What brought this up was what happened this morning when my alarm went off. I have to admit that I hit the snooze button and jumped back in bed to sleep for 10 more minutes. I actually set my alarm 10 minutes earlier than when I plan to get up. So I lay back in bed and slept a little longer. When my alarm went off again and when I woke up I noticed that my wife was already out of bed. She wasn’t there. She had already gotten up to go wake the boys so they could do their paper route.

I thought it was interesting that I didn’t hear her alarm at all. We both have alarm clocks. They are very similar. They each have a red digital readout and their alarms sound very similar. It’s that annoying beep beep beep sound that today’s alarm clocks typically make. The sounds of the two alarm clocks aren’t that different really. They aren’t exactly the same but very similar. I thought it was interesting that my mind, my brain, is trained to hear my alarm clock and not hers. Her alarm didn’t wake me up but mine did. I thought it was interesting that I hear mine but I don’t hear hers. How can that be?

It makes you wonder about what else in life we don’t see or hear because of what our minds have been trained to see or hear. There is a story I once heard that helps us understand this phenomenon.

WE HEAR WHAT WE LISTEN FOR

Two men were walking along a crowded sidewalk in a downtown business area. Suddenly one exclaimed: ‘Listen to the lovely sound of that cricket.’ But the other could not hear. He asked his companion how he could detect the sound of a cricket amid the din of people and traffic. The first man, who was a zoologist, had trained himself to listen to the voices of nature. But he didn’t explain. He simply took a coin out of his pocket and dropped it to the sidewalk, whereupon a dozen people began to look about them. ‘We hear,’ he said, ‘what we listen for.’ –Kermit L. Long, taken from ‘The Three Boxes of Life,’ by Richard Bolles

We hear what we listen for. What are our minds trained to hear? What are out eyes trained to see? What are we conscious of and what are we unconscious of? What are we paying attention to and what are we not paying attention to?

I have read many times about a function of the brain called the RAS. It stands for the Reticular Activating System. Basically it’s what filters things in our brain. It’s what determines what you notice and what you don’t notice. The example that’s usually given, and it’s a great example because many of us have experienced it, is when you purchase a new car. Suddenly you begin to see that car all around you. You never noticed those cars before but now that you own one it’s on your mind, it’s what’s important to you. It’s not that these cars didn’t exist before, it’s just that you didn’t notice them.

I remember years ago I re-roofed my house. I did it myself and it was a huge project for me to do. It was interesting that during the weeks I was involved in that project, everywhere I drove, I noticed roofs. I never noticed roofs before. But since I was heavily involved in it that’s what I noticed. I think I knew everybody’s roof in the neighborhood, what condition it was in and what color it was, because that’s what I paid attention to. To me that was very interesting that suddenly I paid attention to everybody’s roof.

The down side to this is that by focusing your attention on one thing, in reality you are deleting everything else that your mind and body it receiving inputs from – sights, smells, sounds. So what are you deleting in your life? Is it good or is it bad? I think it can be both ways. If your mind let everything in you would be overwhelmed by the amount of information that would be flowing into your brain. You have to have a way of filtering it so that only those things that are important to you really register and make a difference. But we have to be careful not to be so focused on things that other important things get deleted out of our awareness and out of our lives.

So my message for today is to be aware of what you’re not being aware of, pay attention to what you’re not paying attention to. Make sure that we’re not leaving out the important things in life that we should be paying attention to.

Master Yourself, Master Your Life

Thank you.

Copyright © 2009 Garold N. Larson

Epiphany - I’m not sure of the definition but I think it has to do with an “Ah ha!” moment when you learn something new or understand something for the first time. I feel like I’m having one today.

Right now, as I write this, I’m on top of a mountain, taking a day to be alone to think and to meditate.

A depressing discovery

Let me back up a little. I took some time yesterday to try and come up with a plan for change. As I went through years and years of my files containing goals and lists of changes I wanted to make I became very depressed. I saw a pattern of doing the same thing over and over and never making any real progress. For a brief moment as I sat at my desk at home I just felt like giving up, like it was a losing battle that I’ll never get a handle on.

I have to confess – I am a goal and list person – meaning I like to make lists of my goals, the changes I want to make. When I saw how many lists of goals I had made over the years and how I seem to be writing the same things over and over again and never making any progress – well, that really got me down.

