Got Behind, Back on Track

So I got a little behind in my goals. Good thing I know how to pick myself back up on my feet.

Last week was supposed to be at least one sincere prayer a day. While I wish I could say I already do that I can't guarantee it and it feels like cheating if I just skip over it. So this week will be one-sincere-prayer-a-day week.

In addition to...

Calorie week.

Ugh

Actually, I'm wondering if I should hold of on this one. I have a Writing Retreat this week and the school will be in charge of the food. But then I would just say anything counts as an excuse.

Pros of doing it anyway.

It gets done
I'll have practiced my self control skills
Feel good about self
Lots of hiking plus calorie reduction = weight loss.

Cons

The hills are not like your hometown. You dehydrate a lot quicker and lose energy faster. I tried to fast while camping once. Super bad idea. I nearly passed out from the experience and I'm not one to pass out.
Little to no control of my food


Sigh....

I think what I'll do is I'll make this a two week experience. Since I have that new rule that says I can quite a new habit if I don't like it or don't have time for it, it would be too easy to just fluff this one because of the Retreat.

So this week and next week I'll have two habits to work on and then go back to one habit the following week.


How am I doing?

Pretty steady actually. I was a bit depressed a couple of days back due to the weather but my roommates soon picked up my spirits and I was able to defy doom and gloom. Take that nature.

Bishop and I have been talking. Apparently, my addiction is a "threshold" addiction. It's still an addiction that could lead to worse things. So it's not bad, not great, but not bad, with a lot of attention and work I could still overcome this addiction fairly easily granting that my inner-self really wants to and believes it can. I'm not entirely chained down yet by the addiction, just by length of time.

What do I mean by threshold addiction? It's my term, so don't ask your psychologist. I'll try to explain it.

You know how those really bad addictions don't just happen? There's a level of addiction that precludes it. I'm no psychologist but I think this is kind of how it works. A young child is exposed to immodesty. He discovers he likes to look at it and looks for more and more skimpy attire to recreate that first "whohoo" feeling. But just like cocaine you'll never recreate the first loss of innocence.

Soon the child, now grown a bit, regularly sees porn to please himself. His pleasure side of the brain becomes super developed, cementing in the addiction he's so far completely unaware of. He is regularly releasing hormones into his brain that work on his development much in the same way cocaine would. Soon, seeing porn in all its forms isn't enough, he finds a way to experience it first hand. Now the decision processes of the brain (which have been sort-changed due to the over-growth of the pleasure receptors of the brain) still have some control so the young man doesn't become a raving sex beast...usually. That is, until he decides that finding willing partners is to much work and doesn't give results quick enough and brothels are too expensive.

Now here we have the ten percent of men who use their decision processes to hold them back, anything more would be socially unacceptable. Some by this point don't care and continue to wither that decision part of the brain until finally they persuade themselves that all women are just like them. They think that women want to have sex as much as they do but are held back by cultural ties. Why shouldn't they explore everything the sex world has to offer? Thus, the boy grows into a rapist. The worst form this particular addiction can produce. This effect can be aggravated through other decision inhibiting addictions, drugs, alcohol, and video games (When something pleasing becomes more important than people, you know it's rotting your decision processes.) Under such toxins the frontal cortex has no chance. That's not an excuse for anybody, it just explains why.

So that's what I mean by levels. Just a disclaimer, healthy relationships are healthy because it isn't all about sex and you care more about your partner than pleasing yourself.

I'm never going to tell you what my addiction is because that's between me and God. But I can tell you that I'm still at the first stages and that wasn't without a lot of hard work.

I can understand now why the morality of this country is so withered now that I've wrote the sex addiction process down. The media is trying to recreate that first "whohoo" through more and more explicit images. Because the collective bought it so how can we create something better that they would buy? So the collective culture is becoming a sex addict that socially decrees that its ok to have sex with your boyfriend or best-friend. Totally makes sense now. Don't agree with it, but it makes sense.

Why don't I agree?

A few reasons. Some spiritual some physical.

Physical

STD's weren't nearly so well spread until the 60's and 70's, just saying. It's like dandelions. It wouldn't be such a problem if people would just stick with the same partner.
Why go through the drama of possible pregnancies, heart break, and feeling used? Sowing your wild oats is just asking for too much drama during a stressful development time of life.
Sex is like duct-tape. The first time you put it on your arm it fits perfectly. Try to rip it off and put it back on it's not such a perfect fit. Sex with only one guy your whole life fits the best. Keep changing partners and nothing really fits as well as that first time. (Explicit ADD: Maybe that's why some people need all the toys and think bigger is better?)

