Hello everyone.
I made this post because I am looking for some advice on my spiritual journey. It might help if I give a little background so here goes.
I started learning about spirituality about 6 months ago mainly because I had major anxiety and I had a massive panic attack that literally made me bed ridden until about a month ago, so I started changing my lifestyle and getting into meditating and working on the mind etc.
Since then I think I have had a few pretty powerful experiences although I don't know whether they are completely legitimate or if I'm just being a bit crazy lol.
I watched some videos on youtube about the universe and it's illusory nature and about the mind and it's also illusory nature and I started feeling like my whole perception of reality was shifting such that "normal life" was some concept and that I started feeling like life itself, as opposed to a person trying to figure out what I was supposed to do.
From then on I've been watching spiritual teachers on youtube and trying to develop a better understanding of all things spiritual (while managing my anxiety and trying to keep my brain calm because it is really edgy at the minute and has been for ages, although it's gradually getting better) and I have hit a few roadblocks along the way, which I think are down to habits.
In the past year I have stopped smoking cannabis, drinking alcohol, watching porn, masturbating, eating junk food, watching TV and movies, listening to 90% of music genres and now I am on day 2 of quitting my favourite past time, playing video games.
More specifically, playing first person shooter video games like battlefield, which for those of you who don't know is essentially an online virtual warzone lol.
I stopped doing all these things because I felt like they are getting in the way of my spirituality and happiness.
I will elaborate below.
I quit smoking weed because it is what made my anxiety worse and gave me the huge panic attack that left me bed ridden. After stopping for a few months (around about now) I realised how much it was affecting me negatively. My cognition has improved, my mood has improved and I feel like I am generally more content overall without it.
I quit drinking alcohol because it caused me a lot of issues socially and also played a role in my anxiety disorder. I was a little bit of an alcoholic at one stage because I would drink often and drink before certain situations that made me nervous like formal occasions and things like that. Maybe I wasn't an alcoholic, problem drinker is probably more accurate. Anyway I gave that up because of those reasons and the fact I just really started despising it's effects and the problems it caused me etc.
I stopped watching porn because I found out it is sort of a form of addiction and can mess with your mind. Like it desensitizes you to sex and it creates a cycle of getting adjusted to the current porn your watching so you have to watch crazier and crazier porn to get a kick and that leads to problems. Plus I know that pleasure isn't happiness and porn is just a trap leading me astray from love and happiness by tricking me into being a slave to my ego. Something like that lol
I stopped masturbating completely because I read about addictions and dopamine and it said that if you keep giving yourself dopamine surges, like taking drugs, drinking often, sex etc that it down regulates and even destroys your brains dopamine receptors and this means that you struggle to feel good when you aren't high or something because the normal amount of dopamine your brain releases doesn't register in a messed up dopamine receptor system. And on top of that you use all your brains supply of dopamine when you do stuff that releases it really quickly like smoke a joint of jerk off etc.
It also messes with male testosterone and makes people demotivated etc (because it isn't real sex and the brain knows it! lol)
This is part of the reason I stopped junk food too. The dopamine thing and as well it is bad for me and I prefer eating good food because it helps with anxiety and generally I just feel better mentally and physically.
I stopped watching TV because I heard it's bad for the brain. Neuroscientists say that modern life is bad for the brain because most of the activities we do are "excess noise". What they mean is that when we watch TV our brain is processing so much rubbish that our brain doesn't care about, that it burns our brain out. Think of a normal human who lives in nature like a few hundred years ago and the amount of processing their brain has to do vs someone in the modern age who is watching some TV program or movie that is bombarding the brain with all sorts of stuff at high speed. Basically it isn't good for the brain.
Also, I find TV to be a bit of a mind control thing, not saying I believe in like secret societies or whatever but for me it filters reality and makes us believe life is a certain way which it isn't and overall it's just a thing that really makes my ego have more of a grip in my mind which I don't like.
It's also bad for the brain in that it turns off our prefrontal cortex which is used for regulating mood and decision making etc and it targets our amygdala which is for emotions and stuff and that's how the TV producers get a reaction from people. So if you watch a scary movie your primal responses are being stimulated and that isn't good because of neuroplasticity, which means that the more you use a part of your brain the stronger the neural pathways become and then you end up sort of living with that change more prevalent in your life.
The usual term in brain science is "use it or lose it" which is referring to use your brain by exercising it or it will diminish but I seen another neuroscientist talking about enlightenment and he said one of the keys is to reverse that statement, so instead of "use it or lose it", he said "don't use it and lose it". I.e don't use your anger, fear etc and it will slowly degrade and everything in your brain will be wired for positivity. Something like that lol. The video on youtube was called "3. enlightenment and the self, how the brain changes" and was done by a guy with glasses and long hair in case anyone wants to check it out.
And thats the reason why I quit games too. Playing a virtual warzone doesn't sound very spiritual does it? lol It makes me angry all the time when I lose at games and it keeps me on edge like it is designed to and I even found it was getting in the way of me meditating because I would get cravings to play it and also it would waste time I could spend getting better at reading books and learning about spirituality.
So, here is the problem. After cutting all that stuff out in a relatively short space of time, it has made my brain feel like it's a bit dead lol
My current lifestyle is roughly as follows:
I get up, eat, meditate, read books, watch spiritual videos on youtube, spend time with family, go get some fresh air and be outside, then come back in, have my dinner, read some more books, meditate some more, watch some more youtube videos then read some more, meditate and then go to bed.
Throughout this whole process I am just fighting the urge to put porn on, play battlefield, eat some greasy pizza and sometimes the thought of being high crossed my mind even though I'm scared stiff by weed nowadays because of what it did to me lol.
I just feel like there is no joy or bliss and I am doing all this work to become spiritual and kick habits etc and I am wondering if it is even worth it sometimes?
I mean, I love learning about this kind of stuff and the revelations I have had make me feel like I am being guided or something, by someone or something and I have always felt like I have some higher purpose, although I don't know much about that stuff and it's all got a bit messy tbh lol
I don't want to give in to my desires because I feel like maybe if I stay away from them as long as possible and take the pain my brain might adjust or do something to make me feel less dull and a bit more happy? Like get my dopamine system back to what it was like as a kid when I didn't do anything really and was always happy, you know?
Thanks for reading and any help is greatly appreciated. Peace
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