3 Strategies for Kicking the (Harmful) Habit

Have you ever felt you would like things to be different in your life?  Maybe you are tired of feeling stuck in a rut or stuck in a pattern of disharmony.  You are ready for change. Well in order to facilitate that change you need to make room in your life and mind for something new to be planted.  The three biggest things one can change to prepare for the new are harmful habitual mindsets, harmful habitual actions and harmful habitual words.  These three habit types can greatly limit the potential catalytic force of new empowering thought and strategies for change.

1. Harmful Habitual Mindsets:  What are harmful habitual mindsets?  Well, let me use a personal anecdote as an example.  I used to always have the emotion of anger be my default setting when things didn’t go my way.  There was no room for anything else. No room for understanding. No room for patience. No room for asking myself why this might not be going my way.  No room for other potential possibilities of thought or action. Then I was exposed to a Vipassana meditation technique in which one of its main premises is you can be exposed to stimuli and choose to react or not.  You can even choose a different way of experiencing a stimulus. With some practice I was able to shift away from anger being my default mindset when things didn’t go my way. It was quite liberating to discover I could break a habitual mindset and change it to something new.  Whatever mindset that you tend to wallow in or that lowers your vibration is a mindset that can be changed. Know this!    
   
   (Journaling activity: Take a moment to become aware of habitual mindsets you have which make you feel less than optimal. List five of them you would like to work on and get to it. )

2. Harmful Habitual Actions:  What are harmful habitual actions?  Well, maybe when you are sad you eat ice cream or chocolate.  Maybe when you are stressed you drink wine. Maybe when you are angry you lash out at loved ones. Or maybe when you are lonely you make poor decisions in intimacy.  We are creatures of habit. We tend to do things the way we have always done them. There is energy and force in habit. Resistance is experienced in attempting to do anything in a new way.  Even if there is a better way of being, doing and acting we generally stick to the way we know. This is the case across the board. In communication, in diet, in exercise, in sleep patterns, in the shows and movies we watch, and in the books we choose to read.  Our day to day lives are filled with habitual actions. 
   
   (Journaling activity: Take a moment to become aware of at least five actions you tend to take that are reactionary to a certain stimulus or actions you take that just generally make you feel less than optimal.  List them and next time choose differently. Again and again. See what happens.)

3. Harmful Habitual Words:  Habitual self-sabotage is not only found in mindsets and actions, but also in speech.  In the words we choose to communicate to self and others we are creating our foundation for the experiences and the relationships we draw into our lives.  It is important to become vigilant in monitoring the words we speak aloud and the words we think in our minds. Are there a lot of “shoulds” in your communication?  “I should really go to the gym.” “I should really do yoga.” “I should really change my diet.” Etc. “Shoulds” are not helpful. They lower your vibration. Either do or do not.  Try to avoid speaking “should”. Other vibration lowering words include…but, can’t, I don’t know, curse words, etc. Closely monitor your thoughts and speech for a few days and see how often these words come up in your speech.  
   
   (Journaling activity: Make a list of those words that come up with regularity for you in communication.  Become aware and make a change.)

It takes strong will power and persistence to replace an old habit with a new one.  Most of us don’t even bother until we bump up against something that makes us very uncomfortable.  Often times one’s diminishing health will be a wake-up call. Or maybe you have gained some weight and don’t look and feel comfortable in your own skin anymore.  Maybe you hit rock bottom with relationships and realize you keep cycling through the same disharmonious relationships over and over. The other person looks different but the themes and interactions are the same.  You say, “Enough all ready.” The level of discomfort reaches a level in which your will now has significant force. You are pushed internally to make some changes.

What if I told you that you have the ability to make changes right now without waiting for life to uncomfortably push you into making a different choice?   

Sustained consistency is the key.  There is a hurdle to jump in the beginning for sure.  You need to put some effort forth to overcome the natural resistance within, but as you do it more and more you build that force I spoke of earlier.  Then each time you choose the new habit you are creating it takes less and less effort to make it so. Eventually it becomes the new (consciously chosen) habit.  Other options no longer hold the same appeal. You have shifted your center. You have changed an aspect of self! 

