How to Control Yourself When No One Is Watching
“If I’m alone, no one will know if I drink.”
But YOU will know.
Your ego is trying to convince you that you’re a nobody.
Don’t believe that shit.
Today we explore the foundations of your creative choice between maladaptive and adaptive responses to life.
Before we begin, we need to clear something up:
You are not your thoughts.
Humble yourself to this truth: you can’t choose your first thought.
Empower yourself with this truth: you can choose how to respond to your first thought.
I think this ability to choose is your superpower, one that most humans are sleeping on in their subconscious reactions to a life lived on autopilot.
In every moment you have the ability to choose how you respond.
In my studies of psychotherapies, I’ve discovered that, as learning and development unfold, patterns of adaptation emerge: either a positive, adaptive pattern or a maladaptive pattern.
A positive adaptive pattern is where an individual adjusts to the situation in a way that results in valued outcomes, such that they are nourished and growing and feel healthy and happy. Maladaptive patterns, simply, are the reverse.
In her spiritual teachings, Marianne Williamson calls this the choice between fear and love.
Eckhart Tolle discusses how humans identify as form (thought, attachment, ego) or as essence (consciousness, beingness, I-am-ness).
Why do you sacrifice your superpower so often and live from a place of fear, egotism, and acting in maladaptive patterns?
I have an answer you may not like:
You’ve been playing the victim.
Letting yourself feel like a loser.
It’s time to take your power back.
The purpose of this letter is to illuminate where you’ve been giving your power of choice away for a perceived sense of gain. You’ll be challenged to reclaim and create your best life.
If you want agency over your actions, you must first acknowledge the thing that instigates your prostitution: your fear, your ego, your maladaptive patterns.
Powerless Vs. Unconscious: Your Ego-Drinker Problem
You’re human.
You are complex and have many components to your personality.
One component to be aware of is your ego, which has the tendency to take maladaptive actions out of fear.
As you show up in our life, your inner “ego-accountant” or “ego-lawyer” or “ego-parent” or “ego-child” may come forth to make the decision it believes will ultimately protect you. You might identify with having an “ego-drinker” or “ego-addict” personality component.
Attaching the term ego to how components of your personality show up at times may help you to identify when you’re living in fear. It also may help you identify the distinct separation between you and these components of your personality.
You’ve been taught that you’re powerless over alcohol.
If you think that way, you’re unconsciously identifying as your ego-drinker.
You have the power of choice to consciously observe the ego-drinker instead of identifying with it.
With conscious awareness, you can witness how the powerless ego-drinker acts:
Ruled by fear
Has no support
Doesn’t set boundaries
Focused on the disaster
Disempowered and disempowering
This is how the powerless ego thinks maladaptively:
Look what they did to me
Look what happened last time
I would, but what might happen is…
Commonly followed by “I’m fucked so I might as well get fucked”.
The ego is the king of the fuck-it’s.
It convinces you that you’ll miss out if you don’t meet your friends for drinks and tells you that the best way to celebrate or console a friend is to split a bottle of wine.
The power you seek is the ability to pause, to realize “that’s a thought, not a demand”, and choose to act adaptively instead of maladaptively.
The journey towards overcoming the grip of the ego comes with profound rewards.
The Obstacle is the Way
When you misidentify with the ego-drinker you unlock:
Empowerment through Choice: Liberation from the shackles of fear enables you to embrace your authentic self and make choices aligned with your values and well-being
Clarity and Boundaries: Overcoming the ego-drinker fosters the capacity to establish healthy boundaries and focus on what truly matters, cultivating mental clarity and emotional stability
Enhanced Self-Trust: Embracing your truth and making choices rooted in self-love strengthens self-trust, fostering a deeper sense of personal integrity and confidence in your decisions
However, conquering the patterns of the ego can bring up various challenges, including:
Internal Resistance: The deeply ingrained habits and beliefs of the ego-drinker may resist change, creating internal conflict and reluctance to embrace new perspectives
Social Influence: External pressures or societal norms endorsing alcohol consumption may present hurdles, potentially triggering feelings of isolation or social discomfort when refusing to partake
Emotional Triggers: Coping with underlying emotional triggers that previously led to drinking, such as stress, anxiety, or unresolved issues, can pose significant obstacles in the journey to overcome the ego-drinker
The secret of all successful and peaceful people is this: they don’t allow themselves to be limited by adversity, they embrace obstacles as the path to growth. The above challenges don’t threaten them, but fuel them.