Spiritual

Sex is the perfect blending of two souls. Something that sacred should only be done with one other person.
The purpose is to bring forth children. Sex isn't a selfish act, but a selfless desire to create and raise children. Children are God's first, yours second. And raising them in righteousness is a sacred duty. The marriage between a man and a woman is a sacred commitment to care for each other for eternity, and also to open the gateway for other spirits to get a chance at learning on earth with the support system of a family.

(On that note: this is why I don't agree with same-sex marriage. Marriage is the union formed for the purpose of creating children. Without medical help it is impossible for gay couples to procreate. I don't know, I just think the whole idea is really selfish. That which we call a rose by any other name...)

Wow, talk about your tangents. I think I'm done now.

Hygiene, Boys, and the Temple Trip

So the previous week of writing for fifteen minutes a day did ok. I only had time for two days, but still, better than never. One thing I'll be grateful for once I've graduated is that I'll finally have time for creative inspiration. And by having time, I mean less stress.

People say adult life is just as stressful as college. I disagree on the point that you can leave work at work and home at home. In school the stress of homework follows you home and nags at your free time. Jobs don't do that usually. Case made.

As for my next challenge. Well, lets just say it's up to individual opinion on whether or not I throw in a freebee for myself every once in a while.

I want to be clean. I will not skip any small portion of daily personal hygiene.

Oh like you've never skipped or skimped hygiene before!

I just know that over all emotions feel better when I feel clean and pretty is all. It's not like I have issues with it anymore, long past that stage, but it's tempting when I'm depressed to go baggy and unwashed.

PS: in case anyone's notices that these aren't exactly a Sunday only post thing that's because sometimes I just run out of time. The goal is to get it in at least once a week though.

This last week kinda sucked actually. I made my sister cry, twice, and got so emotionally distraught that I skipped a class and took the afternoon off. What I really wanted to do was run away (better than self-harm but not as good as standing up and facing the issue).

Really, it was all over a stupid Fall roommate situation misunderstanding. Hopefully it'll sort itself out but for now she and I are not talking about it.

In other news, I really really really want to see Brave and the Avengers. The Avengers because they've already done such a fantastic job leading up to this movie with previous movies. And Brave because of one trailer where the big massive dad says, "Pretend I'm Merida, speak to me. *big inhale* I don't want to get married I want to stay single and let my hair flow in the wind as I ride threw the glen firing arrows into the sunset." goofy grin plus raise eyebrows. Stikin' hilarious. :D

In other news I was majorly boy-crazy all semester up until yesterday. Now, I just don't care anymore. I'm having far too much fun being single and free right now to worry about it too much. I can climb trees, burp my a,b,cs and let my hair get as wild as I please (within hygienic reason which is easy with curly hair.) Besides, between school, work, homework, training, and exercise who has time for boys as more than friends or dear acquaintances? I enjoy these relationships much more anyway because I can actually say something intelligent when I'm not thinking, "oh my jaw, oh my pecks, oh my goodness he's such a nice gentleman what I can say to such a pillar of the male species? I am not worthy to even open my lips he's so hot!"

Enough said.

It's just so much more comfortable to think of them as friends first and I figure when the right one comes around everything will just click so fast I won't even have time to get into that worry state too much. And it better click quick otherwise our conversation can only have "uh, duh" as its most intelligent phrasing.

I'm so glad it's light and warm these days. It's put such a shine on my mood.

I love my roommates. They are so good and kind and sincere and free with compliments that we all just end up laughing every night or comforting the one who had a bad day. I just love it. No need to rush this point in life, there's too much adventure to be had first.

Like the Temple trip for example. Planned to wake up early and then found myself snoozing at 5:30 in the morning when we were supposed to be up the hill at 6. Rushed to get dress then made a mad dash up the hill. Never ran up this hill so much in my life. I cut a usual twenty minute walk down to ten minutes and made it on time. Coughing because running in the cold will do that to you, but on time. It was a great experience. I'm going to try to see when I can go once a week.

I read a passage of scripture while I was in there. 3 Nephi 9:13,

"O all ye that are spared...will ye not now return unto me, and repend of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you?"

I have been spared so many times I've lost count. Sin of omission is really easy for me. I don't really study the scriptures and I still have doubt and I certainly have been scared due to my addiction. I don't care if it makes sense to anyone else. It spoke to me. And its the primary reason why I'm going to try to go the Temple once a week. Maybe this, more than anything before, will help to heal me from my sin.