So when I went to bed last night I was pretty bummed and I couldn’t sleep. I knew there must be some other way this is all done. I went to my library and looked through my books and pulled three out. I had already read these books so I just wanted to skim and read those things that I had underlined. The first two books were okay but the third book really made sense. It is entitled The DNA of Success by Jack M. Zufelt. I was up until 2:00 a.m. reading.

An enlightening discovery

He pretty much described me and my failure at making goals work. Then he talked about Core Desires. I won’t go into a lot of detail here but in a nutshell your Core Desires are those things you want so much and are so much a part of you that you don’t have to write it down. It’s inscribed in your heart. He talked about the idea that there are times when you decide to do something and for one reason or another you just can’t get it done. You procrastinate and it just doesn’t happen. And then there are other times when you get your mind on something and you just can’t stop, you’re obsessed with it, you can stay up all hours of the night and you have tons of energy.

The difference between the two is the second one involved a Core Desire and the first one didn’t. So the book really made sense to me – that perhaps much of what I was trying to accomplish was unrelated to my Core Desires or at least I need to look at it as a means to accomplish my Core Desires.

Michael Jordan

One example he gave that hit me hard was of Michael Jordan. No one can dispute that this man is an amazing success – yet he never had to sit down and write out his goals. It was coded in his DNA that he wanted to be the best basketball player there ever was. He didn’t have to write this down or make long lists of changes he needed to make. He saw in his mind and heart exactly who he wanted to be and worked every day at achieving that. He says:

I have the desire to become the best person and player I can become, but I approach everything step by step. It’s all mental for me. I never write anything down. I just concentrate on the next step. I envision what kind of person and player I want to become and I approach it with that end in mind. I know exactly where I want to go, and I focus on getting there.

Because he did that, all of the details took care of themselves. Instead of driving himself like a taskmaster he was totally motivated and driven internally to reach his aim, his Core Desire.

Yearnings, desires, passions

I see now where I have been going about it all wrong. What’s funny is I have hit upon this idea from time to time in my notes and writings but never recognized it for how powerful it truly was. In fact just recently I was out for a hike in the morning. As I do from time to time I recorded my thoughts on a micro-cassette recorder. This is what I said:

June 13, 2007 – Sometimes we focus on the smaller things like getting up on time or overeating or whatever, and those are good things. But what we need more is an overall self-image of who we are. Sometimes if we see the big picture or the overall image of ourselves then the little things fall into place.

As I’ve said before, I believe God gives us clues about what our purpose is in this life, what our life’s mission is. We need to examine our yearnings and desires and passions and understand that God doesn’t just put them there to torment us. He doesn’t give us these yearnings and desires for no reason at all any more than he doesn’t give a honey bee the desire to seek and gather nectar without the existence of a flower. It’s a natural thing. You have desires and yearnings because you really do have a purpose in this life and you really do have the possibility of achieving it. That’s my belief.

So there you have it. There is another way to achieve that doesn’t require goals, motivational speakers, positive mental attitudes, affirmations or visualizations. Some of these may be the wheels on the train but they don’t provide the steam. Your Core Desires provide the steam.

A prime example

It’s interesting that as I learn about this concept of Core Desires I can now look back in my life and see where I have experienced it without realizing it. In fact, my creation of this website is a prime example. It was only one month ago that I came across the concept of creating a website such as this. I saw how it had the possibility of fulfilling several of my Core Desires. I dove in head first, so-to-speak. My every waking moment found me thinking and pondering this idea. I was totally obsessed with it and began immediately to work on it. You could hardly call it work – it was total enjoyment for me. I created one whole website and wasn’t satisfied with it and scrapped it and created another. I learned all I could about websites and blogging and on and on. It was pure enjoyment for me because it was helping fulfill one of my Core Desires.

