2014 From Escapism to Self-Responsibility - Using Gaming as A Platform of Self-Change

 2014 From Escapism to Self-Responsibility - Using Gaming as A Platform of Self-Change

Changing Escapism in Real-Time

I started playing a game called 'banished' on my computer recently after years of not playing games, which was actually a decision that I made at some point because I was seeing how immersed I get into the game when I am playing. I would just play for days on end in this zoned-out, spaced-out state and not doing much else. I mean, I would then go into an absolute procrastination and abdication of any other tasks that I had set out for myself to do - like looking for a job or doing something to develop my skills  or even basic stuff like taking a shower, taking care of my physical body and home -- which I eventually realized was quite detrimental in relation to my physical life and living and also my process of growing and developing into a self-responsible and self-directive individual.

So now, I initially made an agreement with myself that I would play only on Sunday, which would be my day off from doing and tending to other responsibilities - and I would thus give myself some 'leisure time' to just relax and 'take my mind off things'. However as I played a first game in Banished, where I had to build a town and make it operational, I wanted to play more because my first and second town were a failure and I had learned some new tips on how to better manage my town, which I now wanted to apply. So I started to try and find ways to integrate playing Banished during the rest of the weekdays - by for instance using a second screen next to my laptop, which I thought I could use to play Banished on while doing other things -- because often in the game you have to give instructions and then wait a while for the instructions to be executed. But then it turned out that I couldn't actually do anything on my laptop while the game was running on the second screen - it just wouldn't work that way - which meant that I had to do one thing at a time and that I ended up spending more time on playing than on getting any work done.

Then this situation got to a point where, whenever there was someone walking in the room or when I would hear someone approaching the room, I would react in my mind with an experience of fear that they would see that I am more playing games than I am working and then the idea of 'hiding' what I am doing so that I could continue playing the game without anyone knowing about it came up within my mind. Also while I was playing the game, I noticed that my mind was moving very fast, as though I was running and hiding from my own awareness of what I was doing -- just so that I could continue playing. Because, in the back of my mind I knew that I have more important things to spend my time on and I am essentially starting to waste a lot of my time on this game and creating physical consequences of for instance not getting the necessary work done in time or not moving as fast as I could and should be. So, to in a way circumvent and 'bypass' actually facing and acting on this awareness, I found that my mind does something very interesting - it 'moves' my awareness away from the actual physical facts of the consequences that my actions are having and going to have on my physical life and reality  and from the realization that I must simply stop playing this game and focus on doing other things, through creating excuses and justifications to talk myself into allowing myself to continue doing what I am doing.

And, the fascinating thing about this was that, I could already see and recognize within my awareness that each and every justification and excuse that my mind was bringing up in relation to justifying why I am playing this game now instead of tending to my responsibilities was in fact false because I have been at this point before and I knew exactly how this will play out and how there really is no excuse to not do what I need to be doing with my time. So, the excuses and justifications in itself was not the reason why I just continued playing rather than simply in the moment, stopping the game and moving on to other tasks -- it was rather what this 'construct' of excuses and justifications was doing in my mind with my awareness, in that it was 'shifting' my awareness from here to there and back and forth very fast within this 'box'/'containment' type structure, basically doing nothing but preoccupying and holding/containing my awareness for a moment, while in physical reality I could just continue doing something purely for the sake of having some energetic 'fix' without taking any responsibility for it because, as I mentioned, my awareness was too busy allowing itself to be entrapped and preoccupied by the irrelevant and irrational excuses and justifications that the mind was bringing up.

I mean, I am writing about 'my awareness' and 'my mind' as apparently two separate things that exist separately from each other and from myself - but in fact in reality, if I look at who I am within all of this in self-honesty, I can see that it is ME within and as the mind distracting MYSELF within and as my Awareness - and it is ME within and as my Awareness, allowing myself to be distracted and preoccupied by MYSELF within and as the Mind. And it is because this 'ME-factor' was missing in this entire equation, meaning that I was accepting and allowing myself to exist in separation from 'my mind' and 'my awareness' by not seeing, realizing and understanding that both are in fact parts of me as how I exist within and as my physical body - that this situation was able to play itself out in the way that I described here.

