As I shared yesterday, I used booze to tap out, to anesthetize me to the pain of my own doubt. When the pain came, I drank. But breaking the bottle didn’t wake me forever. In fact, there are days I’m still prone to use pleasure to avoid pain. Even in these years some would call “sober,” when the stresses and pains of life come calling, I’m prone to chase appetites that lull me to sleep. (Remember our Snow White example?) What are those appetites:

Sex (as much as the confines of holy matrimony will allow);
Chocolate, cereal, or cinnamon rolls (the holy trinity of comfort foods);
Book buying (fiction, nonfiction, history, vampire romance, whatever);
The work, work, work (or perhaps it’s money, money, money).

We all have our own hierarchy of desires, the material, actions, or habits we tend to use in times of stress. And like booze, these materials, actions, and habits (the “Stuff of Earth”) as songwriter Rich Mullins once called them) are not evil in and of themselves. The Stuff of Earth has a specific purpose, one I discuss in The Book of Waking Up.

Today, ask yourself a few waking questions:

What materials, actions, and habits have I turned into a vice?

What Stuff of Earth do I use to avoid stress or pain?

What is that underlying pain?

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Wake Up?

My next book, The Book of Waking Up: Experiencing the Divine Love that Reorders a Life* is available for pre-order NOW. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble) Pre-orders are vital to the success of a book, so please do not wait. Order today. And if you do, let me know via email. I’ll send you a sample along with the 3-part video series that gave rise to this book!

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