The poem from the past

Its funny how my past comes back to haunt me or bless me at times. Ironically many years ago, before I was even married, I had come across an unnamed poem that I liked so much that I committed it to memory. Since I didn’t know its name I entitled it Desire. I haven’t recited it or even thought about it in years and yet a framed copy of it hangs in my office. It’s ironic because of how precisely it describes what I’m talking about today. This is the poem:

Desire
(Author unknown)

If you want something bad enough
To go out and fight for it,
To work day and night for it,
To give up your time and your peace and your sleep for it,

If only the desire of it makes your aim strong enough
Never to tire of it,
And life seems all empty and useless without it,
And all that you dream and scheme is about,

If gladly you’ll sweat for it,
Fret for it, plan for it,
Pray with all your strength for it,

If you’ll simply go after the thing that you want
With all your capacity, strength and sagacity,
Faith, hope, confidence and stern pertinacity,

If neither poverty nor cold nor famish nor gaunt
Nor sickness nor pain of body or brain
Will keep you away from the aim that you want,

If you’re dogged and grim,
Besiege and beset it,
And you’ll get it!

I have recited that poem perhaps a hundred times over the years, but today, for me, it has new meaning.

Mission in Life and Core Desires

Things don’t happen in your life unless you have a deep desire for it, a passion for it. You can write down all the goals you want but unless they are tied to your Core Desires they just aren’t going to happen. I suggest you read my articles entitled: An Overpowering Mission in Life and Ponder Your Life – Find Your Mission. What these articles do is help you understand and discover your Mission in Life, which, in reality, is the fulfillment of your Core Desires. As I continue to learn more about these concepts I will share with you what I learn. Thank you.

Copyright © 2009 Garold N. Larson

What if I could show you a way to overcome the biggest obstacles in your life that was totally different than the advice you get everywhere else – and what if it really worked? I’m talking about obstacles such as smoking, drinking, anger, overeating, staying up too late, bad relationships or even drug and pornography addictions. Think for a moment about the biggest obstacle that is holding you back in your life. Think about how you’ve been dealing with it. What I want to present today is a better approach to eliminating it from your life.

In order for me to more clearly explain this I want to use a visual example.

The Trail of Life

Picture yourself walking down a trail (which is exactly what I happen to be doing right now as I record this.) You are walking along a path. This path is your life. You are walking along the trail of life. As you move forward along this trail of life you are progressing and moving forward in your life. A simple analogy.

The Obstacle in Your Path

Now you are going along your merry way and you come across a huge boulder in the trail. It covers the entire path and blocks your way. You can’t go any further. It’s a huge obstacle in your way. You look at the boulder and you think, “How am I going to deal with this? I’ve got to somehow get it out of my way.”

Focusing On Your Obstacle Doesn’t Work

You try pushing on the boulder. You put your back up against it and push with your feet and it doesn’t budge. You run at it and hit it with your shoulder and it doesn’t move. You try to go around it but it’s so big you can’t get around it. You try to climb over it but it’s just too tall. You try to dig under it. You get down on your knees and try to dig with your hands. You scratch and scrape and dig in the hard ground and you make very little progress. You work and work on that boulder and try every way possible to get rid of it and no matter what you do you fail. The more you work on this boulder the more frustrated you get, the more tired you get, the more discouraged you get. It just can’t be done.

Finally you sit down on the trail because you feel like giving up. You think, “What am I going to do? I try and try to get this boulder out of my way and no matter what I do I can’t seem to overcome it.” It’s extremely discouraging and frustrating to you.

The boulder represents the biggest struggle or obstacle you face in your life. This is the thing that’s holding you back the most in your life. You have tried and tried and struggled for years to get rid of this problem from your life with no success.

Change Your Focus

The big revelation here is that you’ve been focusing on the wrong thing. You’ve been putting all of your time and energy and attention into your problem. Strange as it may be, that’s the wrong place to put it.

I’ve had the opportunity to meet with a number of people who have come to me for counsel with huge issues and problems in their lives that they have struggled with for months and years. Generally this is the case: they have put all their focus and energy on the problem. Usually I will take out a sheet of paper and draw a simple picture of them on the trail with the big rock that stands in their way. I tell them that their focus and energy has been on the wrong thing, on their problem. I then draw a big arrow pointing at the problem.

Work On You, Not Your Problem

Then I draw another arrow pointing at them and say, “This is where you need to be focusing, not on your problem but on yourself.” For most people this is an entirely new concept, something they have never considered. It is the idea that they need to worry and focus on themselves, not their problem.

What does this mean?

