Well, how to put this...
🧘Mental/Physical Health 🏋🏼♂️
I'm struggling.
And to cope, I (ab)use substances, like alcohol, weed and other stuff.
I want to get out, but I'm not ready to accept Jesus as my saviour, because I... well... It's complicated.
I DO accept Jesus as what he is, and that he saves People, a lot.
But...
For the moment, I won't be able to respond to comments in this post, because I'm heading to bed, pretty wasted.
I don't know where this thread will take me, but here we go.
Please, I'd rather not be encouraged to put all my faith in Jesus etc.
I do believe in the Creator, though...
Btw, GAW community...
Thank you for being here the last couple of years.
Edit: Wow, thank you for all your support! I‘ll read all of it and will certainly get back to you all. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
^^ Rock solid advice right here ^^. I'd only add learning to sit quietly for 10-15 minutes a day...focusing on your breath. The only sure fire away to short-circuit that runaway monkey-mind that drives people insane!!
I have a problem where if I focus on my breathing, then I find that I can never feel like I am getting a full and satisfying breath, because breathing manually is shit and then I think about how I can't find a comfortable spot for my tongue and then I just end up an uncomfortable anxious wreck
Hahaha. I've done that before.
Have you tried stomach breathing?
It’s common happens all the time. Try cutting back on things you know you shouldn’t do. Harder said than done :) Try some breathing techniques when you feel it come on. Learn to control the panic feeling
Alchemy of Breath offer a free Sunday meditation where you get to see all the issues people have with breathing
alchemyofbreath.com
Hmmm, that's odd, never heard anybody tell me something like this before.
The main point is to just NOTICE your breath. No need to change anything. Can you just notice that you're breathing? It's just a shift in your attention. Away from the monkey-mind through stream into the present moment. It produces magical results. But be forewarned, that monkey-mind wants your attention 24x7 and doesn't give up easily.
If on the other hand you wanted to practice deeper breathing, which is a great exercise because 99% of the adult population are shallow breathers, you should always start by performing an exhale where you slowly, evenly push out all the DEAD AIR out of your lungs. When you do the exercise it will feel like you're pulling back your stomach as the last of the dead air is finally forced out. Anyway, once there's no more air to push out you'll take a complete and perfect FULL BREATH, perhaps for the first time in decades. And the following couple of breaths will be mostly full as well as you gradually slip back into your habitual shallow breathing patterns.
So net-net, always start the full-breath exercise with the full exhale first. And the noticing exercise is a 100% ZERO EFFORT practice. All you're doing is shifting your attention.
Good luck!