Attachment to Augmented "Reality"

This morning I woke up believing that I had condemned one of my closest friends.

Before I tell you why I woke up with that belief let me give you a little history...

My first exposure to online gaming was in 1997 when I was 16. A boyfriend introduced me to the mysterious world of MUDs (Multi User Dungeon) a text based multi player real-time virtual world. I created my first character, Misty, a vampire and started exploring the virtual world and I was hooked.

This was back in the day of 56K dial-up when it was necessary to have a free phone line to connect. Thinking back now I can remember the despair and anger I would experience when there was an issue with the ISP and I couldn't connect.  The frustration and anger that I had to spend more time in this world as opposed the world where my friends were and I felt safe.

In that online world I knew a few people IRL (In Real Life) and I met many more over the next few years both in person and over the phone. Looking back now I know that I probably didn't make the safest choices.

After the boyfriend who introduce me to the game broke up with me I was devastated, I couldn't leave the virtual world that I loved, I couldn't leave the guild that I cared about but I was crushed. So I created a new character, Ayn, a polymorph and made a whole new set of friends.

Fast forward a few years and I'm in college. As an computer science major I spent a lot of time on my computer and a lot of time online (I finally had a high speed internet connection!). I started joining online communities and when prompted for a user name I started using the handle Mistyayn from my early gaming days.

Mistyayn became my alter ego. Over the years I've imagined her as different aspects of me. Sometimes she was a renaissance girl in elegant dress, sometimes she was an undead warlock and sometimes she was Tomb Raider, but at heart she was always me.

Four years ago Mistyayn joined me again on another adventure this time into the real world. Ingress was the worlds first global mobile geo MMO.  A role playing game that actually required you be out in the real world where you met people face to face while playing the game not just IRL.  It was the first time that I could be Mistyayn and Kira at the same time with other people. It was intoxicating.  In those early days I wanted the whole world to know what it was like to mix games and the real world and what a difference it could mean for so many people.

Mixing the game world and the real world can be amazing but it can also cause problems. In the early days of Ingress the locations to play were few and far between so often it required driving. Unwisely many of us in those early days got in the bad habit of driving while playing. This eventually led to me causing an accident when I rear-ended someone while playing. After the accident and a few other things I uninstalled Ingress and for the most part walked away only logging in on occasion to see what was happening.

There are a lot of stories I have to share about Ingress and the resulting spiritual and emotional journey that it has led me down, but there's a lot to that so I'll leave that for another day.

On July 6th 2016 the creators of Ingress, Niantic, released a new game Pokemon Go. All of a sudden the whole world knew what a global mobile geo MMO was and everyone was playing. At first I tried to resist the temptation to play Pokemon but I quickly abandoned that idea and once again Mistyayn joined me on an adventure in the real world.  I created my avatar and once again Mistyayn was given a life of her own and she even had purple hair!

Over the last couple of weeks we've leveled up to 16 and caught not quite 1/2 of the Pokemon available. But again the appeal of the virtual world and blending with Mistyayn has led to unwise actions. I would pull out my phone and start playing even when I didn't want to. The fear that I would miss out on a pokemon or that I had to level faster than the people I knew playing the game drove me to play the game when I was around people who were not playing and who had no interest. Once again I wanted to be absorbed into the virtual world and forget about reality. And yet again I found myself driving while playing, even though as I did it part of me berated me for being so irresponsible.

Last night when I got home from work I found myself out walking with my phone in my hand.  Catching pokemon and taking over Gym's I wasn't having fun. I was doing it because I felt driven to do it, driven to get one more, compelled to reach that Gym and take it over.  After 45 minutes I was back home and felt that empty feeling that I get after playing. That feeling that those things that I was compulsively catching in an attempt to fill the void inside once again disappointed me and were nothing more than an empty nothing.

After feeling that feeling of emptiness once again I thought that I might as well walk away from the game. But I know that doesn't work, I've un-installed and re-installed Pokemon a few times since it came out and the craving to Catch them All! is incredibly strong and I log in again.

So last night I decided that I was going to delete my Pokemon account.  I pulled up the request to cancel form and I filled it out.  I set my phone down and started writing in my journal thinking I'll give it some time.  After a few minutes I unlocked my phone and hit submit to cancel. At first I thought, I've done the right thing, this is what I need this is what will complete me if I can no longer log in to Pokemon.

Since walking away from Ingress I have gotten involved in Recovery.  If you're not familiar with recovery, is a term used to describe healing from addiction of any type.  The actual definition is; a return to a normal state of health, mind or strength. There's so much too it but the simplest way to explain it is to say that its a lifetime spiritual journey to help learn to live with and fill from the inside that hole that drives a person to excess, whether that excess is food, drugs, sex, virtual games, work, exercise, anything that is done to excess.

Back to last night, I submitted the form to delete my account and I went to a recovery meeting. We talked about prayer and meditation and I talked to some friends in recover who are playing Pokemon about the fact that I delete my account and that it was the best thing for me to do because I know where these games have led. I felt good about my decision.

On my drive home I realized that the one thing I had not factored into my decision was the fact that I was asking Niantic to delete Mistyayn. Intellectually I know that she isn't a real person she's just 0s and 1s and lines in a database. Intellectually I know that I'm attached to something that isn't real. But I've learned enough about neuroscience and attachment to know that my emotional sub-conscious doesn't listen to my rational mind. When I contemplated the reality that Mistyayn would no longer exist in the Pokemon universe, that I had condemned her to be deleted I felt that giant hole in my heart open in a way that I can only equate to loosing animals and people that are dear to me.