Let’s say you are trying to quit smoking. Normally you put all of your efforts into trying not to smoke. You get rid of your cigarettes and you get the nicotine patch and you do the typical things people do to try to quit smoking. It’s constantly on your mind as you try to overcome your smoking habit.

Let’s say it’s overeating. That’s a fairly common one. You struggle so hard to not eat bad foods. You have a long list of the foods you shouldn’t eat and you try everything possible to conquer your habit of overeating.

What I say is that it doesn’t work. What you need to do is focus on strengthening the character traits in yourself that are incompatible with your habit or problem.

In the case of overeating, instead of focusing on not eating certain foods, your focus and energy would be on yourself as far as eating healthy food and exercising. Your focus would be on yourself as a fit and healthy person, instead of focusing on what you don’t want. You get your mind off the boulder and onto yourself.

Picture in your mind the visual image of you on the trail with the obstacle in your path – the obstacle doesn’t change, you do! You grow! You become large. Compared to you, your obstacle is tiny! It’s not an issue any more because you simply step over it and go on your way. You never even deal directly with the problem because it is now so insignificant. You’ve grown and strengthened yourself so much in that particular area that it’s no longer a problem for you.

Does it Really Work?

You may be wondering if this method really works. Let me share with you a story that happened recently. I was working with a young man who was struggling with pornography. He hated it. He wanted to be free of the temptations and had struggled for some time on his own to stop. Each time he gave-in to temptation he would tell himself, “I’m never going to do that again” only to have it happen again in a few days. He failed because he focused on the problem.

As I worked with him I drew on a chalkboard the picture of the person on the trail with the big obstacle in the way. I told him to quit worrying about his problem and start working on himself.

We came up with some ways that he could strengthen himself spiritually. He determined that he would sincerely pray and read scriptures every day. He also decided to be nicer to his family and just be a better person.

For a number of weeks he worked at this and would report back to me from time to time. Several days ago we met again. He told me that when we began this program the temptations would still come back from time to time. Then he told me that for the last few weeks the temptations were totally gone. He said they never even crossed his mind. He said, “I never even thought about not thinking about it. It was just totally gone.” You should have seen the big smile on his face as he left my office.

My Challenge to You

I would like to challenge you to try this. Determine what is the biggest obstacle you face in your life. What is the thing that holds you back the most? How have you dealt with it? Have you put all your energy into fighting this obstacle directly? If so, I challenge you to change your focus and work on yourself. Make yourself bigger and stronger in the character traits that are incompatible with your obstacle. Work on those every day. Grow yourself to the point where all you need to do is step over your obstacle and continue on you path in life. May you succeed as I have seen many others succeed.

What are your thoughts on dealing with the obstacles your face? What methods have you used to combat these obstacles and have you met with success? Please share your thoughts and/ or experiences in the comments below.

Thank you.

Master Yourself, Master Your Life

Copyright © 2009 Garold N. Larson

(NOTE: This article is a roughly edited version of an audio tape I recorded two years ago. Over the last few years I have worked with individuals who struggle with the problem of pornography addiction. The recording was made basically “off the top of my head” so the organization is not the best nor is it all-encompassing. It has religious overtones because it was intended to use in counseling members of my church. Pornography, in my opinion, is one of the ultimate Self Mastery destroyers. What follows is the text from my recording with very little editing.)

My intent is to give counsel to a person who has a problem with pornography. If a person came to me and was having struggles with pornography and wanted very much to stop, but was having difficulty with it – what would my counsel be to that person? That is the purpose of this article. So I am going to direct this article as if I were talking to you.

How Do You Begin?

Many solutions to this problem go into great detail about internet and computer technology and the use of filters and other similar methods to block out the unwanted content. Dealing with the technology and installing safeguards are important, but if someone really wants to find pornography they will find a way – it doesn’t even have to be on the internet. So the real goal would be to take away all desire for it in the first place.

Threshold

So how do you begin? Where do you even start? I think sometimes before a person gets up the courage to change they reach some sort of threshold. What this means it that they have gone too far, they have fallen into that slimy, filthy pit and then have come to their senses and thought, “Oh my gosh, what am I doing? What have I become? How did I get into this mess?” So there is a threshold point that I think a person needs to come to – not on purpose but I think it’s a real thing when someone realizes that they have a serious problem.

