Realigning our behavior and our intentions... especially with "bad" habits or "temptations"
Channel: George Kao
Date: 2024-01-21

On the topic of managing our temptations, I received a wonderful comment from a viewer:

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For me “temptation” has a moral connotation, a negative judgment about us for doing the action. 

I tend toward words like getting pulled away from aligning with our intention - it’s just what life does.

I was a heavy smoker for 15 years. For 6 of those years, every pack was going to be my last. I tried everything.

For me it was 2 things that finally helped me let it go: 

1. I found something that made me feel good (yoga) 

2. I started asking myself: since smoking makes me feel bad after about 5 minutes, why do I feel I deserve to feel bad and not good? I was literally choosing to punish myself. Our brain is smart, it knows how we’re going to feel later. I had to go in to therapy for that and deal with my relationship with my mom and realize that loving myself can feel uplifting and validating.

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Thank you to the commenter (you know who you are )

Indeed, we each have different inner landscapes and past influences (and traumas) that affect our behaviors, both compulsive and conscious ones, and part of our spiritual practice may be to unearth the past to unwind the influence it has on us... and to replace it with thoughts and actions that are better aligned with our path now.

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The previous video mentioned: https://youtu.be/znbg_MMzsxw