What we believe is our version of reality. It is not reality, and yet it is for us. False, yet true. Many of us live our whole lives not questioning this ‘reality’. It’s just part of our thought system therefore it is true.

I always come back to the concept of addiction here—addiction in general and today I’m going to pick on sugar in particular. By now we’ve all heard that sugar lights up your precortal blah blah blah just like cocaine. I don’t know how cocaine does it, but I’m intimately aware of sugar’s insidious hold. And here’s the thing. It doesn’t even feel good, although maybe it did back in the early days. It’s simply the new normal and you feel pretty blah without it.

But stop right there. That is the thought commanding the addiction. If I were out in the desert and could not get hold of sugar, I would live without it. My body would habituate to a new norm, just like it has done in the past.

The problem with sugar is that you can slip lollies into your mouth all day without the world really noticing, so it can become a silent but powerful monster. The sugar fix is not as obvious as chainsmoking or drinking to excess (apart from all the weight around your middle and the tendency towards diabetes).

Now, consider this. If I didn’t think the thought that I wanted a sweetie every five minutes, I would probably be free of the whole circus pretty quickly. Perhaps I would be uncomfortable as my body coped with the change. It might take three days of occasional discomfort. It might take three weeks. The point is that none of that would kill me.

With anything else I’ve ever tried ‘giving up’, I’ve always succeeded more easily with a substitute. With sugar, the substitute is worse for you than the sugar, but perhaps for just a little while that is okay. Of course, you don’t need a substitute. Not having something any more is easy. You simply withdraw yourself from it. But after so many years of being conditioned to think a certain way it is always easier to follow the rut that thinking the same way has worn in our brains. This-synapse-automatically-fires-that-one type of thing. I think that’s why I find substitution so successful. Give up the addiction while keeping the habit. Reaching for something automatically doesn’t derail the whole process.

But in the end we do not need to think any of these thoughts. They will just go away by themselves once we have really studied them to see what they are and how they work. Our thoughts limit us. They can keep us slaves. But one day they can simply disappear. And on that day, we will be free from all addictions.

Today was one of those mornings that started tentatively. We rose in the dark, as we have been doing lately. Hello, crisp autumn weather. It has been autumn for nearly two months but today really felt like the season had finally arrived. Frost had settled on the tops of our vehicles but hadn’t made it to the ground, where dew drenched the still-green grass. The sun, when it came, seemed reluctant. No clear sunrise this morning. Obscured by mist, the sun was a refracted blur of silver whiteness, its golden arms bleached to monochrome light.

The horse was early for his morning hay and his breath was visible as steamy warmth. He would have looked warhorse-like except that his round pony shape doesn’t lend itself to such whimsical  flights of fancy. I savoured the picture he made. His head was backlit and his pricked ears were drawn sharply against the ghostly background.

An hour later, it all looked quite different. The mist had burned off. The horse had wandered away. The business of the day had begun.

The point of this, for me, is that even a morning that looks reluctant to start still goes through the motions and manages to rev up some hours later as a beautiful autumn day. I must do the same. I must begin the first major task of the day and work methodically through the list of jobs so that by nightfall all is accomplished. When I become distracted by minutiae, I will bring myself gently back to the task at hand. My head will clear. I will become focussed and attentive. No matter how slowly I start, I can make this a good day.

I know I’ve said this before, but in my opinion mindset is even more important than having a great deal of knowledge. When you have the right mindset, everything’s easier. You’re not fighting with yourself. Decisions have more glue.

Without having the right mindset and exercising it, I can spend all day eating chocolate at my computer and reading other people’s information about diet, health, a good life. I can get steadily fatter and unhealthier while reading the best information in the world. So knowledge is only power when it’s acted on in the right way. You can have all the best information of the day at your fingertips but if you don’t use that knowledge, put it into practice—live it, it’s worth very little.

Putting anything into practice can have its difficulties. But one day when you wake up with even an inkling of the right mindset, put aside everything you possibly can and work with that little gem. Its value is above rubies!

Yesterday I woke up with that inkling. As gemstones go, it was a fairly small ruby … but it was there, glinting in the darkness. I made cheese/ham and salad sandwiches and packed fruit and biscuits for the one who has to be at work by 6.30am and while the salad container was out I made two plates of salad for the two of us who eat lunch at home. While I was in the kitchen—and before doing anything else with my day—I cooked up mince in the frying pan with a little tomato paste and poached a big chicken breast. I took a pear and a banana in with me to my office and made a solemn promise I wouldn’t eat any chocolate that morning. Don’t laugh. I often have chocolate for breakfast. While in the kitchen I had made a fruit and spinach smoothie with some extra goodies in it so I  had that for breakfast while sitting at my desk. This is never enough for me (hence the huge blocks of chocolate lurking in the office) so I had the banana as well. For morning tea I toasted a piece of essene bread instead of chocolate or biscuits. Later in the day after a lunch of salad with a sprinkling of poached chicken, I had a small apple instead of chocolate.  And then I ate some chocolate. But at least I’d stemmed the chocolate tide a little by doing without it in the morning. My eating choices were pretty good apart from the chocolate (still a lot by other people’s standards, but good for me), a glass of non-alcoholic wine and a hot chocolate drink at bedtime.

Bugger perfect. Better is what I’m looking for. And having easy choices for ‘better’ is a great way to go. If you have your healthy options made, or at least started, it seems much easier to follow through. But I could just as easily just toddled back to bed for that hour I spent in the kitchen and let my little ruby sink into oblivion. It was only a tiny feeling, after all. How much good could it possibly do? I could have had that fleeting feeling and ignored it because chocolate is a lot easier to eat than the healthy options I did manage to include.

These ruby experiences can start out as just moments, but they have a certain energy that can help carry you through times when your negativity or cravings usually win out. When you find a little ruby, use it. Polish it, admire it, stroke it. Do whatever you can to keep it right in front of you so it can help you to make some of the best decisions of your life … and carry them through.