Intergenerational addiction; limiting screen time for children; spirituality versus religion.

*several other Substacks are linked in this post.

A recent Substack post has a helpful look at addictive tendencies and how it can be an intergenerational pattern. Spirituality is highlighted as the route towards change by author Jen Hintz, but more specifically in my experience and reading, there is a need for attitude change. Fearing a retributive ‘god’ and living in shame or guilt will not help as much as increasing feelings of love, gratitude and connection to nature with or without an anthropometric ‘god’.

Someone can be a member of AA or other 12 Step groups and just be addicted to the group or to coffee, or to cigarettes. There is a term “Dry Drunk” - the person stopped alcohol use but still has the “Stinking Thinking” patterns of addiction - something outside of self is needed to feel relief of some sort. True healing requires seeing inside of ourselves where our hurt and loneliness or shame and anger may be curled up in a little knot, refusing to unclench and see that a world of beauty and love also exists, not just the world of pain or fear.

Labeling thoughts or behaviors as ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ may be too stigmatizing to be helpful though. Another way to phrase it might be as health promoting attitudes and behaviors - love, gratitude, social connection and sharing, and health depleting attitudes and behaviors - fear, anger, anxiety, social isolation or shaming. ‘Negative’ feelings are literally inflammatory for our health while ‘positive’ feelings are anti-inflammatory. Our thoughts matter. The attitudes we always heard from our parents or caregivers becomes our thoughts later in life, unless we actively review what we tend to think and actively try to rephrase and practice new patterns of thinking.

In the article by Jen Hitze, ‘spirituality’ is suggested as the remedy for intergenerational or personal addiction (she links greed in, as being addictive too). Caution in viewing that as the same as ‘religion’ though.

Generations, Greed, and a Remedy

Religion can prevent some people from understanding or seeing that spirituality is not quite the same thing as religion. “Religion” can be an addiction too. Spirituality can happen anywhere - it doesn’t need a fancy building or expensive costumes.

For many years I was aware of 12 step programs. I read one of the books, but I didn’t get involved because I was so against organized religion earlier in my life. I saw only the history of harm done. Later in life I had seen that ‘faith’ did seem to help people, even though bad stuff happened to them anyway. Their religion may not have provided them the best answers, but their faith helped the person get through it anyway. That helped me be more open to the idea that things can have a mix of good and bad effects and seeing the good may be better than throwing out all of it.

The idea of intergenerational trauma is of value - we don’t always know that our childhood ‘normal’ may not have seemed normal to most people.

It is also important to recognize that ‘addiction’ can be addictive behavior around anything - is the workaholic who never comes home on time or does anything fun setting a healthy role model for their children → a) a strong positive work ethic? or b) an unhealthy one of addictive behavior? Choice B is correct.

Addictive behavior can include shopping, reading, traveling, eating, or escapist TV watching or other media. It can also include virtue signaling online or in the real world - being addicted to social approval - see me supporting: Ukraine! or No Virus! or You must mask! And doesn’t that make me super virtuous and special? Aren’t I the nicest, best-est person ever?

Or are you a brain-washed person who is now a danger to others?

In other non-news, rule #39 applies.

Would you want to take part in a mock stoning - Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery style? Would you label having a mock stoning as a ‘prank’? What sort of people would want to be part of a group that was throwing stones at a mock victim/scapegoat? Or at two mock scapegoats? I think we need to keep in mind that there are parts of society that includes people who do find public sacrifice or punishment to be funny, or fun to do.

Would Shirley Jackson be honored that a group of people stoned two mannequins as a tribute of some sort to her memory? or would she be spinning in her grave over the missed message from her short story that public stoning is not humane nor is it a civilized method for social control.

Yet, vigilantism has been made into a virtue in our post CoV era world - “Are you not wearing your social conformity mask? Then we should attack and kill you! And feel proud of ourselves for helping to protect society from unmasked freethinkers!”

Recap: Dear Miss Jackson

A quote by Charles Eisenstein comes to mind, from a free video he made as an intro to two courses of his that are being hosted by a membership site, linked below. His rewrite of the Golden Rule highlights the interconnectedness of our world:

“As you do unto others, so in fact you do unto yourself.” - Charles Eisenstein

When we turn into a vigilante society that supports public shaming and punishment of anyone speaking dissent, then we have turned into a society that is cannibalizing itself nd preventing growth or change.

