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Starting the 90-day challenge


white cloud

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Hi all, 

Today is Day 0! I woke up early, around 3 am, and ended up gaming until 6:30 am. I had been on and off with gaming my whole life, at times playing 16 hours a day, and at other times going without. These other times my addiction to gaming was simply replaced by an addiction to something else (typically work). But gaming always seems to come back as the primary addiction. I have tried joining CGAA before, but at the time it seemed like the disease model of addiction was very prevalent, and again, would often see people there replacing their gaming addiction with something else. I've done enough research and am ready to try a 90-day challenge. I like this approach because it doesn't require labelling myself as an 'addict' that can never game again (even if this is true, I don't personally think it is helpful to carry this negative label around like a cross). Although, I won't rule out the possibility of trying the Twelve Step model again. 

Life is an experiment, a grand adventure, and we can't guarantee anything about the future, but we can try things and see how we feel afterwards and continually experiment and iterate. The key part of the process is to be brutally honest with yourself and accept the consequences of your choices. A big part of my staying locked in the addiction was dishonesty. The hiding of how much I was playing, the mind telling me that everything is under control, and all the secrecy around it kept me feeling very shameful about the whole thing. Being open and honest is a huge step in accepting myself, and in accepting myself I have an opportunity to change. It sounds like a paradox, but I've found that when I've resisted accepting myself and when I've tried to actively hide (from others as well as myself) my addictions, I become more and more dependent on my addictions to cope. It's kind of like the Chinese finger trap, when you pull away you get more and more stuck. When you lean into it and accept it, it starts to relax. 

 

Cam describes 4 benefits we derive from gaming on his YouTube channel. Let's explore how they apply to me and see how I can replace them with more beneficial activities:

1) Temporary Escape (Dealing with Stress): I am becoming more and more aware of this - noticing the emotion that pops up right before I feel the impulse to play. Oftentimes it is fear. Fear of failure, rejection, and not being good enough. I have been working with a therapist to uncover and process some of these feelings, as I used gaming when I was a child to not have to face these troubling emotions. Instead of gaming as my escape, I can journal, go for a walk, do 25 jumping jacks, simply breathe a few deep breaths, or pick up a book instead. 

2) Social (Community, Friends): I haven't played multiplayer games in a long time, and have been disconnected from my old online gamer friends for many years now, so this one doesn't apply to my situation. I am however actively improving this area of my life as it has been neglected for a few years. Some things I have done in this department include: having friends over for dinner, attending church and bible study weekly, getting involved with the local pickleball community, reconnecting with my meditation community, and being more present with my immediate family. 

3) Constant Measurable Growth (Triumph Circuit, Sense of Progress): This is a huge part of gaming for me - the feeling of accomplishment, and getting better at something, and having the difficulty scale as I get better and better. Until I reach a plateau, delete that specific game, then download a new one to start the journey again. One of the things I have been using recently to replace this with is pickleball. Although I was addicted to pickleball for a couple of months, it is a physical sport and my body has limitations! I've managed to settle into a more regular routine of doing drills and playing recreational games once a week. This can also be replaced with exercise (also starting the Miracle Morning today) and writing, which will be covered in the next point. 

4) Challenge (Sense of Purpose, Mission, Goal to Work Towards): The ever-elusive purpose, or meaning to life. I am a philosopher at heart. Addicted to the mind, and using the mind to try to sort out life. The mind is great at practical things. Calculating, measuring, evaluating. Gaming really does a good job of entrapping the mind; there are lots of problems to solve and lots of stimulation to the senses to keep you engaged. The mind is not so good at dealing with emotions, or understanding happiness. It's hilarious how bad we humans are at predicting what will make us happy. Well, happiness is a bit of a fake goal anyways. It's temporary, and it's the seeking of it that causes our suffering. Uh-oh, my Buddhist side is showing. Lol. The Buddha showed us that lasting happiness (happiness without conditions) comes from the elimination of desire (cravings). That doesn't mean we aren't allowed to want things - it is natural to want food, water, shelter, warmth, and love. The problems begin when we start chasing the things we like and running away from the things we don't like. Sound familiar? We do this all our lives, and we condition ourselves to experience misery and suffering. Emotionally what this looks like for me is when I have a negative feeling (let's say fear), instead of actually experiencing the emotion and allowing it to pass through my body, I block it out. I distract myself. I run. Or, let's say I feel a positive emotion. Excitement. I cling to it. I don't want it to leave. I want to continually experience more and more of it. And when I don't feel it? I am dissatisfied. The chase begins again. Chasing good feelings, wanting them to last, and running away from bad feelings, not wanting them to exist. So getting to the point here... the ultimate goal to work towards for me is enlightenment. Other ways to describe this are: experiencing unity-consciousness, becoming one with the Tao, being filled with the Holy Spirit, or realizing Brahman. Allowing the natural goodness that is inherent within me (and all of us) to flow out freely.