The Fickle practitioner… who likes to do all the techniques… all at the same time

This topic has been part of a conversation that started in my house since I came up with the idea for this series. Both of us are dedicated meditation practitioners. Both of us started our meditation journeys in very different ways. And both of us are evolving in different ways but with common themes. So we have some varying opinions and thoughts to consider here. I'll be giving all of it to you here.....

The topic of technique is a little more difficult in that there are MANY techniques that will bring about the myriad of health benefits as well as results of quieting the mind and bringing peace. I’m not going to tell you what technique to go for. I believe it’s best if you select the technique that resonates the most with you (not because it resonates with your friend or partner). This means that you might need to do some research to find what suits you and what feels “right” for you.  The benefit of taking this time at the start is that you will be more prone to stick with it because it was selected consciously to align to your own needs and desires.

Why is that important?  Well, it will take time for you to become proficient with the technique and therefore it will take time for it to have the result that you desire. We talked about consistency last week, here, and consistency in practicing a technique is also important.

This is where I'd like to present some different perspectives. You can try these thoughts on and see how they feel. 

Casey just read a book by Osho, wherein Osho says to try each of the meditation practices in the book for three consecutive days. The belief here is that, if it’s the right one for you, if you are truly dedicated in the practice for three days, you’ll make a good amount of progress within only three days. On the other hand, if it’s not for you, you won’t and you’ll move on.

If you know who Osho is, you’ll understand why I feel very reluctant to go against his thoughts on that. And I do understand it intuitively. If the energy of the practice is an energetic fit for you, you’ll know it and it will have an impact. In three days.

However, I do want to point out that Casey has been practicing Goenka Vipassana for many years. His set point going into trying a new technique every three days is different from the set point of someone new to meditation entirely. And this is what I want to point out here.

Finding a technique that resonates and that can become the backbone of your meditation practice is important. In my opinion, once you are proficient in a technique, it becomes easier to try others and achieve results.

Why do I think this?

For most of us, accessing the realms of consciousness that are accessed via meditation is not part of our lives UNTIL we begin to meditate. It takes a certain level of proficiency and achievement in your meditation practice to get to the point that you are doing so on a consistent basis. This, again, in my opinion, is where we begin to access the tremendous benefits from a mind, body, spirit perspective of meditation. This is when we arise from our cushion feeling calmer, more centered, alert, and tapped in.

So, without an existing practice and existing proficiency in a technique, I believe that jumping from technique to technique is going to prolong this even further. If you have a specific goal or desired outcome of your practice, this could be detrimental.

The best way to master a technique is to make a commitment to yourself and work daily to master it. If you’ve already started your practice, you know that it is definitely a commitment. And mostly, the reason I see for people breaking their commitment is not seeing progress or feeling that they aren’t doing it right (I touched on this in the first post, here).

For those of you who have an on-again off-again relationship with meditation, next week we’ll talk about bringing Compassion into your practice, and why it’s a game changer. You might decide afterward to be on-again.

As I wrote this post, I realized that there are a couple of topics I haven’t really hit yet. So lucky us! There will be two bonus blog posts in this series:

• What about Guided Meditations?
• Why all the talk about meditation in the first place?!

Missed a post in this series? Check out the below links: 

• Misperceptions about Taming the Wild Mind Through Meditation
• Why "I meditate once or twice a month" doesn't cut it

Until next week, Happy Sitting!

Why “I meditate consistently once or twice a month” doesn’t cut it

A lot of my friends are runners. They are dedicated to the practice (although I’m not sure that’s the right term here) of running with consistency, commitment and dedication. If they don’t run with disciplined consistency, they find that their endurance has decreased, their timing is off, and they have lost some of the gain (or momentum) that consistency brings.

I’m here to tell you that meditation is the same.

