know about it, it’s a challenge. ― China Melville The understanding that all of my thoughts, feelings, and perceptions are mental processes created by my nervous system is called Meta-Cognitive Awareness. Those who lack Meta-Cognitive Awareness are more certain of their…

  • Know Thyself!

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    Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.    —  Aristotle Bad things happen, and some suffering is unavoidable. But you can create additional suffering for yourself and others by the way you react to the things that happen. A popular way to create unnecessary suffering is to interpret the things that happen from a…

  • The Karma of Behaving Badly

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    Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.  —   Elbert Hubbard Performance becomes easier with practice. In fact, with enough practice, performance can become autonomous—that is, it requires no conscious attention at all. Consider activities such as driving a car or using a computer keyboard. When first attempted, performance is slow, hesitant, and…

  • The Imp of the Perverse

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    God’s error was forbidding the apple. If He would have forbidden the serpent, then Adam would have eaten the serpent. –George Bernard Shaw People often end up doing exactly what they tell themselves not to do. The intention to suppress a response has the perverse effect of making that response more likely. Edgar Allan Poe…

  • The PIG

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    No temptation can ever be measured by the value of its object. — Sidonie Colette The Problem of Immediate Gratification (the PIG) is our name for the principle that immediate payoffs are far more influential than delayed payoffs—even if the latter is much larger (e.g., choosing $1 now over $10 tomorrow). The other side of…

  • Recursive Traps

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      "It is often possible to discern a structure to people’s difficulties, in which internal states and external events continually create the conditions for the recurrence of each other."  — Paul Wachtel Blushing is an example of a recursive structure. If blushing is embarrassing for me, then any feedback that I am blushing enhances the physiological…

  • Irreversible Change

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    We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us, nor spare us — Marcel Proust Even though they know better, otherwise competent individuals repeatedly and apparently intentionally, cause themselves and their loved ones unnecessary suffering. Look back at your own history. Do you see…

  • An Invitation

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    . . . to choose the path of greatest advantage rather than yield in the direction of least resistance – George Bernard Shaw Addictions [excessive appetites] and relationship problems that result from excessive emotional reactivity are traps for the soul. Look back on your own history to see if there are recurring patterns of acting…

  • Attachment to Outcomes

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      Do not become attached to the things you like Do not maintain aversion to the things you dislike. Sorrow, fear, and bondage come from one’s likes and dislikes – Buddha Rational Emotive Therapy If you don’t get what you want you are disappointed, but if you don’t get what you need you will die. …

  • Ruminative Self Focus

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    The secret to being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not.  —  George Bernard Shaw We are all self-focused. Thoughts related to the self —  how I feel, why I feel that way, what other people think of me — are compelling. When this tendency is combined with the recursive…