How to Break Free From Life's Endless Cycles - Healthy Gamer NOTES

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Source: How to Break Free From Life's Endless Cycles - Healthy Gamer

Talks about how you get trapped into cycles.

Most people focus on the problem.
How do you fix being lonely? How do you fix social anxiety? How do I fix demands of work?

But fixing those problems does not work, it's not the problem, it's the next arrow moving to your cope and how you respond to the beginning of the cycle.

But how do you break free of these cycles?
What is the fundamental architecture inside you that makes you need to respond in a way that creates more problems in the cycle.

Buddhist Teachings:
Teaching of the two arrows - If you look at life, there are the things you can't control and are victims to, but most of the problems that you have in life are because of the internal dialogue or conclusions you draw about yourself because of what happens to you, and the 2nd arrow is unnecessary suffering you are inflicting upon yourself.

The Buddha argues that the problem with all our cycles is our internal reactions- not just the bad reactions, but the good reactions too.
**And The Buddha argues that the problem with all our cycles is our internal reactions- not just the bad reactions, but the good reactions too.

The internal reaction that you indulge in, whether it is pride, misery or something in between, is what instigates the cycle.

The buddha says you should not feel good for the good things that happen to you and says "When you experience pain, it is the seeking of pleasure that creates the greed, and the greed is what creates the future problem."

If you feel lonely, and you seek out company, that is the mistake fuelling the cycle of loneliness and social anxiety.
In your brain, the limbic system is where you experience a lot of your negative emotions and nucleus accumbens is where you experience cravings.

Both of those negative emotions and cravings go into your frontal cortex and then a decision gets made, which executes a behaviour.
So something emotional, then you desire something because of that emotion, they combine.

E.g you feel lonely, you want to fix that by seeing. Talking to others, so you go out to talk to people.

This decision is a mistake because every time you do this, your behaviour get more and more controlled by these two circuits- Acting on emotion and the accompanying craving.

So your brain will be more controlled by these two parts of your brain. So then, when you get into that social situation and your social anxiety kicks in, this circuit will active instantly and you will crave to go home and play video games instead, since this part of your brain has complete control over you, you will turn tail and leave the social situation to give into that cope.

You have programmed your brain to give into your emotions and cravings, becoming impulsive and emotionally driven.

How emotions drive your brain:
E.g if you are in a emotional relationship and your emotions change, it is the emotions that dictate the nature of your relationship.

You need to have a way to deal with negativity or pain that does not include seeking pleasure. You are weakling your ability to tolerate discomfort, and going with the social anxiety example, if you go into that social situation you will become unformattable and give into the discomfort , which is fuelling the cycle over and over.

He then talks about not doing this cycle for positive things too,

E.g if you are interested in something new, do not give into the curiosity, which is giving into the impulse and craving in your brain. If your brain gets programmed to be driven by this curiosity, what happens when you get bored and it gets interested in something else?

What are you supposed to do?
Are you supposed to do nothing and wallow in your loneliness?

  1. Have an alternative for when you have an impulse instead of following the next arrow in the cycle. E.g be non reactive to the emotion, sit and be mindful of the feeling or impulse and do not react to it.

  2. Focus/dwell on neutrality - It changes the way you are pushed and pulled by life. Sit in the neutral state between pain and pleasure. The more you become attached the pleasurable things, the more greed forms and greed is what makes pain intolerable. (pain is only the problem when you have greed to make the pain go away.)
    E.g if you feel hungry you want to eat, when you feel full you bask in the pleasure of being full. The food can taste good, but your love or obsession with the food buys you the greed and the craving in the future because the moment you get dopamine it sets you up to go through that cycle again and again.

  3. Recognise the two arrows

Greed is what traps you in the cycle.

Do anything other than acting on that emotion. E.g if something bad happens, do anything other than try to make that pain go away. It will go away on it's own.

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