Solving the Drug Problem

Hi to everyone.

“Don’t give me problems, give me solutions”

In one of my posts “Shooting blanks in the dark” I pointed out some of the problems we are facing as a society regarding drug abuse. This is a generalization of the problem and it goes much deeper than what I pointed out.

The solution to the problem is much more complicated than to declare war on drugs and drug dealers or to imprison people. That is not the enemy. The enemy lies in our society.

The enemy lies in how adults behave and treat their young. It is a fact of life that we learn from what we see. We learn more from the actions of our parents than from their words. Everything we say think or do instructs our children. Do you really think that they are not listening to what you are saying? Are you that naive

to think that they do not see what you are doing? Young people are like sponges; they are eager to learn about life, they observe closely. Young people don’t miss a thing. Do you really think you are kidding them?

I met with a young couple that was using Cat. They had a small daughter of 2 years old. They told me that they are not using in front of their daughter. The daughter was playing in her bedroom. Halfway through the interview the daughter came out of her room… holding a straw by her nose. The mother was horrified; the dad grabbed his head in disbelief. ‘Where did she learn how to do that?” they shouted, looking with embarrassment at each other. It was very difficult for me to keep my sarcasm to myself. Where in the hell do you think she learned that, I wanted to scream at them?

Fathers that think it is cute when they send their sons to get them their beer and even to get them to pour for them. “Just get mommies cigarettes in the bedroom.” Not please.  Later the mother wants to reprimand her child if the child doesn’t say please if they want something. When the children are teenagers, that same parents reprimand this children not to drink or to smoke or to use drugs. Do as I say, not as I do. How stupid can you be?

They see how you treat other people. They hear and see how you act on the road. They hear what you are saying about their teachers, and then we want to punish them if they treat their teachers with disrespect. They are like sponges. They observe you closely, and that is how they will do when they are adults. You are teaching them how to behave. Remember you are their hero, what you do must be how they should behave.

This goes even further, it also goes to abuse. It is no use spending millions of rand on abuse campaigns if fathers or mothers still abuse their wives/husbands and children.  Children learn from actions not words. Children mirror their parents.  They see fear. They see anger. They see hypocrisy and intolerance.  They see anxiety. They even know what you are thinking. They learn this from you, their parents.

Further, if you can now imagine that when this children become teenagers they start learning from their friends, which in turn learned different actions from their parents. They also learn from their teachers, which again were taught by their parents, and suddenly we are sitting in a situation where we are in now.

This problem started years ago, we are teaching our children what we were taught twenty and thirty years ago. I would like to challenge you to think back when we were young. Can you remember the acid wave in ’65, the duck-tails and the hippies and skinheads?

Our youth are mimicking what adults are doing. All people are imitating each other. We are just doing what we see others are doing.

So in conclusion I suggest that we start to guide our children through our own actions and behavior. That will be the only way to change the attitudes and behavior of our youth.

Thank you for reading this blog.

 Your comments are much appreciated.

The Prisons of the Mind

Hi to everybody

When we look at our lives, past to the present, and then into our future; all the hardships, all our struggles, all the pain we have gone through, our mundane routines of getting up going to work, getting home to sit in front of a TV, going to bed just to do it all over again, day in and day out then the question arises;

What is the difference then between a prison and your life?

The only difference is that people in prison don’t want to be in prison. We on the other hand want to be living our lives. That is when we start to realize how many prisons are in our world. Any place you don’t want to be is a prison for you. If you are in a marriage or relationship that you don’t want to be in, any work that you hate or if you are in a body that is sick and full of pain that is your prison. If you are around people that you don’t want to be around that is a prison for you. If you are addicted to something, then that will be your prison.  

So how do we escape from this prisons we are in. We don’t need to get rid of our partner or quit our jobs. We don’t need to leave the party and rather go home. All we need to do is to want to be there. As soon as we want to be in the relationship or job or at the party, as soon as you can change your attitude from, I don’t want to be here, to that of I want to be here, you escape the prison.

There are 4 well known prisons of the mind we could find ourselves to be in.

•         The prison of Anger.
•     The prison of Fear.
•         The prison of Pain and Sadness.
•         The prison of Guilt.

Just as in a prison there are also different cells in these prisons.

In the prison of Anger there are Migraines, Peptic Ulcers, Back Pain, Hyper Tension and Obesity.

The prison of fear consists of Phobias and Anxiety.