So, in terms of how I practically applied myself in stopping this self-sabotaging, possessive behavioural pattern that I was busy accessing - and breaking out of that 'boxed-in' mind-state that I found myself in -- the first thing that I realized was that it seemed very difficult to actually get myself to that point of physically stopping myself while I was playing the game.  And this because of the energy that was involved in playing this game - because, the entire reason why I was playing the game and why it was starting to become the centre of my world, is not because of the game itself, no, it is because of the energy that I have connected to playing this game within my mind. And it is that energy that the mind then tries to protect through for instance, in the moment that there is any inkling of an awareness coming up in my mind that it's best if I stop playing and go do something else, bring up that specific 'excuses and justification'-construct that for a moment captures and preoccupies my awareness.

I found that when I was in that specific state, it seemed very difficult if not impossible to actually get myself to make the physical decision and movement to stop doing what I was doing - because each time that I tried to move within my awareness towards making that decision, the mind would give me the run-around into the construct of reasons, excuses and justifications for why I should continue playing and why I shouldn't stop playing.

The technique that I used to get myself out of that specific all-encompassing and -consuming energetic experience in relation to the game that I was playing and to for a moment 'snap myself out of it', was by placing myself within and as the 'ME-factor', meaning the point of self-responsibility within and as the realization that the entire situation and specifically the self-deceiving game that I was playing between my mind and my awareness, was my own creation. And how I did this, was through an application of spoken Self-Forgiveness in the moment.

This means that within the moment where I saw and realized that I was accessing the energetic and physical behavioural pattern connected to playing this computer game wherein I was feeling as though I was 'stuck' within the experience and the behaviour and I wasn't able to actually stop myself from what I was doing - I took a breath and I started speaking Self-Forgiveness aloud.

Specifically:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try and hide what I am doing from myself by going into my mind and participate in thinking processes where I am deliberately trying to distract myself from my physical reality and from what I am physically doing just so that I could continue to generate and hold on to a specific energy experience within myself

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself within and as the energy experience that I have connected in my mind with playing this computergame and therefore not want to let go of this energy experience and so not want to stop playing - because I actually believe that I need this energy to experience 'me'

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to see, realize and understand that while I believe that this energy that I experience within myself connected with playing this computergame, is somehow giving me 'more' value -- in reality, I am giving myself away to the mind and inferiorizing myself to my own mind and to my physical reality by accepting and allowing an energy experience within the mind to have complete power over who I am and what I do and how I express myself within and as physical reality -- because I have accepted and allowed myself to actually believe that I have to experience and obtain this energy/feeling within myself so that I can feel 'alive', wherein I don't even see how I am giving away my 'life' as my physical presence, awareness,  expression and directive principle to the mind

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to see, realize and understand how I have created an energetic polarity within myself by connecting a positive energy experience of excitement with playing this computergame - where then, I have connected a negative energy experience and value to the thought and image of 'not playing this computergame' and doing other things in physical reality within my mind

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give away my directive principle to the thought that comes up in my mind that says that 'I want to play this computergame now', accompanied by an energy experience of excitement as desire -- by having accepted and allowed myself to simply follow this thought and experience and so therein abdicate my responsibility in relation to what I do and who I am in physical reality, by allowing an energetic experience to be at the 'steering wheel' of myself within my physical actions, rather than me within and as absolute awareness directing myself within my physical actions and expression --- wherein I do not allow an energy, triggered by a thought, to move or direct me

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to hide what I am doing from others so that I can hide what I am accepting and allowing myself to participate within in my mind from myself -- and to therein use the thought and idea that 'as long as other people don't see what I am doing and who I am within what I am doing - then it doesn't matter what I do' as an excuse and reason to continue playing computergames without in any way taking responsibility  for myself within and as my physical actions --- instead of seeing, realizing and understanding that this thought is an illusion that I have copied and learned and conditioned into myself during my childhood years in relation to and interaction with the people in my environment, and that in fact, I am entirely responsible for my actions in physical space-time reality

