Thursday, July 11, 2024

Fighting Your Demons

FIGHTING

In your transition phase from an adolescent into adult , you may face many challenges that you must fight with your heart and all your strength.

DEMONS  

Demons are your delusions and hallucinations in seeing images and hearing voices that are “real” to you. You not only hear and see, but also feel their presence because they are real to you. Your demons might be caused by lack of sleep, overuse of drugs, and daily stress. Demons are just not your “conscious realities.”

David Cassidy, a famous American actor, singer, songwriter, and guitarist, had experienced his demons throughout his successful careers. He had his demon of being a loner and in isolation: his fans, mostly girls in their teens, screamed and chased after him wherever he went; so, he had to stay indoor most of the time when he was not performing. Another of David Cassidy’s demon was his failed relationship with his father, Jack Cassidy, also an actor and a singer, who abused and neglected David when he was young. David Cassidy’s fame and success only worsened his relationship with his father who was jealous of his son’s success. The demons tied David Cassidy to his bondage of alcoholism for several decades. In February 2017, David Cassidy collapsed during his performance onstage, and died of organ failure related to his alcoholism at the age of 67. David Cassidy’s last words were “so much wasted time”: indeed, his demons had wasted so much of his time, instead of enjoying the success of his life.

Freedom

Hallucinations are parts of your life that you do not like and reject, but do not want to acknowledge. So, do not fight or push away your demons; simply accept their presence. Continue your everyday life and living, while overcoming all your addictions and addictive behaviors. Over time, your demons will go away and disappear from your life.

Bondage

The shackles of bondage to demons are fear and guilt—fear may cause selfish and irrational actions, while guilt may bring remorse and depression. In addition, demons make you continue to starve for affection and attention, turning you into a loner.

The only way out of the bondage of demons is, surprisingly, befriending your demons—which is recognizing and acknowledging their existence, embracing them as a part of yourself, but without agreeing or indulging in their presence. Just like an alcoholic: fighting against the presence of alcohol, denying yourself being an alcoholic, hating yourself as an alcoholic, while continuing to indulge in alcohol will not work.

 DOUBTS

In the transition phase, many teens may begin to be aware of a conscience that tells them what is right and wrong. Hiding the presence of the dark side of life and not sharing it with others only creates the doubts whether others are doing the same.

They may begin to tell lies about things happening in their lives, and they doubt if others are also doing the same. Doubts make them less confident about themselves, depriving them of self-belief, which is self-efficacy. For example, a teen may turn away from an Advanced Placement Class in high school simply because of the comments and judgments of other teens about the difficulties of that class.

Freedom

You have the freedom to trust yourself and others, instead of lying and not telling the truth about anything and everything in your life.

Yes, others may distort and lie about your truths, and use them for their own selfish purposes. But give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, in real life, there are many things that are beyond your control. So, at least try to control your doubt of self and of others.

Without self-belief, it is difficult to accomplish anything in life. To strengthen your self-belief, do not compare yourself with others; or worse, with your own past. Always focus on your strengths, your goals, and values, but not on your weaknesses. Stop being a hard critic of yourself.

Bondage

Doubting others is your stress response, preparing you for the stress ahead, that is, others not telling you the truths. Stress is the prelude to anxiety, fear, and worry—all the emotions of depression.

You cannot change the behaviors of others, let alone their thinking minds of doubts and not telling the truths. But changing yourself, that is, not doubting others, may induce them to follow suit. This may be your way out of your own bondage to doubts.

SLOTH

Sloth is laziness, which is a mental struggle that some teens may experience as they grow up in their transition phase. Sloth can be habit-forming in not doing daily things they are supposed to do, such as studying and doing schoolwork, and helping the family.

Sloth is due to many factors: anxiety, fear, and worry about the consequences of the doing; not having adequate sleep; not knowing how to manage time; seeing a meaningless life ahead without a purpose.

Freedom

As a parent, set a plan of freedom for your children—a plan to do certain daily chores in the family. Teach your children their responsibility commitment, as well as their life goals and values, such as helping others and being compassionate. Also, limit their screen time on their electronic devices.

As a teenager, practice certain daily routines, such as exercising and walking.

Bondage

Living is about doing certain things in everyday life and living. So, non-doing is the leading cause of many health and social problems as you progress into the consolidation phase of your life.

So, to free yourself from the bondage of sloth, your recognition and compliance to the need of doing is the only way to go.

 The bottom line: As you grow up into a teenager and then an adult, there are many things you have the "freedom" to fight against. Not fighting them will give you bondage that takes away your freedom of choice for the rest of your life.

FREEDOM with BONDAGE shows you how to free yourself from your bondage to the flesh that gives you the "freedom" to make the wrong choices and decisions in your everyday life.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

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