The prison of Pain and Sadness consists of Asthma, Depression, Addiction and excessive smoking.

In the prison of Guilt are cells like Impotency, Frigidity, Skin Decease, Obesity and Suicide.

So if we have these prisons there are obviously crimes that are committed, there must be a sentence and then also we need prisoners.

The crimes committed.

·        I am here.

·        I am a boy/girl.

·        I am angry.

·        I am afraid.

·        I hurt.

·        I love.

·        I am curious.

The sentence that is given.

·        You must never feel angry

·        You are not lovable – you are bad

·        You must not succeed

·        You must be afraid

·        You must not love – not even yourself

·        You must not think.

The Prisoners

·        Psychosomatic disorders

·        Decease of addiction

·        Emotional disorders.

The most amazing aspect of this model is that these prisons do not have guards or bars or doors. You can walk out whenever you feel like it, but we choose to stay in these prisons our entire lives.

The only way to get out of these prisons is to go back to the crime scene, to understand where/who passed the sentence. Only then can we walk out of our prison.

Lesson number one:

·        Never believe a prediction that doesn’t empower you. How many predictions have been thrown at you your whole life? If you believe every prediction that is thrown at you, you will wither and die. You will physically or your spirit will die as you walk around like a carcass, a corpse, walking around just following the masses. You will be given a lot of titles in your life, you will be told so many things. You must only listen to that that empowers you. I do have a belief that served me well in my life and that is that everyone is rooting for me to win, even those that doesn’t know it. I am not here to tell you that I had adversity in my life and therefor I know what you are going through. I do not have a clue. I did not grow up in your neighborhood, I did not have your set of parents nor do I live in your body. I did not have the events that you had to go through. I am only an expert in one thing and that is how to be me. 

The second lesson is that you are not your condition. That is why I am teaching people in addiction that they are not addicts. You must rise above this condition. The only addiction is the refusal to adapt and to stay in that prison of the mind, to act like addicts. You have to adapt to any environment you are in, even if it is addiction. You must stop pitying yourself. The biggest addiction is self-pity. You are not your condition. How does adaption looks like? I think it looks like celebration. If you are around people that celebrate life you want to be around them, you want to learn from them, you want to do business with them. If you want to get out of that prison you need to change your attitude, you must believe in yourself you must start trusting yourself that you can bring value to the human race. If I believe I am an addict I will wither up, I will be shy, I will be insecure, I will be afraid, I will act as if I need your help and the rest of humanity will be okay with that. I choose something else. I choose to be strong; I choose to be a leader. I know why I was put on earth. I have been put on earth to rid humanity from their insecurities. When a human being is insecure they do stupid stuff. When we feel that we are not enough we chase external validation to tell us that we are enough. You are enough. I made a pledge as a therapist to love all people, it doesn’t matter what they did wrong. I found that it doesn’t matter what people did, all people just want to be loved. They don’t want to only be loved by their moms or dads or partners, they want to be able to love themselves.

Lesson three.

Stop bullying yourself. You cannot pity yourself, stop believing the predictions other people lay on you. I am not good enough, I am a wash out an addict I am no good for society. Stop bullying yourself.

Last lesson.

The real prison is not surrounded by barbed wire, fences and bars. It is in your mind. It doesn’t matter if you are in a real prison or live in a mansion. I know of people that lives in mansions but they are still in prison, the prison of their own mind. We all got it. We all have a mind that chatters, on and on, never stopping.

Do you know where your salvation is? It is when you drop out of that chattering mind of yours into your heart, into your soul. There where love comes from. When you love yourself, when you stop believing predictions, when you stop bullying yourself, when you stop pitying yourself, when you learn to master your emotions then and only then you are free. 

Thank you for reading this post. 

Feel free to leave a comment. It is appreciated.

Letting go of Fear

Hi to everybody.

When I was a little boy my friends dad bought him a bicycle. It was a brand new Raleigh bike with straight handles and a three speed gear setup.

I could not ride bike at that time, so I asked him if he could teach me. That same afternoon, after school, we were standing next to the pavement with Chris holding the bike. Me, one leg over the crossbar and my foot on the pedal, nervous, scared and very excited, all at the same time. Chris then pushed the bike without warning and shouted that I should pedal.

Needless to say, I traveled  about ten yards before I lost my balance and crashed, with my friends brand new bike. We tried another three times that afternoon, to no avail. By now I was so scared, holding the handles that my knuckles showed white. I was so rigid and stiff out of fear that it was impossible to hold my balance.