I think a person needs to get to that point before they can really be motivated to change. Now my guess is that by the time you would be reading this you will have already reached that threshold. Something will have happened. Either you got caught or you caught yourself and you came to a point where you realized that you need help. So then, what is the next step?

Make a Decision to Change

I think the next step is that you need to make a decision. The decision that you need to make is that you’ve had enough, that you’re tired of this, that you can’t live this way any more and that you are going to do whatever it takes to change.

New Direction

Then you can say that, “From this point on I am going to point my life in a new direction.” Now you’re still in the same spot where you were before you made the decision but you’re now pointed in the right direction. Now that you are pointed in the right direction and you’ve made the decision that you’re going to go in the right direction from now on, then you can begin to move forward with small steps.

When Have You Succeeded in the Past?

Perhaps this is a good time to ask, “Has there ever been a time in your life when you were successful at avoiding this problem or overcoming this addiction, where you have been clean for a long period of time?” If the answer is “yes” then “What period of time was that?” Generally it will be during a time when you were surrounded with positive influences or you were working hard at achieving a worthy goal. It also was most likely a time when you were on a “spiritual high,” when you were close to God, when He was there beside you.

Must Have Lord’s Help

I feel compelled to say at this point that you need to come to the realization that you can’t overcome this addiction, this problem, without the God’s help. No matter how many times you try on your own you don’t have the power within you to do it without divine help. That’s sometimes hard to accept, to realize that you can’t do this on your own, that you are going to fail if you don’t get help from above. You must have the Lord beside you as a partner.

You Must Do Your Part

One other thing I think you need to understand is that God isn’t going to do it all for you. You have to do your part. This is a joint venture and it takes both you and God.

Process of Steps

Now that you’ve made the decision that you are going to change, have pointed yourself in the right direction, and admitted that you need God’s help, you can begin the change process with small steps, with baby steps. In other words you’re going to attack this problem by taking small bites that you can chew and swallow and not try and do everything all at once.

Thoughts Precede Actions

The next step for you is to understand the idea that thoughts precede actions. No actions ever occur without first thinking about it. There is a thought, a very first thought that comes into your mind and what you do with that thought is important. You can’t always control where that thought comes from – they just pop into your head at times, or you see an image or a picture on the TV or a movie screen or the internet or you hear something on the radio that turns your thoughts into the wrong path. It’s what you do with that thought that is so important.

Fire Analogy

I liken it to fire. Let me share and example.

When I was probably about eleven years old, my family lived in Arizona, out in the country. Across the highway from our house, about a mile away, there was a wooded area that had ponds and swamps where turtles and carp lived. I loved to go over there and catch turtles and play around. There was thick brush and trees all around the ponds and in the hot Arizona climate a lot of those trees had dried out and died.

One summer afternoon my older brothers and I decided to go camping there. We each had our own little camping spots, as I recall. My older brother, Russell, even built a little campfire. Well, he began to play with his little fire. He took a stick and would poke the end of it into his campfire and catch it on fire. Then he would take the flaming stick and use it to light some dry brush and watch it burn for a moment and then put it out. He did this several times, letting the flames get larger each time. (Can you see here where I’m going with this?) Well, one time he let it go too far and when he tried to put it out he couldn’t. He started screaming at the rest of us to come help him. We all ran over to his campsite and started stamping and throwing dirt on it but it was too late. In just a few moments the fire roared into a huge inferno. We snatched our sleeping bags and got the heck out of there and ran back across the highway and hid on the other side. From there we watched the whole place go up in gigantic, fifty-foot flames. Farmers from all around drove up in their pickup trucks to see what was going on and to try and put the fire out but they couldn’t do it. The whole place went up in smoke and flames. What started out as seemingly innocent playing with fire turned into a near tragedy.

Think about a match. You can strike a match and how hard is it to put a lit match out? One little puff of your breath and you can blow it out. No problem. Another match lights, puff, blow it out. No problem. It seems innocent enough.

