Mary Wagstaff - "Addiction, Peace, and Surrender"

Everyone else, what's up? How's everyone doing? I hope this moment is finding you reasonably well.

I'm curious if anyone else listening felt like they were being tested this last week.

I sure did.

I got a couple of pretty serious curve balls thrown my way that required me to have to be present in moments where my attention was being challenged to be so.

[chuckles] I'm being vague because it's stuff that I don't really feel like talking about right now, but I'm happy to say that I, I feel like I did meet the challenges that were presented.

Some of them are still ongoing.

But sitting here right now, trying to make this intro happen, I'm feeling pretty spent.

I'm, I'm kinda running on empty right now, and this is like, I don't know, take six or something at this point, and normally the intros just come right out, maybe one or two takes.

Often it's just one take.

But this week, [exhales] I'm just, I'm running a little on empty.

I had to really dig deep to find strength this week.

And I'm also really thinking a little bit about something I used to talk a lot about on this show, which is screen addiction, and maybe just addiction in general.

Like I can observe, you know, things in my life that I do every day, like regular rituals of mine that sort of help me keep a sense of equilibrium and balance going.

And I try not to keep too attached to them, you know? Like if I can't do my daily rituals, it's not like I'm gonna be horrible.

It's, it's fine.

But I do stick to the same things again and again, and I do feel like there is sometimes a real attachment to them or maybe even verging into addictive kind of relationship.

I'd say the biggest addiction I have these days is screens.

I've talked about that on the show before, and specifically probably like YouTube and maybe some Instagram.

Those like little short videos, they just grab you by the amygdala and just grab you and keep you, don't they? And it's just so easy to kinda like tune out.

And I, I feel like there have been other times where I've been more conscious about it and making sure that I'm taking more breaks from the screens and even just giving myself more things to do, but, you know, sometimes when things get hard, it's just like, ugh.

I just like retreat into it, and that's when it's not like I'm choosing to watch something interesting that's educating me.

I'm just like mindlessly trying to numb out some, you know? And maybe sometimes it's not terrible to like mindlessly numb out, but as like a regular pattern, it's definitely not good.

And again, I, I did meet the moments that I needed to meet this week, and maybe sometimes I'm being a little too hard on myself.

But I have been reflecting on just the things that I do on a regular and even like substances I am putting into my body, whether it's coffee or cannabis, which we talk about some today a little bit.

In any case, [sighs] I'm rambling a little bit.