A more practical goal for me to work towards is becoming a freelance writer. I believe I have been a writer my whole life, it's just that my connection to my voice has been weakened. My belief in my ability to write, and have meaningful things to say, authentically and purposefully, is growing stronger and stronger. I am reminded of something Jordan B Peterson says: "If you can think, speak, and write, you are absolutely deadly." 

 

I intend on writing every day in this journal. It definitely won't always be this long (I think I've spent over an hour so far on this) but it'll be consistent. I'll be honest, and raw, and take you with me on this journey of self-discovery and healing. All the best, and if you've read this far, thank you. May we find hope, support, and encouragement in the sharing of our stories. 

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Hey, white cloud! What a great, high-effort post!

I love the comparison of your addictions to a Chinese finger trap. I definitely have had the same experience where the shame I had for wasting days on gaming or the anger I felt for myself after procrastinating on an assignment with video games did not lower my screentime, but actually increase it. When I had all these negative emotions that resulted from my gaming, the only way I knew how to "deal" with them was playing even more and distracting myself from what my mind was telling me. Such a phenomenon has also been described by psychologists. As you (and the study) say, the best way to move forward is not to ruin yourself with negative and self-destructive thoughts, but by accepting your history, so I think you are on the right track!

I'm looking forward to reading your diary entries and seeing how you experience the 90-day challenge!

Edited by WritingFuture
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Today is Day 2! I missed journaling here yesterday as my day was quite busy. We had a holiday party the night before and I got home way after my bedtime, woke up a bit late and rushed through work to make an appointment in the afternoon. Then afterwards I made and ate dinner with my wife, then passed out. I slept for a few hours, woke up around 10 pm, then went back to sleep after doing my evening hygiene routine. 

I did notice a couple of times when my mind thought about gaming in response to some stressor popping up. Most notably when I feel overwhelmed at the amount of work I feel is looming ahead. I identify with the feeling of being incapable, that I'm not good enough, and that there is no point in even trying. It's better to not try than to try and fail, says my over-cautious, fearful mind. It's ok, I trained it to function this way. It simply takes awareness and trust in the process of change to get better. It's funny, in these moments I grab my phone, realize there are no games on it anymore, and just stare blankly at it for a while. Scroll through some apps, then put the phone down. There is always the temptation to distract myself in other ways than gaming; it's so easy to get lost in an endless reddit session, research some topic to infinity, or link jump on wikipedia. 

In the past, when I would decide to stop gaming, the first week was really easy - the willpower and determination and emotional energy from making the decision carried me through. Over time though, I would slide back into gaming just a little bit here and there, and eventually, it becomes too much. Usually, this process would happen over a month or two. The power of journaling is being able to notice these things and write them down and track them in a way. Also, it holds me and my mind accountable. The mind is so good at lying, manipulating, and just doing whatever it thinks it needs to do to protect me. The mind is the primary addiction... and gaming is a great outlet for the mind to exercise its functions of control, judgement, calculation, and reward. So I'm leaning more toward relaxation when the mind starts doing its thing, trying to solve all the world's problems and the ultimate problem of self-identity. Just step back and observe. Come back to the body and see where tension may have arisen. 

I'm looking forward to today. It's another day filled with activities, meetings, play, work, and community. I woke up at 5:30 am this morning and did my first miracle morning routine. I got stuck a bit on the affirmations as I haven't formally written them out yet, but I said what felt right to me at the time, and I can develop them more today. Also, I fell asleep for a bit after my meditation session, which I extended from 20 minutes to 40 minutes, but that's ok too. 

