Jon's Journal

[Yan]

20 hours ago, blu said:

I think a big issue, when trying to let go of gaming, is that we focus too much on what we don't want. To illustrate, lets say you want to give up smoking, if you continuously say to yourself something like "don't smoke", "cigarettes are bad" or "I hate cigarettes", even thought we mean well, our brain still continuously receive the same negative input of the words "smoking" and "cigarettes". Instead, we can direct our focal point to something good like "eat healthy", "build a strong body" or something like that.

Anyways, Jon, we win some we lose some. You need not feel disheartened just because you lost a streak or things aren't going your way. The path to change wont be easy. We will feel like the issues we face are insurmountable, there are times when we will lose the streaks, times we will fail on the promises we made to ourselves, times where we will perceive ourselves to be rotten flesh with no purpose. Life will keep knocking us down cause that's what life does best, and the best we can do is refuse to stay down. Even though we strive for it everyday, non of us are perfect. So don't be self critical. Learn from the mistakes you made and form those made by other, overcome the anguish that comes with losing, and just stay relentless.

Very well said!!! Another example to reinforce what you've said - Try thinking "Don't think of a pink elephant, Don't think of a pink elephant, Don't think of a pink elephant" you'll always end up thinking of a pink elephant
If you say instead, "Think of a blue elephant" a blue elephant comes to mind 🙂