Elevate Your Life: Tackle Your Bad Habits
As painful as it is to admit, we often bring misery to ourselves.
How? Simply by having bad habits.
Addiction is just a word for strong habit energy. Habits are INCREDIBLY powerful. There is a frightening Buddhist picture of two ghosts dragging a man over a cliff edge. The ghosts are habit energy.
It’s said that if you are ill and go to a doctor, the doctor should ask,
“What can’t you give up?” And that will be exactly what you need to do to get well.
I’ve had some shocking habits. From drinking too much alcohol to overexercise to staying with bad guys. I still have some- like chewing gum- that I haven’t got in check.
What are your bad habits?
What can’t you give up?
Do you have habits that are bringing you pain or could do in the future?
One bad habit I see frequently is clients working very long hours and becoming burnt-out and lonely, with their only escape the gym. They often have symptoms like insomnia, chronic fatigue, cocaine-use and orthorexia (obsessional clean eating). I suggest considering being very firm about their hours with employers and then adding large amounts of socialisation and interaction into diaries. So dropping the gym for sports clubs (eg like a run club or climbing weekend), going on a date a week if single, interacting with three friends a week (even if by text) and meeting up one friend or joining some kind of social club every week, plus a business networking event if possible. This schedule is not easy and requires effort and planning, but it is very effective at breaking the habit of overwork/ exhaustion/ recovery/ loneliness. To support the schedule, I suggest having a massage every week and of course having your morning yoga practice.
Bad habits can spiral into addiction when combined with high stress. Yoga can really help you here. If you are sacked, it’s much easier to drink yourself into oblivion than to do your yoga and meditation. Yet yoga will help you manage stress and put you in a less emotional state of mind (stress makes the emotional centres of our brain overactive). It’s when we get very emotional, that we tend to start self-medicating.
If you need some community and accountability, I am fan of SMART Recovery. SMART offers free in-person and online meetings to help you recover from any addictive behaviour. It’s secular and non-dogmatic and free from the usual recovery jargon. I suggest those with a bad habit they want to break attend an in-person meeting every week. Most people end up really enjoying the meetings and finding connection with individuals they would never normally meet.