I feel grateful for everything that life has to offer. For all the experiences that have shaped who I am today, and for the possibility of change with a few key ingredients that can be cultivated: awareness, trust (faith), and intention. May you enjoy peace and love wherever you are in the world today. 

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Day 3 - slept in today (initially woke up at 5:30 am then stayed in bed until 8:30) woke up tired and felt super groggy all day. I guess my sleep cycle has been a bit pushed off balance recently. Also, all the social activity as of late is draining for me as an introvert, so it's important to set aside enough alone time to recharge my batteries.

Today I felt the assault of my mind being a bully towards myself, quietly and persistently pointing out all of the things I haven't done and how I'll never have enough time to do it all. Assuming that is true (as the mind will always want to accomplish more and more and more) I might as well be okay with not getting everything done that I thought I wanted to. Okay. Cool. Surprisingly, a lot of the weight, tension, and pressure of having to do it all is lifted. I don't have to be perfect, I don't have to accomplish everything I want to immediately, Rome wasn't built in one day.

It's a trap I am getting better at escaping... believing that my energy and enthusiasm for "getting stuff done" will always be at 100%, then judging myself harshly when I'm not always at that level of productivity. Starting to untangle my idea of self-worth from the quantity and quality of my productivity. I guess my mind is always guilt-tripping me about the past, how much time I've wasted, and how much better life would be if I just behaved like a robot - completely ignoring my emotions and past conditioning - and completing all my tasks without taking into consideration a human's need for rest and self-care. It's okay, mind. We're gonna be alright. I appreciate your concern. Some of what you're saying is true - I have wasted a lot of time and I do want to implement better habits and lifestyle choices to support the life I want to live. But it takes time, progress is not a straight line, and we will need to be able to adapt to the variables of life that are bound to pop up. Let's go easy on ourselves, learn to respect the process, and learn to relax into being. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 

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Day 4! Woke up at 5:40, and had set my alarm for 6:15. Sweet! Have been experimenting with cold showers, and was able to take the cold water for colder and longer than I have before. A nice boost to the body and mental well-being as well. Completed my miracle morning routine, for the most part, haven't done any reading yet, but wrote 1,000 words and did all the other good stuff. It feels great to wake up early and do the things that provide a stable foundation for me to go out into the day. Flashback to just 5 days ago when I woke up early and was a zombie in front of my screen playing this silly game that hijacks my brain to solve useless problems to give me a fake feeling of achievement and progress. LOL. It's what I needed to experience to realize enough is enough. So thank you to the game, for intensifying my addiction until I got the point. I learned my lesson. You could say I learned my lesson a million times, but that's what we are here in this life to do. Learn the lessons, over and over again, until we finally get it. Truly, deep down, have the lesson imprinted into the very fabric of our beings. A change of heart. A shift in identity. A newly gained confidence.  No turning back. Eyes on the prize. Keep moving forward. Step by step. Life is beautiful. Thank you. 

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On 11/27/2022 at 7:20 PM, white cloud said:

I guess my mind is always guilt-tripping me about the past, how much time I've wasted, and how much better life would be if I just behaved like a robot - completely ignoring my emotions and past conditioning - and completing all my tasks without taking into consideration a human's need for rest and self-care.

I believe I can relate--ironically, I find such thoughts can even be triggered when I start trying to get things done!
Your comparison to behaving like a robot hits especially hard: despite understanding that I am a human with emotions, I still struggle with a strong belief that I shouldn't have any (except maybe anger).

Reading the remainder of your post, it was refreshing to see an example of gently approaching those self-critical thoughts, yet still addressing them, rather than turning to anger or avoidance.

 

15 hours ago, white cloud said:

You could say I learned my lesson a million times, but that's what we are here in this life to do. Learn the lessons, over and over again, until we finally get it. Truly, deep down, have the lesson imprinted into the very fabric of our beings.

That is an interesting theory. For our sake's, I hope we've reached that point with gaming, along with many other things.