Free online webinar and a peace seminar

*I do recommend watching his freebie video and the courses sound interesting but I have too many things going on already - prioritization and limiting myself is not my strong suit. Addictive excess at times was a norm in my childhood, combined with careful control and deprivation at other times. That is a recipe for disordered eating, and disordered living.

Children are best helped by being guided into listening to their own hunger and fullness signals and to their own cravings. Food cravings and urges can be a healthy cue from our body about what nutrients we are currently need more of. Or cravings they can become confused by the memory of quick comfort from sugary carbs and the later crash of low blood sugar is not remembered or planned for. More sugary carbs may be grabbed again leading to a roller coaster of mood lifts and crashes.

Social media and the many screen options available to children is a big risk to their developing addictive dopamine cycles and increases risk of ADHD.

This post has information about screen time risks for children and recommendations for time limits:

Before closing this post, a nature story - an interconnected energy fields story.

It was stormy yesterday, spring rainy season is starting. I live in an old forest - big old trees that had been young trees when I was a child. They have been falling down somewhat regularly over the last few years, making a windy storm slightly exciting. My Reiki trained sister introduced me to the concept of using Reiki energy for self protection during stormy weather or just anytime - in busy traffic. She had a little phrase and hand motion to encourage green lights “Green, green, go, go”. Patterned ritual movements and sayings can help get into a meditative state more rapidly. Directing our chi/aether energy is an innate skill we can perform . . . if we believe it possible.

I went outside yesterday into a moment of calm stillness in the air, but cloudy skies overhead. It felt like the calm in the center of a storm. I started mentally focusing on the “bubble of protection” that my sister had told me about and demonstrated with my shared energy during a heavy rain at her house. We literally changed the downward flow of rain falling from overfull gutters to be more angled toward the outflow spout and gradually the overflow stopped. Weird, kind of unbelievable, yet I saw it happen. Rivulets of icicle shaped rain all leaned sideways a bit as if being pushed - as if being pushed by our shared energy which she was directing at the gutter.

Yesterday, during the still, I focused on forming a bubble of protection around my parent’s house and all of its old trees. I stand and raise my arms up - it just feels right, and the still quiet started to roar. As I waved my arms around a bit, the sound of the wind was intensifying. It was an odd experience as the sound and my arm movements were syncing up, almost as if I was the musical conductor at a huge outdoor event. I continued with the mental ‘bubble of protection’ thoughts and my stance and raised arm motions for a bit longer. The roaring of the wind continued to intensify and then a gentle rain started. I went in as the rain picked up a bit and very shortly later there was a bigger rain and crash of thunder and lightening. And then the rain let up and the storm was over for the day. Only a few small branches came down.

Was I connected with and maybe even directing aether energy in the air? I don’t know, but it did feel like that is what was happening. That is the sort of thing you don’t learn at a typical Sunday school.

. . . but it may be part of what is taught in some Freemason circles.

“Are you a good witch or a bad witch?” asked Glinda the Good to Dorothy in the Land of OZ.

“Live life as if everything is rigged in your favor.” - Rumi

Attitude matters. Our attitude may be rigging our lives in our favor, or against us. Self-sabotage may simply be our beliefs setting us up to fulfil our beliefs - so switching beliefs is the need. Whether we call that ‘spirituality’ or ‘cognitive behavioral therapy’ may vary depending on our backgrounds, but either approach may help get someone out of the ‘stinking thinking’ that they grew up with or fell into later in life.

Who we hang out with matters too. If the people you are around are constantly complaining and blaming others, then it may be easy to fall into that pattern of thinking too - but it is a victim mindset. To change, we need to accept accountability and responsibility for our thoughts and actions and dig into why we keep circling the same issues. Our parent’s habits don’t need to remain our own habits once we are adults - but they likely will be if we don’t actively examine what we are doing and consider why we do things that way.

Disclaimer: This information is being provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use and is not intended to provide individual health care guidance.