You’re invited to join them in the 1%.
Your initiation is this: overcome your ego-drinker.
How to Overcome Your Ego-Thinker
Again: you are not your thoughts.
We’ve discussed the “ego-drinker” who is powerless against alcohol. Now we introduce the spiritual components of your personality: “spirit-parent”, “spirit-boss” and, yes, even the “spirit-drinker.”
The “spirit-drinker” is a component of your personality that already exists and is powerful over alcohol. Let me be clear: having a “spirit-drinker” does not mean that you can control your body's physical reaction to alcohol. Your “spirit-drinker” may never be able to drink safely. That truth is something to be discovered or realized by you and you alone.
Consider, however, as a consolation, that your “spirit-drinker” is in complete acceptance of the truth that you have an unhealthy physical reaction to alcohol, or an allergy to alcohol. “Spirit-drinker” is in complete control of its acceptance and peace with that truth. “Spirit-drinker” is in complete control of its ability to not drink today. “Spirit-drinker” is in complete control of living a joyous life amongst alcohol by choosing adaptive actions.
Do you see that there is truth, and then there is choice?
If you’re aware that your drinking is causing you harm and is maladaptive to your dreams and desires, then you’ve learned your truth. You’ve been identifying with your ego-drinker.
You have another choice.
Strengthen your spiritual side.
Learn everything there is to know about what is true for you, and then work to love, accept, and live that truth. Unconditionally.
This is what it looks like to use your power of choice adaptively:
This is what I love
This is what I will afford with joy and peace
Nothing will come between me and my truth
This is what the loving spirit-drinker sounds like:
My actions in complete alignment with self-worth
No sacrifice is too great for what she values and desires
My opinion, power, self-expression, truth, and desires are never for sale
There is no choice greater than self-care for your spiritual self, for it understands that what is good for you is for the good of all.
Five Steps Out of Ego and into Spiritual Fitness
All this spiritual talk is fun and dandy when you’re just reading it off the page, but how do you actually implement it into your life?
Most people will never be who they want to be because they lack action, not intellect.
The world is overwhelmed with information and lacking in action.
The recipe for changing your maladaptive patterns is a little bit of awareness mixed with a shift in perspective.
Let’s walk through an example:
Observe the egoic thought pattern.
Egoic thought: “I want to drink. I should have a drink. Let’s have drink.”
1. Identify the fear.
What are you afraid of? “I am afraid my family will judge me for being weak if I stop drinking”
2. Create awareness of what drives the fear.
What drives the fear? Emotion is a clue. Almost every time we have a fear, the emotion of fear is created by the act of what someone else thinks.
3. Shift your perception.
Here is some help with a little story:
If someone pointed at your hair, claimed it was green, and then started to laugh out loud at how silly you looked, would you feel hurt? Probably not. Assuming your hair is not green, you wouldn’t believe what they were saying.
When you know your hair is not green you would know this person is just being silly or having problems with their vision. You know the issue is with their perception of you; the issue is not you. What you can take from this example is that, in fact, what people think of you doesn’t hurt you at all.
When you don’t believe you look foolish you are not affected by what others think.
By being aware that their mental image of you is not YOU, you gain immunity to their opinion.
Mastery is being aware that your mental image of yourself is not you, gaining immunity to the thoughts you have.
With this understanding it is obvious that we cannot be hurt emotionally by what others think and say about us, or what your ego-drinker (or any other personality of the ego) says about you within the constructs of your own mind.
4. Choose an adaptive action as a response to any thought
You are not your thoughts.
You might be powerless over your first thought, the ego-drinker is a conditioned thinker that pops up to tempt you with a compulsion to drink — but you are not powerless over how you act.
You are the observer of your thoughts and have agency over how you respond to them, choosing between adaptive or maladaptive actions.
Examples of adaptive actions:
Stretch
Take a walk
Take three breaths
Call a supportive friend
Replace having a drink with these adaptive actions and watch your life improve exponentially.
Your Hair is Not Green
Take this phrase with you as you explore the world today: “My hair is not green.”
Just this week I clearly and calmly explained to someone close to me what I needed to be at peace. They looked me dead in the eyes and said, “I think you’re just ungrateful for what you have.”
Without reacting from ego, needing to defend myself or make them understand, I held their gaze and internally repeated the mantra “my hair is not green”.
It’s ok to be misunderstood.
You are neither your thoughts nor what other people think of you.
You know your hair is not green. That’s all that matters.
Thanks for reading.
Jenna