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Day 6 - skipped another day of journaling and almost missed today! I guess my optimistic morning wake-up time is not so consistent. It's funny, I wake up once or twice before 6 am and I'm like ok! I'm ready to do this every day! Also, my body is busy fighting off a cold, or at least what seems like the precursors to a cold - some sniffling, sneezing, and general fatigue. My body is telling me to rest. And I think the evening routine is the culprit. It's too easy in the evenings when I'm tired and had a full day's worth of work and activity, to just slide into passive overconsumption of screen time or endless snacking (I just learned how to properly eat sunflower seeds still in their shell and it's oh so addicting) or just staying up late chatting with my wife. Protect the evenings! I even wrote up a draft post - 10 ways to protect your evenings! Ideally, I sleep before 10, so likely in bed by 9:30, evening hygiene maybe starts at 9, electronics off at 8, last food in my belly by 6:30, and last liquids by 7:30... it sounds good on paper, but when the rubber hits the road, and willpower is down, it's too easy to slip. Well, we iterate. Experiment. See what works and what doesn't. I've been turning off the power bar to my computer in the evenings and charging my phone downstairs overnight to try to curb the evening screen time. The idea is if I am upstairs and don't have to go downstairs after 8 pm, then I'm safe. Safe from electronics, safe from the kitchen... I have everything I need for my evening routine (well whatever I want it to be anyways) - yoga mat, meditation cushion, books, journals, etc. The tricky thing is when we have some evening activity... they all seem to start at 7 and you finish around 8:30-9 and poof goodbye evening. Perhaps time to start pruning some of those as well. 

Today I ended up spending maybe 3 hours on my phone a little mindlessly. Browsing reddit, youtube, and allowing my mind to guide my attention into the black hole of the algorithmically curated infinite stream of content. I feel blessed to not have installed tik tok, I hear that app is like crack. In the past (say, a week ago) I would feel pretty shitty about it. But today I was like, oh well, I still did what I needed to do, ran a bunch of errands after lunch, and had a relatively productive time. And I did enjoy that time on the phone, make no mistake. At least it wasn't gaming, and at least I didn't beat myself up over it afterwards. I did browse some chess content though... and chess was my game of choice for a while there. It's really easy to dive deep into theory and tactics and puzzles and for an addict, chess can really hit all those triggers. I guess the good thing is that if I'm not staying up to date with all the knowledge and patterns it fades over time, and it's too much effort to invest to just get back to my prior knowledge, so once I stopped playing there was a natural barrier to starting again. 

Back to the mornings, I think if I wake up later than anticipated I can try doing the 6 minute version of the miracle morning - just spend 1 minute on each activity. At least lets me check off my box and builds up the habit, even in a small win. Gotta stack up those micro wins and momentum. I'm feeling pretty good though all things considered - it's nice to spend time here. Today I'm grateful for this community 🙂

 

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Day 9! Looks like daily journaling is something that doesn't fit my schedule at the moment. This is the first time I turned on my computer in the past 3 days actually, since the last journal entry. I ended up waking up pretty early consistently, Thursday was 5 am and Friday was 5:30 am. Today was 7:15 am, which technically is a sleep-in but I don't feel bad about it at all. I also forgot to do the cold part of my shower today but did it for the last two days. 

It's funny, I noticed my spending increase this past week. The only shopping I'm doing these days are for groceries, but I bought a LOT of food. My fridge and freezer are stocked up to the max, and it's just two of us here haha. In the moment, when I'm shopping at the stores, I'm thinking to myself oh, my wife is gonna be so proud of me, look I'm buying all this good food for us. Looking back, I realized hey, this is more food than we can eat, what's going on here? Some desire or craving that isn't being fulfilled is perhaps expressing itself in my spending. 

Speaking of cravings... my wife is out tonight for a 'ladies' night out with the church community, so I'm home alone, and the natural instinct is to load up some games and get all jacked up on dopamine. It's just this default thing to turn to when my wife isn't around. My mind is like "OK! Guilt-free gaming! No bossy wife to judge me for playing or interrupt my session." I also felt this type of thinking arise when I went to drive my wife to the doctor and knew I would have to wait for about an hour during her visit. My mind immediately thinks, one hour? Ok sweet, I can get some good gaming time in there. In that instance, I decided to do some emails and read a book instead. For tonight, I don't have a concrete plan, but there is laundry to fold and we did a big purge today so there is some more tidying up to do. Also, my "evening routine" starts in half an hour, so there's that (not really solidified yet). 