The next day after school, Chris told me something that I would never forget in my life. He said to me to relax. "Just relax, then you will be able to hold your balance" he said. It worked and I could ride the bicycle.

We are so fearful of what might happen to us, that we are holding the handles to tight. That is why we are suffering from all kinds of sickness, related to stress and anxiety.

We fear mainly two things in life. We fear death. We fear the future.

 

Fear is a huge problem in our modern world, and instead of letting go of fear we are creating fear. We are looking at horror movies, vampire movies, scary movies; we are listening to people who find it sadistically pleasurable to tell us the most horrific stories. The world is going to end on exactly that date and hour. That is their prophecy, and amazingly thousands of people actually believe them. You should not eat this or that, they say, because it causes cancer. 

Television is a good example of how big industry motivates us in buying their products. The biggest motivator is fear. Think about the insurance industry. They scare us into buying their products, just in case something goes wrong. Have you seen how high the crime rate is they say. Just be careful that you do not become a victim, without our products. And you pay and pay. The most amazing scary stories  gets around, from death, germs or losing your belongings. We are victims of fear. 

Winnie the Pooh and Piglet walked home one Saturday afternoon, after visiting Rabbit.

 On their way home a vicious thunderstorm broke out. It was a terrible storm. Thunder, lightning and a howling wind. Trees was uprooted or hit by lightning, and little Piglet was scared, very scared. He shouted on the top of his lungs, "What if a tree falls on us?" For a moment Winnie hesitated, because Winnie was also scared. But then sanity prevailed. Winnie stopped and waited for Piglet to catch up. "And what if a tree doesn't fall on us?"he asked Piglet. That calmed Piglet down and they reached their home safely.
                                                      

What will happen if… followed by something negative, something terrible that might happen to us in the future? There is a possibility but in most cases very unlikely. The anecdote for fear is, what will happen …followed by something positive. Negative thoughts have a tendency to create a negative outcome, and a positive thought creates a positive outcome. The lack of fear creates positive outcomes.

I understand when people go into a relationship with fear. Fear that their partner might cheat on them, fear that their partner might leave them, fear that their partner might abuse them. Whenever such a person is so afraid, it creates such a terrible lack of trust. When there is a lack of trust there cannot be a good relationship. Many of us are in relationships with a lack of trust, and a lack of trust means there is a lot of fear. So because there is a lack of trust, because of the fear we cause the relationship to crash. That is the negative loop we are into. What we fear will most probably happen. This fear stops us from enjoying life. Nobody wants to be in a relationship with a fearful person. There are so many rules that need to be obeyed, just because of our fears. When we are fearful we are tense, and when we are tense we fall off our bicycles. We need to learn to relax. Fear causes all kind of sickness.

This question always comes to my mind. Why do we have to fear God? That is the kind of fear we are taught from childhood, from when we are small. God loves us but we must fear God. Why is that? We are taught to love our partners but we must also fear them. 

If there is no fear that means you can relax, and when we relax you can start enjoying life. That is why you are on earth. Our biggest fear is fear itself.

So the best way of overcoming fear is to have a positive attitude. We must stop falling into the trap of having all this contingency plans. If this plan doesn’t work, at least I still have plan b or c.

Stop been so controlling. It is the control freaks that cause us so much fear. They want us to fit in with their plans and if we don’t we become fearful of what they might do. That comes from very painful experiences they had in their past, when they suffered a lot. Because they suffered a lot they think that the only way to protect themselves is to control more. So they are such fearful people, they always plan, figuring something out. Just in case they might get hurt again. They go into relationships with all their plans ready, they go to work with plans, and they even have plans for their children.

People don’t need to be like that, they create problems not only for themselves but for the people around them as well.

We do not know what might happen in the future. Why then, do we ask people to promise us that they will do something correct. We don’t know what will happen next. Why can’t we just adapt to life as it unfolds around us.

I have learned that the only way to overcome fear is to be kind. Just be kind at your job interview, or have to give a speech or whatever. Be kind to your children, even if they do something that doesn’t fit into your plans. Not only to be kind, but also try to put some fun into whatever you are fearful to do. 

Lastly stop all this worrying. Worrying comes from fear.

Hope you enjoyed this post. Don't be scared to leave a comment. It would be highly appreciated.