The following is a sarcastic instruction to have it:
1. Sleep less than 5 hours.
2. Drink 5 or more 50mg caffeine a day.
3. Watch TV, use smart phone, do online things all day.
4. After having a headache, eat more sweets and chocolates.
5. Drink some more sugar laden juices, and avoid eating vegetables.
6. When sick already, drink supplements from herbs and fish you don't know contains higher than recommended limit of mercury.
7. Sip some more hot herb concoction that you don't know makes you strong and... unable to sleep.
8. Finally when wide awake, solve your personal problems, and think until you're stressed to burned out. Conclude it with a gym work out if your body fever isn't going down.
9. Repeat the cycle from number 1 to 8.
I tried Bullet Journaling. Now I just need a 1/4 sheet of paper not the whole journal to put my checklist of what I will do that day which I toss like a scratch paper after they're done. But my mind can't really put on calendar anything and doing it. (Note taking I still do on my journal the long form as I've been accustomed way back in the seminary which is more of a spiritual journaling. I think I favor more the long form because I'm a writer.) It's better in my seminary days when others get to plan and calendar it for me where everything is done by the hour, it's better in the corporate world where I do tasks scheduled and deadlined by my company.
Matthew 6:34 in particular says, "Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take
care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil."
A religious who lived very close to St John Bosco was asked whether the Saint was ever worried in the midst of his countless works, in his sometimes tumultuous life. The religious replied in this manner: "Don Bosco never, not even a minute before, thought about what he was about to do a minute later." Don Bosco, who understood the action of grace, always sought to do the will of God in the present moment. And following this path he fulfilled his vocation.
Would I still be alive in the future to still do all those things I plan to do? No one knows.
St. Therese spirituality earlier taught me to trust blindly in Jesus' Divine Mercy.
I need to be dumb or to be atention deficit about the future stuffs which may not even happen. As David Allen taught above in the TEDx Youtube that our brain wasn't designed to hold on to more than 4 stuffs, and that we need to clear it of stuffs to make it work. Though he teaches how to do it in his books, I focused more on his insight.
Today's information age just made us very aware of these things unlike before.
But why am I still anxious--this isn't a psychological problem I think--it's a spiritual problem of needing to trust God's mercy blindly.
We've forgotten to pray this:
At dawn let me hear of your kindness, for in you I trust.
Show me the path I should walk, for to you I entrust my life. Psalm 143:8
What good can you easily do here and now?
The Blessed Virgin Mary promises me that my day will become
good and she will take care of my problems as long as I ask myself the whole
day every now and then what good I can easily do here and now and then act on
it.
I don’t know why but even the bestseller Atomic Habits is
pointing on this psychological technique except that being open to God's will for the day is our Marian practice using ethics to answer the here and now question.
But boy did I started everything purely psychological and I’m
still anxious.
But with a spiritual trust in God’s Divine mercy, I’m not
anymore. You should thus be able to tell yourself that this is the only good thing I can easily do here and now. I don't know anything else for now. May God be merciful to me.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.
*recommended reading on the word "here and now" and how our dreams and visions are in the background
It is Jesus, without whom marriage won't even work any more than save.
To reiterate, St. Paul told us that it is better to be married than to be aflamed with passion. The salvific effect of marriage is Pauline, not mine. Reformed sexual addicts should benefit from the vocation to marriage, sanctified by Jesus Christ.
There is a clear teaching treasured by the Catholic Church founded by Jesus Christ about marriage. Consider an old practice of polygamy where romantic love can't really bloom. Consider aborting fetuses to be practiced by those who can't afford or aren't yet prepared lovers. It is the teaching of Jesus that made marriage sacramental and thus salvific. It is transformed by Jesus into something good and then salvific.
Jesus made clear what the good of marriage consist. It does not consist of adultery for example. Concupiscense is still present of course because we aren't angels or resurrected bodies to be transformed by Christ in parousia. We have a fallen body. And lust as called forth by St. Paul above as passion can be eased by marriage, the sacrament of marriage to be specific. The union in sexual intercourse isn't just merely bodily, but a sacral act, a reenactment of the romantic love solidified and blessed when the husband and wife said yes to each other in front of God. Yes it is carnal, but is transformed by Jesus as good interpreted as that longing of God for His people in Song of songs. When it is clear that almsgiving can be used to show people how good you are, then sexual intercourse can also be. The blog I have written is for reforming sexual addicts in particular, nor for normal people, please read carefully on my Pages section Letter to My Reader. If marriage can kill concupiscence, I would have jumped to marrying as it would surely save my soul. But I have written this blog to pinpoint what practices are there traditionally named chastity by the Catholic Church that can enable the effectivity of the sacrament of marriage. For non-addicts please note carefully that these points aren't clear for us in the first place. If these points have been clear to us, we would not have been sexual addicts. If you're struggling lately against one of the deadly 7 capital or deadly sins, lust, then this blog can still benefit you too.
There are the three vocations of single blessedness, consecrated life, and marriage. Evagrius won't allow those struggling against lust to enter the consecrated life. I advice that temporary singlehood can be used by those preparing for marriage even they are struggling against lust by reading and practicing what is written here in my blog for example. But it is marriage that such strong urge to sexual union can be disciplined and then sanctified. None on this earth can. However, former sexual addicts like St. Augustine made it to consecrated life. Evagrius though adviced to first learn and discipline oneself to chastity before entering consecrated life. We have a discussion for that in my book.
St. Augustine, St. Paul, pray for us reformed sexual addicts!
How on earth did I became aware? I wasn't until now. I was looking to up my journaling offline when the Bullet Journaling of Ryder Carroll, who has ADHD, caught my attention. Can I really have some sort of even mild ADHD since I really can't calendar and plan, I asked myself. Well, the test told me I have moderate ADHD, worse than mild. Let me tell my short story. As a child I use to bump my front head because it's too painful or I'm too anxious (now I know I have headache caused by neurological condition). I don't know why I do that. But ADHD causes gives me clues. I have a cigarette addict father. My mother drinks. Chemical playing could've exacerbated it. Now I find myself really incapable of planning/calendaring, has low frustration tolerance, can't easily organize, etc. But what I found out earlier was that sexual addicts have damaged prefrontal cortex, disabling my setting and achieving goals or executive functioning, a condition that is affirmed by my meandering career situation. Compared to my colleagues, I really feel that there's something wrong with me. I don't mean to point this to play the blame game to excuse myself, but to capacitate myself to add the ADHD's coping mechanism to enable myself. My sexual addiction could have not evolved this far if not for an unknown neurological damage in me. Holy Mary, health of the sick, pray for us, sinners!