Tomorrow is Sunday - the day of the Sabbath. So we will try to not do any 'work', to really take the time to rest and meditate and connect with ourselves and nature and God. I've been thinking about rest for a few weeks now... and I will write more about that in tomorrow's entry. See you tomorrow, good night, and thanks!

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Day 10

Ended up staying up pretty late last night on screens... was on my computer until 10:15 or so then went downstairs, had a banana with some peanut butter, and lay down on the couch with my phone until my wife came home, just after 11 pm. Stayed on our phones until 11:30 pm then started the bedtime routine, probably not sleeping until 12:30ish. Woke up at 8 this morning, played some pickleball, went to church, where my wife surprised me with a cake for my birthday, and just got home around 1:30 pm, had some lunch and here we are. 

I have a tendency to take a really hard line on things, feel really strongly about adhering to these things, almost in an extreme, uncompromising way, then be very carefree about them a short while later. This evening routine for instance. It's something I've been wanting to instill in my life for a long time. I took a hard line to the point of having an argument with my wife about it and not really including her in my decision-making process, and then a couple of days later just drift and forget all about it. Starting to recognize the emotions in the moment that makes things seem way more important and serious than they really are. I just need to learn to relax. This leads us to today's reflection. Rest.

I suppose I've never been one that got to appreciate rest or relaxation. Outwardly, I've worked really hard to have an appearance of being calm, chill, and generally unperturbed by events happening around me. But on the inside, my body tells a different story. My sympathetic nervous system is overworked. I'm consistently feeling some level of existential threat or stress that I'm actively suppressing with my mind. At times when I feel like wanting to take a rest, quite often I'm in a book, watching some content, whether it's a tv show, movie, or YouTube videos, or playing games, historically. These activities are certainly not restful, especially playing games. Even in meditation, for a very long time, I was striving for something, concentrating hard and almost trying to force my way through it. I just didn't know how to relax. I felt that effort and willpower were the keys to success. Certainly in gaming that is true. And the immediate feedback loop with consistent difficulty ramping made for a short learning curve and immense feelings of achievement, mastery, and gratification that is accelerated by many multiples when compared to learning things in the real world. 

What does success look like? In gaming, in work - in any worldly pursuit - there is a goal, some time and effort to learn how to play the game or do the work, get better at those activities, and eventually get to where you want to be. Then what? Well, you create a new goal. You keep going. Keep pushing, improving, hustling, grinding, and trying the be the best you can be. Start sacrificing balance for achievement. For status, accolades, wealth, and riches. Then what? Well, there's always something more to reach for. A bigger house. A nicer car. More friends, more influence, more extravagance, more 0's in front of the 1 in the bank account. More points, more frags, more epic quests, more rare and powerful items. 

Our minds, and society as a reflection, value doing, achieving, producing, and generally being useful more than being, resting, relaxing, and generally being 'useless'. Everything is meant to be in balance, so one is not necessarily better than the other, they co-exist, and one actually cannot exist without the other. But we have the tendency to over-emphasize one side of the equation, and in doing so, we build up the weight of the pendulum to eventually swing back the other way, and back and forth we go from one extreme to the other. 

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to live in a balanced way? Where we can recognize and understand our needs, and fulfill them in wholesome and thoughtful ways? Instead, we ignore, avoid, and even declare war on the thoughts/feelings/emotions/things that we judge as 'bad', and chase, cling, and hold on to for dear life the thoughts/feelings/emotions/things that we judge as 'good'. Round and round we go, tying ourselves up in knots over almost everything we experience. 

So here we are, chasing happiness, chasing money, chasing love, chasing after life it seems, and running away from fear, negativity, guilt, shame, and death. When does all the chasing and running stop? When do stop? Realize that enough is enough? All this chasing and running is just leading us around in circles, getting nowhere. What is it that is preventing us from truly being able to rest? To relax. To breathe. To accept the present moment, whatever it may be. There always seems to be one more thing to do. One more game to play. One more task to check off the list. One more sale to close. One more report to file. One more promotion. One more dollar, then I can finally be happy. 

