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Break Anxiety and Addiction By Examining Your Patterns | Michael Puett | Big Think - YouTube
Channel: Big Think
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If we often ask ourselves okay, who am I?
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What’s my true self?
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What am I gifted at?
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What am I bad at?
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Oftentimes we’ll answer that assuming this
one authentic self.
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So I’m just the sort of person who gets
angry at little things but I’m also the
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sort of person who’s very good at tackling
big problems.
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So that’s me.
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And then we’ll think through okay, what’s
a good career for me?
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What are good relationships for me based on
who I am?
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Now again suppose that’s all wrong.
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Suppose those are all simply patterns we’ve
fallen into.
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So it may be empirically right to say right
now on someone who gets angry at little things
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and good at thinking big.
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But that’s just because I’ve fallen into
these patterns.
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That doesn’t mean that’s essentially me,
that’s just who I’ve become.
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Now if that’s right the question you should
be posing to yourself is not who am I.
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The question you should pose to yourself is
what are these patterns I’m falling into?
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Why do I get angry at these little things
all the time?
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Why do I seem to be what I think is at my
best when I’m tackling big problems?
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And you begin to look at those little things
you do on a daily basis that are sort of defining
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how we’re responding to the world.
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Why these little things make us angry.
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And you begin to alter those.
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Why for something we think is good, thinking
big, tackling big problems.
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Well what is it that I think I’m good at
there and what am I doing that I think draws
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me out of my more negative sides, my angers
and resentments and getting angry at little
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things.
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What is it about that that I do well?
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And can I do more of that in other aspects
of my life?
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And you’re constantly trying to get a sense
of what are these patterns I’ve fallen into
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and how do I alter them.
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Some of them may be good and you may want
to develop them and this example, the thinking
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big.
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Some of them may be really bad and are probably
sort of the tip of an iceberg of something
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else going on that we spend so much of our
lives in anger and resentment and jealousy.
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That’s not you, that’s a pattern and it’s
alterable.
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So the question they would always say is what
are these patterns, how do I shift them, how
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do I break out of them and how do I develop
better ways of interacting around me?
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If you take these ideas seriously and I do,
I think they’re really on to something.
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Addiction is sort of the most extreme example
of something we’re all falling into.
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So all of us are patterned creatures that
just repeat these patterns endlessly.
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And addiction is simply an extreme form of
this.
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What this means therefore is in dealing with
addictions as in dealing with any of the patterns
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we’re involved in as human beings it’s
a very comparable concern.
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It’s how do I break those patterns?
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So with the extreme one of addiction what
is it that’s driving this endless repetition
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just over and over and over again and oftentimes
you begin with the breaks at the little things,
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the little things that you can deal with.
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Oftentimes it can be the little fears and
anxieties that begin to creep in sort of in
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the middle of the night one wakes up and then
in the morning again one wakes up and it brings
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back those fears and just sort of those begin
escalating over the course of the day leading
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one to return to the object of one’s addiction.
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So that’s the place to start then.
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So why are those little fears setting in?
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Why are there anxieties?
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Are there little things you can begin to do
to break out of those fears and anxieties.
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And if you begin with those little things
those are the ones that over time begin to
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escalate and shift your larger scale patterns.
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Now that’s not to say you also don’t need
someone there saying don’t do X, don’t
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drink, don’t do drugs if you’re an addict.
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But the reason that can be so ineffective
in the long run is you’re not really breaking
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your pattern.
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You’re sort of breaking that – you’re
trying to break it at too late a stage.
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Like going through the day with all the anxieties.
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Now I’ll try to not get that drink.
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Well good but you’ve got to start earlier.
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You’ve got to begin with why those little
anxieties begin to gnaw at you at 3:00 a.m.
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when you wake up.
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Why when the alarm goes off they gnaw at you
all the more.
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That’s where you begin to make the little
breaks.
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And over time that’s how you break these
larger patterns.
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