I forgive myself that I have never accepted and allowed myself to see and realize my responsibility for my actions in physical space-time reality by hiding myself within and as the preprogrammed belief in my mind that I can do what I want as long as other people don't see it

Self-Correction

When and as I see a reaction of wanting to hide what I am doing when I am playing a computer game come up within myself - I stop and breathe - and I see, realize and understand that the fact that I fear another judging me as doing something wrong, implies that I don't fully understand what I am actually doing and I have not actually taken responsibility for my actions because I am defining my actions within and as my relationship with other people and a desire to receive recognition and approval from others

So here I commit myself to actually look into and investigate in self-honesty what I am actually doing and who I actually am within and as my physical actions because I see, realize and understand that if and when I accept and allow myself to be moved in physical reality by an energy within myself, that I am expressing myself from the starting point of the mind and I see, realize and understand that the mind is a system that exists within and as 'layers' and dimensions and that this energy experience, connected to this one thought, is just one dimension of a much greater system - and that essentially if and when I accept and allow myself to be defined within and as my actions and expression in physical reality and within and as myself by this onedimensional energetic experience and thought, I am lying to myself about who I am and what is real and I am existing and living in an illusion and thus I am essentially not even real as a being

So, when and as I see the energetic movement come up within myself connected with a thought that I want to play a computergame - I stop and breathe - and I see, realize and understand that if and when I accept and allow myself to be guided and directed in my physical expression and actions by this energetic movement within myself, I am giving my power and creative directive away to the mind wherein I do not take responsibility for the consequences of my actions and for my future in this world and reality

Thus, I commit myself to breathe when and as the energy comes up within myself, because I see, realize and understand that it is only energy -- and that I have created this energy through participating within polarities, where if I accept and allow myself to continue participating in these polarities, I am fuelling the experience of desire to play a computergame and thus conditioning myself to experience myself as a slave to these experiences within and of the mind

I commit myself to walk the process of manifesting myself as the directive principle within and as myself where I do not accept and allow an energetic movement to move  and direct me in physical reality -- but rather I assist and support myself to understand who I am within and as the mind completely - so that I can see who I am and what I am doing and what the consequences are of my actions in every moment

And, I see, realize and understand that the consequences of accepting and allowing myself to allow myself to be directed and defined by an energy of desire in relation to playing a computer game - is that I am simultaneously creating the negative energy of resistance in relation to doing other things in my life

    

Wherein, I see, realize and understand that I am sabotaging myself within my life by connecting an experience of resistance to doing my responsibilities in physical reality and thus by playing computergames from the starting point of energy

And so I take responsibility for this energy polarity that I have created within myself  by firstly changing my expression within and as my physical world and reality - and from there changing who I am internally because I see, realize and understand that through my physical movement and expression I prove to myself who I am as a living statement


After and during this application of Self-Forgiveness and Self-Corrective statements in the moment, i had stabilized a lot internally - because i was seeing the points of common sense that were coming up while i was speaking in relation what it is that i was actually doing and participating within. so, from that point, it was easy for me to make the choice to stop playing the game and direct my attention to other things. And this without any judgment or any emotional reactions to and towards the whole thing - it was a simple internal choice and physical movement based on common sense insight and understanding.

This though doesn't now mean that this pattern is completely corrected and that i have changed myself within and as it entirely - not at all. i have ingrained and conditioned this specific pattern of internal reactions and experiences and external behavior all throughout the course of my life and so it will require a step-by step process of physical integration of the new pattern that i am setting myself out to live -- where, within this first step, i have only become aware of how the pattern works and operates in the mind and i have found and developed a way to in a real-time moment, change it within myself. Now i must still prove to myself that i am consistent within my application of real-time change so that, through a constant application of this real-time change, i can condition myself internally and externally to be and become a being that doesn't so easily give its power away to energetic reactions to external stimuli anymore but can remain stable within and as its relationship to for instance entertainment.