In the Twelve Step traditions, there is an acknowledgement of a higher power. A surrender of the personal will, or ego, to this higher power - a realization that this affliction we have cannot be cured by ourselves alone. Our limited minds, clouded with arrogance, selfishness, and a refusal to submit, actively block us from healing. From recovery. From wholeness. From living a fulfilling human life, with all of the amazing potential that is inherent in our very being. 

In the TV series 'The Chosen', which follows the life of the disciples of Jesus, we learn about the story of Simon, who is deeply entrenched in debt to the Romans and finds himself stuck in a very difficult situation. To try to save his family, his boat, and his house, he conjures up a plot to betray his own fellow fisherman to the Romans, in exchange for relief from his debt. We can see clearly his state of mind - fearful, distrusting, and arrogant - that turns into hopelessness and despair, and an unwillingness to put faith and trust in something bigger than himself, until the very end - when Jesus asks him to simply throw his net out for one last catch. In a miracle, thousands of fish appear, and his debt is cleared from the one catch, after a sleepless night of fishing without any catch. 

I recently found myself in a similar situation. Feeling trapped, feeling like I was the only one who could figure out how to deal with the situation. Not reaching out and asking for help. Taking on all the stress of the world on my shoulders. Turning to gaming and other unhealthy habits for a temporary reprieve from all the stress. All the signs were urging me to change course, to surrender my ego, and to stop trying so hard to get things right on my own. To stop trying to fix everything myself, and make it perfect, without anyone knowing about my struggle. To just let go of the way I wanted things to be. To the way I wanted people to think about me. To the story about myself that I was so vehemently trying to sustain in myself and in others. I was humbled, and I am so very thankful. I am feeling a lot more relaxed, a lot more grateful, and a lot more accepting of life as it is. I got too caught up in the worldly chase and forgot that it all turns to dust at the end of the road. That the most important relationship I have is with my higher self, my creator, my source, the cosmic intelligence. Out of a deep connection with source, the worldly life will take care of itself. Once your cup is full, anything extra will naturally flow out and benefit others. 

There is still a long way to go. The path is but a series of present moments, strung together by an invisible thread. Each moment carries with it all of the possibilities for divine grace, wisdom, and healing. We just need to show up for it. 

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Day 13

My sleep schedule has been a bit wonky again. Nights starting to get later and later, and morning creeping later as well. It's not that bad... but I can see it catching up to me soon. Ended up going to bed around 12:30 last night and woke up at 7 this morning, and I pretty much just had time to shower, make a smoothie, pack my lunch, and go to work. Also spent a couple of hours after work one of the past few days just scrolling on Reddit. Just passively consuming information and people's comments and replies to each other. Just some itch that needed to get scratched and boom, I'm gone for a bit. Lost in the black hole. My therapist would ask me to try to identify the emotion just before feeling the urge to game or turn to some distracting activity. I think I was just tired. Wanted to "rest". Actually just ended up zoning out. Mentally checked out of my existing reality and into the virtual reality where my mind can run around and chase fleeting thoughts and information and feed on the hilarious comments from others. Probably I was feeling overwhelmed with the amount of stuff to do. Well, the good news is I didn't turn to gaming! Also good news, I took a cold shower today... and got to turn it all the way down to full cold for maybe 30 seconds. I think I may start just starting and ending with cold showers, but I love the warmth in the morning so much... I even flushed the toilet once or twice to get the water hotter. 

I was exploring some 12-step material and discovered there are quite a few resources rooted in Buddhist practices and traditions that resonate with me quite strongly. The best one I found is https://recoverydharma.org/ - they seem to have a very solid structure, lots of materials, and plenty of available meetings to attend. I'm eyeing one on Mondays at 6 pm... that'll give me some time on Sundays to work on the material. 