Sometimes we are tempted to play with symbolic matches. We look at an image on the internet and dwell on it a little bit. We think, “I’m stressed out today and I just don’t feel so good. I just want to look at a few racy pictures on the internet and that’s it, then I’ll stop.” Well that’s kind of like lighting a match, but instead of blowing the match out when that first thought comes into our mind we touch it to some dry grass, some dry brush, and say, “I’ll let it go for a little bit and then I’ll put it out.” So we watch it grow and it gets bigger and bigger and before we know it, it’s gotten so large that we try stamping it out but it’s going in all directions and try as we might we can’t put it out. It rages out of control until it consumes us.

Playing with pornography, or any kind of addiction, is just like playing with fire. If the flame lights and you play around with it instead of blowing it out right away then it can get to the point where you’re had, you’re done, you’re ashes, you’re toast. The point I’m trying to make here is that when the flame is tiny, put it out. When that match strikes, put it out. Don’t dwell on it, don’t play with it. If you play with fire you will get burned.

Step 1 – Pay Attention to Every Thought

So your first task is to pay attention and be aware of every thought that comes into your mind. When a thought comes, put it out. Kill it. Don’t dwell on it. Don’t play with it. Kill it. It will never grow into anything if you kill every bad thought. Another way of looking at it is to view these evil thoughts as monsters. These mean, big, bad monsters start out as babies. So kill the monsters when they are babies, before they grow too powerful for you to handle.

Some of these other steps may not be in exactly the right order but let me just talk about some of them.

Step 2 – Proper Sleep

When we are tired our defenses are down. We are weak. You know it and I know it. So this step would be to alter your sleeping patterns. I know it’s not the “cool” thing to do but you need to get to bed earlier and get up earlier each day.

One of the things that happens when you do this is to strengthen your self-discipline muscle by exercising it daily. Another thing you will find by going to bed early and getting up early everyday is that you really can do it. You think you can’t. You say, “Well I’m a night person, I can’t do it.” I say baloney. There’s no such thing as a night person or a morning person. This is a habit you develop just like any other habit. All my life I’ve said I’m a night person, yet when I changed and followed this plan I found I could change from a night person to a morning person. If you can develop strength in this area it will help you be stronger in other areas.

Step 3 – Serious Scripture Study

Coupled with the above step is that of serious scripture study. I’m talking about reading the Bible or whatever book you deem as your spiritual guide. If you don’t have one then find one. The point is to feed your mind daily with something uplifting and positive. If you make the previous change in your life then you will have time to read the scriptures in the morning and they will mean more to you and you will gain power from it.

Step 4 – Sincere Prayer

The next step would be personal prayer. I’m talking about daily communing with God. Not some rote, written prayer, but really talking with God. I don’t know all the right answers about prayer, but, have you ever watched the play or the movie Fiddler on the Roof? Look at the way Tevye speaks to God. He has a relationship with God, he talks to God, he knows who God is. I’m not saying that’s exactly how we should do it but there is a lesson to be learned there on how he speaks to God. Can we be walking down the road by ourselves or driving in a car and just speak to God, talk to Him, tell Him what a terrible day you’ve had or share with Him your deepest concerns? I believe we can. I do it and find it very helpful.

Summary So Far

So what we’re trying to accomplish here is moving along the path or trail. Remember the first thing we did? First of all we hit threshold. We reached the point where we realized that something’s got to give. We can’t live that way anymore. The next thing is we made a decision and that decision was that we were going to turn our life in the right direction; that we’re not going to put up with this nonsense any more. Then we moved forward on that path.

The next steps we talked about were getting to bed early and waking up early, then true scripture study and real personal prayers. Again we’re not just talking about saying a prayer at night and saying a prayer in the morning but praying throughout the day, constantly communicating with God. Ask Him for help, strength and guidance. Talk to Him.

Step 5 – True Fasting

Okay, the next thing to work on is fasting. How many times have we read in the scriptures about somebody struggling with some sort of problem and they fasted. Look through the scriptures under fasting and see what you come up with and all the reasons why people fast.

Fasting does a couple of things. First of all it shows that you’re serious about your efforts. Fasting is not easy especially if you fast during the week when you go to work. It can be a Sunday or it can be any day of the week – but have a special fast for yourself.

