What I Need (on two levels)

On one level, I feel I need sexual stimulation and gratification.  It's my 'go-to' way to self sooth and cope with pain and celebrate and fend off boredom (it's the answer to everything, really).  This supposed need isn't rewarding.  It doesn't delivery what it promises.  I think this is related to dopamine as I'm always chasing and wanting and only feel worse after receiving the fix on this level.  I'm drawn to it but ultimately left bereft.  It's shallow and selfish and it's causing harm to my oh-so-important lifelong marital relationship.  This need seems to run on autopilot.  It's always there and seems to have an endless fuel supply.

I have another need, that can operate at the same time, but on another level. It's a need for connecting and a need to give and love and experience real love.  This need is linked to the big picture and the long game.  I need to know I'm doing the right thing with my life.  I need to grow and improve and give.  I need to mature and develop.  I need to know that when we are intimate, that she's really there because she wants to be.  If we are together out of a sense of duty or if she's just trying to stave off my Baser Needs, my Egoic ID and animal needs, then the real me is left disappointed and unhappy.  This need seems to be related to seratonin as when I feel this quiet and subtle feeling, it's satisfying and there are no cravings related to it.

The only way I can experience authentic satisfaction is by engaging my mind and my heart and accepting that my monkey brain will have to be quieted and my Baser Needs can't be in the drivers' seat.  This means pain, this means discipline.  The problem is that I surface into this higher level of existence periodically.  But I live most of my life unable to tune out the thumping base of Need and screaming nerve endings of physical sexual desire.

I have to keep cultivating the Higher me.  I must keep learning about what my body is doing and I must keep handing over my 'needs' spiritually so I can keep on remembering what my autopilot keeps forgetting:  I am more than my subconscious pain and automatic urges.

I know why I am not good at handing pain from what Gabor Mate teaches.  I know why I am drawn to sexual stimulation.  But knowing isn't enough to overcome it.  I need to keep internalising and understanding while practicing handing it over. I need to wash my brain with the fact that I don't need what I keep hearing I want and need hundreds of times each day.  This obsession can ease and this compulsion can fade.