Episode 16: States of Consciousness Part 1 – Pleasure, Pain, Addiction, and Recovery

Episode 16:
States of Consciousness Part 1
Pleasure, Pain, Addiction, and Recovery

Hey you. Yes, you.

How are you feeling today?

Are you happy, sad, lethargic, energetic? Are you enthusiastic or optimistic? Bored? Lustful? Calm? Curious, perhaps? Wondering where on Earth I’m going with this?

Any addict will tell you, when they peel back the layers, that they use for one reason and one reason alone: To change the way they feel. Put another way, we use to change our state of consciousness.

Ah, states. An essential component of the AQAL map. As recovering addicts, we know them well. Few others have experienced such heights of euphoria, and bottomless despair.

Drugs and alcohol are powerful neurobiological agents. The first time we use, we feel that we’ve found a magic bullet — a way to hack the most fundamental drive of all living beings as we move toward pleasure and away from pain. The moment that surge of pleasurable neurochemicals floods our systems, a love affair begins.

When this artificial push depletes our natural supply of neurotransmitters, we’re left feeling less than whole. We want more euphoria, and we want it now. The craving overwhelms our prefrontal cortices. Rationality goes out the window. We need the pain to end. And so, we begin our descent into the hell of addiction.

Yet, every feeling, from transcendental bliss to existential despair, is temporary. States of consciousness, by their very definition, come and go. It’s natural to seek pleasure, beauty, and joy. In recovery, we must learn to create that pleasure, beauty, and joy in authentic and meaningful ways that add depth and purpose to our lives.

The Integral Daily Practices teach us to shift our states of consciousness in ways that contribute to wholeness and growth. We discover purpose and meaning. And as we ascend to higher stages of development, we learn to appreciate the entire cycle, honoring the necessity and the role of every state and experience. We acknowledge that the peak moments, and the troughs, are all a part of the human experience, to be ultimately transcended and included in our ever-evolving kosmic consciousness.

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Episode Resources:
Profound Releasing – iAwake Technologies and Joseph Kao (Powerful, Heart-Based Meditations for Releasing Emotions and Awakening to Presence)
Pleasure Unwoven: An Explanation of the Brain Disease of Addiction
Integral Recovery: A Revolutionary Approach to the Treatment of Alcoholism and Addiction (SUNY series in Integral Theory)
Deep Recovery – a guided meditation from iAwake Technologies and Leigh Spusta

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06/09/2017, 39.20, 27.0 mb (Audio)