When I got home I talked to my Dad about the feelings of loss and my emotional mind was in a tail spin that rivaled the tail spin I felt when I thought my husband and I were going to get a divorce. I wanted to do anything I could to save Mistyayn. That emotional part of me thought I had made a huge mistake and was going into panic mode.

I've done enough work in the last few years meditation and mindfulness that I could stay calm enough to fall asleep, but when I woke up that ache in my heart was still there.  That feeling is so scary that I frantically tried to think of a way to "rescue" Mistyayn from the fate of being deleted just like Bing Bong in Inside Out. All mindfulness was out the window, no feeling my feelings, that panic feeling that I had killed my friend no matter how irrational it sounded had taken over.  I reached out to someone to see if they had any ideas and then I started checking my email.  When I check my email I saw an email from Niantic about Pokemon I opened it up and it was a confirmation email. Mistyayn would not be deleted unless I confirmed that email.

In an instant the feeling of panic was gone. But I was left with memory of that feeling and what it meant.

Recovery is a lifetime process, ultimately it's about learning about attachments and our subconscious fears that drive us to do the things we do. The last 24 hours have given me a lot to contemplate about what it means to be attached and the attachments I have to my virtual property and my virtual identity.

Some people reading this may find that it's silly. How could someone be attached to a character in a game.  And my answer is the same reason that someone can be attached to a collection, to a home, to a sports team, to a celebrity, to a house, to an animal to the people we love. As human's we are looking for meaning and belonging any where we can find it.  At an early age I found that looking to people for safety and security and belonging was scary. But the bits and the pixels have always been safe, they have always been my friend and they have established themselves and reliable sources to turn to when things hurt. So I turn to them.

Yes. I did equate deleting a character to killing a friend and that's something I'm going to be meditating about and using as an opportunity to learn more about myself and why I have the fears and beliefs that I do and I am grateful for what I have learned and grateful that recovery is a life time process and I don't have to give up all my attachments today.

Letting the loving Parent have a voice

In ACA there is a concept of an inner loving parent.  The idea of allowing that inner loving parent to have a say was scary.  Actually that wasn't so scary but was scary was not listening to the inner critical parent.  The critical parent is the one that drove me to do all the things that helped me survive. Of course the "survival" also meant pushing myself to extremes in work, studies, exercise and many other areas of life.

When I finally stopped listening to the critical parent and started listening to the inner children and loving parent there was part of of me that was terrified.  I was terrified that I was going to turn into a lazy slob that I would never have any ambition and I would end up living in my car.

So far none of that has happened.  What does happen is that I feel a lot more internal peace and I get to be gentle with myself.  I'm no longer driven to be the high powered person I thought I was supposed to be.  I am no longer driven to push myself to run 5 miles a day.  I don't actually work very hard at things right now.  I know that this is a phase and that nothing is permanent and I'm starting to see a little bit more pushing.  But it's still gentle and it's with internal trust.

One thing that helped me to trust and let go was remembering that sometimes there are extreme swings in order to find equilibrium.  Sometimes it takes going from one extreme to the other to figure out where the middle is and to find balance.

Writing this blog is a balance.  My inner child really wants to finish watching the Matrix.  But I've learned that when I put off until tomorrow an idea that I want to write about then the idea doesn't go anywhere. So, I'm writing this post quickly because I made a deal with my inner child that we would watch the rest of the movie tonight.  It's not perfect it's actually written quite quickly and probably has a lot of mistakes but I know that I'm at least getting something across and that's what I want to do.

Releasing emotional pain from the physical body

If someone had told me 3 years ago that I would be dealing with physical pain through meditation I probably would have thought that they were crazy.  Today I know without a doubt that a lot of the emotional pain I've experience in my life is stored in my body and through meditation and conscious awareness I am able to release that pain.

This is an ongoing process I have pain in my lower back that seems like a never ending fountain of pain that get's released.

Last night I listened to a 10 minute mindfulness of change meditation which got me focused on my breath and noticing the changes in the sensation of breathing.  Earlier in the evening I had been reading Burning Desire a 12 step and Buddhism book. The section of the book I was reading talked about observing pain instead of trying to push it away.

So with my mindfulness of change and aware of pushing away my pain I looked to my lower back. After first I could feel my instinctual feeling to pull away or push away the pain and run away from it. After noticing the habitual pattern of recoiling from the pain I breathed into it and the pain no longer felt painful and so for a few moments I just observed the sensation.

As is normally the case when I am able to observe pain without resistance it started to move.  The pain moved it's way up my back at times it would pause and the strong instinct to push it away would kick in and then it would get painful again.  After relaxing into the pain again it would move.

When the sensation reached my shoulders it started to feel extremely uncomfortable.  It wasn't painful but it was the sensation that I needed to move.  The agitated feeling in body almost felt overwhelming and I really wanted to move.  But with patience and gentleness I reminded myself of impermanence and this too shall pass and I attempted to relax into the sensation.

Eventually the agitation passed and the feeling moved into my face.  When the sensation moves into my face I've noticed that part of me has a tendency to get impatient and want to rush the process because it knows what's coming.  But when I rush the feeling dissipates and the opportunity to release is let go.

When the release finally came it was tears and silence screams.  This might sound awful but the reality is that it is very cathartic.  Only one word came into my head as I cried and silently screamed and let my feelings be that word was 'Mommy'. I don't know what that means but I know now that I get to be mommy to the various little scared parts of me.

Getting to the point of being able to process emotional pain in my physical body did not happen overnight.  This is a process that has taken time and it takes a lot of patience and self-love.  I wish anyone who finds this blessings on their journey and feel free to contact me if you have questions.  I may or may not be able to answer them but I will try.