Roderick Lodewijks

Throughout my life my coping strategy was to be passive.

When I was 9 years old a slightly older neighbor boy wanted me to perform sexual activities on him and I simply couldn't say no. So I did it and unknowingly carried the shame with me.

In my teens I was heavily influenced by the sexual propaganda machine on television. Meanwhile I couldn't get any girls because of increasing insecurity.

So an addiction to lust manifested and was amplified when the internet and porn became a thing.

Also my relationship with food wasn't healthy. I ate too much and my food intake was centered around my cravings. So I gained a lot of weight.

As an empathic person I surrounded myself with 'the odd ones' at high school. I was an insecure big boy with a big heart and that was a good reason to get bullied.

When I was about 15 I started smoking cigarettes and weed came shortly after that when I went to school in Amsterdam. Especially the weed became my chosen flight from reality.

As an adult I realised that I had to change, but when I tried to quit smoking weed I started again. When I tried to maintain a workout regime I quit again. When I didn't approach a girl I berated myself for it. As a result I loathed myself for being fat, weak and insecure.. 

It's safe to say that I was dealing with a lot of self judgement. Even though I saw the problem I was unable to motivate my way through ending a destructive habit and create a constructive habit.

When I was 23 I had my first serious relationship. I put so much effort into it - "finally there's someone that really likes me!" - that I became depressed and I lost myself in it. We broke up when I was 27 and it really broke me into pieces.

I had to admit to myself that there was nothing to hold on to, that I just didn't know how to cope anymore. I lost my job, was living of government pay, lost my girlfriend and a lot of friends and I was blessed to be able to stay with my parents. But I had hit rock bottom. 

At that moment I felt like I was presented with a choice: break down destructively, or constructively. Was I going to dive deeper into numbing the pain away, or was I going to look the pain in the eyes and deal with it?

That was an important pivoting moment, because I realised there was nothing to do but surrender to the mental breakdown in stead of trying to plaster it with the usual addictive behaviours. So I stopped trying and let Mother Nature take over. I quit everything that was numbing me and allowed the shitty feeling to be there in all it's glory. I took all the therapeutic help I could get to break through the resistance and jumped straight into the pain. I spent months purging the pent up emotions. 

Even though the pain was unbearable, and it cut into my soul, I felt alive again for the first time in years. It showed me that we need to be willing to dive into our pain. Usually we need a breakdown to be able to do that.

The breakup jumpstarted my spiritual process. I am thankful to say that since that moment I have experienced a few more breakdowns so that Mother Nature could come in and do surgery on me. 

I have learned that she can heal us only when we step out of the way. And it takes time. Nature does not work like a pill, or like a magic wand. 

The process is dirty and ugly, but therefore it is lasting. When we cultivate the willingness to surrender to that uglyness we are setting the condition for grace to take place. 

I learned meditation through the Dhamma organisation in 2014. When I did my first ten-day silence retreat I realised how I was addicted to passion and started understanding the power of equanimity. 

By simply being with myself in many more retreats I have cut my addiction to smoking, food and have cultivated discipline. Not by will-power, but by an intrinsic motivation that is fueled by insight.

Meditation is the act of directing our attention to ourselves. We do the total opposite of what we do in daily life, where we are always influenced by the outside world. 

When we meditate it is the piercing attention itself that heals us. We don't  do it. Nature does it for us. Therefore it is learning the art of non-doing. 

Understanding on a deeper level how I was hurting myself made me see that I didn't know any other way. It opened up the door to forgiveness. In turn that deepened self-love and compassion towards all beings.