What this also does is it exercises your self-discipline muscle and strengthens it. It takes self-discipline to fast. It is mind over matter or spirit over flesh. It is the spirit telling the flesh what to do when the flesh wants so bad to do something else. You’re telling the flesh that “I am the master.” This is one thing you can do. It also strengthens you spiritually. It brings you closer to God. It focuses you for that day on the Lord, on things spiritual and not temporal.

Step 6 – Service

My next counsel would be service. Now what’s all this got to do with pornography or addictions? Well I’ll tell you. The more that you’re engaged in worthy causes and doing good things the less time that your mind has to be idle and to dwell on unholy and impure things. We’ve all heard the saying, “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.” We need to find ways to serve others. Find someone in your neighborhood, in your family, that is going through some sort of struggle or problem or has some need of something that needs to be done – you notice their car is broken down, it has a flat tire, their lawn needs mowing, you notice their leaves need raking – go and perform service for somebody else. You may have a hundred things to do of your own, but that’s not the point. It’s different when we are actually working and serving someone else. There is a spiritual aspect to it when we are focusing our attention on someone besides ourselves.

So what will that do for you? Again it’s a form of self discipline – forcing yourself to do something that maybe you don’t want to do. Secondly you are being Christ-like; you are developing one of the attributes of Christ. That’s all He did during his life was serve others. We rarely read where He did anything for Himself. So to follow that path to become more like Christ and head in His direction is to do what we see Him doing and that is to serve others. So we continue with the other areas that we’ve been working on but now we add the step of serving others. I suggest you keep a journal about it and write your feelings, your experiences and your thoughts.

Mental Focus – Images of Our Mind

Now notice that a lot of what I’m counseling here is not directly associated with or related to pornography or the internet or addictions. Why is that? First of all there can be a problem with focusing on our problems as a way to solve our problems. Do you understand what I’m getting at? Focusing on your problem by dwelling on it constantly as a way to solve your problem is counter productive. It doesn’t work.

For example, let’s say you’re overweight; you have a problem with eating too much. In order to try and do better you are constantly thinking about food. You’re constantly counting calories, you’re doing analysis on which foods have more fat, you’re constantly looking at the labels and you’re dwelling on what you don’t want. You’re saying to yourself, “Okay, I’ve got to make sure I don’t eat French Fries and I’ve got to make sure I don’t eat ice cream.” So what image or picture do you have in your mind constantly? The images and pictures you constantly have in your mind are of food, particularly the food you don’t want to eat! The problem is that your mind works in images and pictures. If I say, “Don’t spit on the floor” what image do you have in your mind, of you not spitting on the floor? No! The image is of you spitting on the floor. So if you focus on what you don’t want that’s what you see. You tend to move towards the things that you visualize and picture in your mind and dwell upon.

So, if thoughts precede actions and our thoughts are primarily visual, we need to be careful of what thoughts we’re dwelling on. What we’re doing is taking your focus away from your bad habit. We don’t want to be constantly analyzing it and reading about it and worrying about it. What we’re doing is channeling our thoughts in another direction. We are making a place for your thoughts to go.

Step 7 – Uplifting Music

So, the next step – it’s going to be a hard one for some people, but again it has to do with channeling your thoughts in the right direction. It has to do with a very powerful medium that can affect your thoughts, your feelings, your moods, and can excite you or calm you down – and that medium is music. Now you may think, “Oh here we go again – music, it doesn’t affect me, I don’t listen to the words, yada yada yada.” Music is hugely powerful and I can cite example after example about how music has affected people and how we learn by music.

I want to talk about one kind of music that I see prevalent among the youth today. I call it “Loser Music.” The Youth today are obsessed with Loser Music. My definition of Loser Music is the music that talks about hopelessness, about “why even try?” It talks about failure, about who cares about anything and on and on and on. There is a ton of music like that and it may not have one swear word in it or anything to do with sex or drugs or whatever. Of course that music we want to get rid of, but this Loser Music is creating a generation of losers.

The counsel I would give would be to go through your music and get rid of that music. Then get rid of all other music that is counter-productive to you having uplifting thoughts. Then fill your library of music, your MP3 player, your iPod, your laptop, your CD collection, with music that is positive and uplifting. It doesn’t have to be church hymns, but some of it can be. It just needs to be positive, good music. It can be contemporary music. There are artists out there today producing music that is great. Why not support them? Why not listen to that music instead of music that’s going to pull you down?