I'm going to restructure this journal a bit, and put some habit-tracking stuff at the top, then have room below it for my reflections. Really want to get into a daily habit of posting, even if there are no reflections, just to update the habits and keep the momentum going. So, what habits are we tracking? Let's start with cold showers, defined as at least 30 seconds at full cold in the morning. We can also add meditation, let's say 20 minutes in the morning to start. Lastly, let's look at an evening stretching routine - I have some exercises from my chiropractor to build up my muscular strength for maintaining a proper posture and can do some light yoga in there as well, say 15 minutes total. Perhaps I can use the stretching routine as an anchor for my evenings... electronics off by 8, then immediately go into stretching which will signal to my body it's time to wind down, after which I can read/write/sauna/bath/massage/relaaaaax. 

Let's see how it goes! 

 

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Day 14

  • Cold shower (full cold): 1 minute
  • Morning meditation: 20 minutes
  • Last evening stretching: 1 minute

---

Cold shower was funny this morning, I had it on full cold for 30 seconds, then it got COLDER. I was like ok, my shower is playing tricks on me, that's ok, reset the timer. Ahhh it's so invigorating to take a cold shower. I was shaking and counting and would feel small moments of relaxation in the cold. I read some articles about after staying in the cold for 2-3 minutes your body adjusts, then you can really enjoy it. I'm not there yet!

Morning meditation... started with 10 minutes, then added another 10. My mind was telling me I have to get ready for work, time is running out, but I said you know what, this is my priority, I can make it work, I don't want to live in a scarcity mindset.

Last night was hilarious, I ate dinner at like 7:30-8pm, went to cuddle my wife in bed, fell asleep, she presumably did not, and went downstairs to clean the kitchen and woke me up a couple hours later, I went to the washroom to brush my teeth, and that's where I stretched for like, a minute. Even a minute is generous, but I consciously did some stretching, so I'm gonna call it a win. 

Have an amazing day! 🙂

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Day 15

  • Cold shower (full cold): 2 minutes
  • Morning meditation: 20 minutes
  • Last evening stretching: 5 minutes

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With my cold shower today I started full cold and sang a song in my head while I was in there. It was pretty jarring at first, I was washing my body in the cold water and dropping the body while I was shivering the whole time. But after about 20-30 seconds I settled down a bit... the water started to feel less cold, and when I got out of the shower, I felt a sense of repose, tranquility, and strength. I could feel my identity shifting into someone who takes cold showers. Who can decide to do something that is extremely unpleasant in the short term for the good it does in so many different ways afterwards (and during, if you stay long enough in the water). 

Morning meditation went smoothly, used the Waking Up app to listen to Loch Kelly guide me into what he calls 'effortless mindfulness'. My favourite instruction is 'what arises when there is no problem to solve'? Perhaps deserving of a longer post on this sometime. 

Evening stretches... my evening routine is I guess in a place of observation right now. I stayed up until 11 or so, built a piece of furniture that will hold plants for my wife, read/listened to a new book while folding laundry, and just hung out. Right after I got home from work I zoned out on my phone for an hour. Reddit again. Let's delete it off my phone today, see what happens. Today is Friday, my wife has a surprise for my birthday... we are watching something. Have no idea what it is, exciting! Usually, with surprises, she can't keep a secret so this will be exciting. 

Happy Friday!

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Day 24!!! Has it really been 9 days since the last entry? Well... life has been busy, and I have been getting over a cold for about a week now. I actually haven't turned on my computer since then as well. I'm posting this on my phone, just a quick drop in before it gets too far away from me.

So it's been another 9 days of no gaming, although there were moments of weakness... temptation... idle moments where in the past I would naturally slide into getting lost in a game for a couple hours. Instead I ended up watching pickleball matches and reading random articles online. 

When I get sick things get thrown off balance, and I have this tendency to work through my illness instead of taking time off to recover 100%. Hmmm back to the concept of rest. Seeing sickness as a louder signal from the body to rest. 

I guess we are still overcomitting to things and things are being left undone and here we sit on the edge of burnout...

The holiday season is especially busy, with work, social gatherings, family obligations, gift shopping...

I reconnected with a friend and discovered she wrote a book about her battle with addictions to alcohol and marijuana. It's a very personal book and I was taken by her willingness to face her past and be completely open and vulnerable... we had a good chat about how society is structured to lead people to addictive processes to be able to cope with modern day life.