If you can kind of follow my process here, it’s to eliminate all sources of negative influences on your thoughts because it’s in your thoughts that all good and evil actions originate. Your thoughts are so important.

Step 8 – Good TV and Movies

Okay, the next step is a logical progression from music to, guess what, you got it – TV and movies. There is so much material on this subject that I could go into and cite on the affects that they have on us, the rating system, the content of movies, screenit.com, etc. Basically it is to be extremely careful about what movies you watch and don’t get sucked into the movies of today. Support the good movies. There are great movies today. You just need to be careful of what you watch. That’s the next logical step.

Step 9 – Good Video Games

Now the next step or area that we are going to talk about is video games. This world is filled with violence. I could cite newspaper article after newspaper article of youth killing youth, violent acts, terrible things going on in the world and the effects that these video games have on us. We need to go through and eliminate video games that have this kind of content.

Two things video games do. Number one is they teach you bad things. Number two is they suck your life away. When you’re all done with that game at four in the morning, what have you accomplished? What have you gotten out of it? You’re dead tired the next day. You gain nothing except wasted time.

Summing it up

So there is a whole logical progression here. This whole thing started with pornography and addictions, but really all of this is a pattern of bringing ourselves closer to Christ, of becoming a disciple of Christ.

Each one of these steps has to do with a little area of your life, a particular quality or attribute, that you can work on to help you become a disciple of Christ.

So I started out by talking about fighting pornography but really what it seems to have turned out to be is a set of steps that you can work on in your life that applies not just to pornography but to any temptation or sin that you are dealing with.

(Well, there you have it. I hope if you are struggling with pornography addiction that this entry was helpful. Let us know what you think.)

Thank you.

Master Yourself, Master Your Life

Copyright © 2008 Garold N. Larson

Focus on what you want, not on what you don’t want

I think many times we focus on the bad habit or behavior that we want to change and that’s where our mind is, that’s where our attention is, that’s where the vision is, the pictures that we have in our mind. Now I’ll go back to the example of the person who overeats. You know they say, “I’ve got to change, I’ve got to go on a diet, I’ve got to quit eating the food.” They put all of their focus on not eating and they are constantly thinking about food, saying things to themselves like; “I can’t eat the chips and salsa. I can’t eat the chocolate cake in the fridge. I’ve got to count calories.” Their whole focus is all on food, and not eating the food.

Dominant thoughts

The problem is, the picture that you have in your mind when you’re in this mode is of food and your mind draws toward what you have pictures of in your head. Let me rephrase that, not your mind, but whatever pictures you have in your mind; that’s what you’re drawn towards. The person who wants to quit swearing for example, if he’s just constantly telling himself, “I’m not going to swear, I’m not going to swear.” The thoughts in his mind are all about swearing.
The focus can’t be on what it is your trying to stop. It’s got to be on the behavior you’re going to replace it with. So for the person who wants to change the way they look, their physical appearance, their health, they shouldn’t be focusing on not eating food. They should be focusing on what they’re going to look like in six months or a year down the road-what kind of lifestyle are they going to have? It’s got to be a lifestyle change.

“See” what you want

They can’t say, “I’m going to stop eating food for the next ten days” or “I’m going to stop eating until I’m down to a certain weight and then resume my regular lifestyle.” That’s not going to work. You’ve got to see in your mind who you’re going to become. And then once you decide what kind of life you’re going to lead, are you going to be a biker, a runner, are you going to get up and do aerobics, kick boxing, whatever it is, you need to see pictures of yourself in good health, pictures of yourself in your mind having the body, the physique that you want, looking the way you want and then move towards that picture.

Suddenly you start to make changes in your life because your current behavior is incompatible with the way you see yourself. You need to start looking, acting, walking, and talking like that person.

Now that is focusing on a small part of your entire self, your physical body. You can bring this up to even a higher level and see yourself as a completely different person, a person you have described and envisioned in every detail, the real “you” deep inside of you. You begin to change every aspect of your life. It all begins with what you are focusing your mind on on a regular basis. So be aware of your thoughts, be aware of the images and pictures you have in your mind because whatever your dominant thought is, that is what you will create in your life.

Copyright © 2008 Garold N. Larson