I think a big part of what's keeping me sane (more or less...) is being part of a local community. Humans are social beings and community is the number one thing that has been almost eradicated in our society. Real life, face to face human interactions rendered obsolete by technology and an army of gig workers delivering everything you could ever want to your doorstep. As amazing as online communities are, we've found such a haven in my local church community. It's truly a blessing and we give thanks to our Higher Power for leading us there. 

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Day 33 - another 9 days! Well... time flies huh. I feel like I'm just finally getting past the sickness (just your average cold that kept lingering), and hopefully settling back into a routine after the busy holiday season. There is one more family visit this week then I think social commitments will be normalized. Think we'll spend new years in solitude, reflection, and rest. 

I realized that I still have a lot of fear around my writing. I have deliberately omitted many things from this journal because I worry that someone will be able to identify the author based on the random events I mention. Such a small, minuscule chance, but then again, if they do find it, so what? There is some trauma I haven't fully dealt with when I posted some things I wrote online in an effort to get the attention of a girl I used to date. Not my proudest moment, but what made it worse is that when there was some alluding to that piece of writing by some of my friends (they didn't outright mention it), I deleted it and pretended it never happened. I just made it go away, so to speak. So these things that we push down inside of us never really go away, they just pop back up waiting to be fully experienced. Every time something pops up is an opportunity to let it go. If we can't handle it at the time, we just push it back down until it bobs up again. So... this fear is bobbing up again... can I "handle it"? Can I accept the experience of embarrassment, of hiding, of feeling judged for expressing myself... and let it go? So that, when I'm in the position to express myself online again, I'm not taken back in time when I felt bad? 

I wrote an article about Christmas for my church community. I was thinking about what to write for a while, and the idea evolved from one thing to another. Then when I sat down to actually write the thing, something else came out. And I'm really happy with how it turned out. And it just sort of poured out of me. It was done in about an hour, and after a couple of lookovers by my wife and a friend, it was good to go. It hasn't been published yet, but when it is I pay extra attention to how it feels. 

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On 12/28/2022 at 7:45 AM, white cloud said:

So... this fear is bobbing up again... can I "handle it"? Can I accept the experience of embarrassment, of hiding, of feeling judged for expressing myself... and let it go? So that, when I'm in the position to express myself online again, I'm not taken back in time when I felt bad? 

You can do it!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Today is DAY 50 of being game free!! Over halfway there. I'm feeling great. Despite not posting every day like I initially planned, I have kept busy with many other activities going on and finding other places to write. 

I think just setting the intention to go 90 days game free was a strong message to me and my subconscious. It gave me something to work towards within a reasonable timeframe. Certainly easier to swallow than forever and ever. And when I felt like I needed extra support I always came back here, and spent some time reading the journey others are going through. And after feeling this good after 50 days, it's like, why would I ever go back? Back to feeling just numbed out from the whole process of grinding, of seeking some action or fulfillment from these imaginary pixels on a screen, of disconnecting completely from my actual physical reality. 

Mind you, I still spent more time than I'd like on youtube and technology in general, but they lack the intense pull that gaming has, which has been my primary addiction in this lifetime. I see myself moving towards being more intentional with content consumption... having already started with unsubscribing from the many newsletters that just flood my inbox screaming at me for attention. It truly is an attention economy, and I need to protect my attention more and more from the outside world with its claims of wealth, fame, glory, love, connection, joy, contentment. 

Too often I fall into the trap of thinking this specific offer online or this specific person has the answer I need to "be happy". If I could only be like this other person, or do this specific technique, then I can be happy. Chasing chasing chasing something outside of me, some image or fantasy or dream that was never mine to begin with. Enough is enough. I can choose to engage in these materials if they will benefit me in some way, but the thinking that there is some magic pill out there that will make it all good, make life smooth as a baby's butt, is a delusion. 

Our birthright as a human is the inherent feeling of well-being and connection. It's natural for us to be loving, compassionate, kind, and open. Let's turn our senses around. Instead of seeking something outside of ourselves to fulfill us, we can search within. You'll be amazed at what you find.

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