If I run once or twice a month, it is not reasonable for me to believe that I will have made any change in my ability to run further at a faster rate of speed. In the same way, if you are meditating once or twice a month (or once or twice a week), it is unreasonable to believe that you are gaining focus and endurance in your meditation practice. It might provide some calm in that moment, but the long-term benefits of the practice are not being cultivated to the fullest extent possible. Just like with running.

These are, of course, generalizations. It may be possible for someone to meditate infrequently and still make great strides in their practice. I just don’t happen to know anyone like that.

So, what does consistency mean in the meditation world?

Consistency in your meditation practice brings together frequency of practice with time and location of practice (at a minimum). It can also include technique, but that’s next week’s blog post topic. We’re going to discuss each of these in a bit more detail.

Frequency of practice is one thing that people tell me holds them back. I recommend a daily practice, and I’m frequently told that it’s just hard to find the time. To that, I call bullsh!t. I know…  I said it and I don’t frequently cuss.

If you can find time to watch TV, have a glass of wine, read a chapter of a book (or five), or any number of other “wind-down” activities, you can find five minutes to meditate. That’s right, just five minutes. You cannot tell me that you can’t consistently find five minutes.

People think it takes more than that, and ultimately, maybe it does, but that is entirely up to you. Furthermore, that is a decision that is not made when you are starting, it’s made when five minutes seems to go by too quickly. Or better yet, when consistently (there’s that word again), you find that you open your eyes naturally after 10 or 15 minutes have passed.

Given that, we are talking about finding five minutes each day to meditate…  at close to the same time each day (or same “time of day each day”). This is the next consistency key. The last one is, in a dedicated place.

Why are these two things important?

I’m going with a food analogy now. Have you ever noticed that after a few days of being off your normal eating schedule, you begin to crave your meal or snack on that new schedule? Maybe you’re at a conference or traveling and you begin your day eating breakfast an hour and a half earlier than you do at home. After four days, you return home and you wake up ravenous an hour and half earlier than you would normally eat. This literally happens to me every time I travel.

My body has become accustomed to eating on that new schedule. And in the same way, with consistency of practice at a particular time, your body, mind, and spirit will begin to crave meditation at your scheduled time. How does that benefit you? Well, for one thing, when your body, mind, and spirit are craving it… that means one battle is solved and all parts of you are in agreement on what time it is…  it’s time to meditate!

That is NOT what we typically experience to begin a practice, when parts of ourselves are fighting us, thinking that there are 79 items on the to-do list that take priority over our meditation practice. I know some of you experience this, so what if all it takes is discipline and consistency to jump that one hurdle? There are others behind it, I know, but what if we could jump that ONE. I call that victory.

As a side note on scheduling time at the same time of day every day: I am not saying you schedule yourself to meditate at 7:13pm or 6:32am every day. What I am saying is that “just before bedtime” or “upon waking” you meditate. This leaves room for dinner dates, sleeping in on the weekends, watching a movie, running a late errand, and any number of other things that are going to come up at 7:13pm or 6:32am. It leaves wiggle room for you to live your life and at the same time, make a commitment to a meditation practice that will bring you countless long-term benefits.  

This does bring us to our last item; location. Now, I’ll preface this with the fact that I am an energy person. And what I mean by that is that I feel energetic patterns, frequencies, shifts, etc. So this one is big for me, but you may find that you can take it or leave it.

Meditating in a dedicated place each time creates a ritual, or a routine for those who prefer that word. It sets the energetic tone of calm, tranquility, and quiet in this location which over time creates a similar energetic impact as the consistent time, just on a more subtle level. Some of you will feel the accumulation of energy on your cushion (or chair) and it will be welcoming.

My normal recommendations are to make this space welcoming, make it beautiful, make it sing to your senses. It does not need to be a room…  mine is a spot on the floor by my side of the bed for my nightly practice with a beautiful henna painting above it. I use a chair downstairs for my morning practice. The chair is not “dedicated” only for meditation – but it is mostly “my” chair and it’s in a room without a TV (but I’m sitting on it with my laptop to write this).

Above all else, it’s important to keep your meditation space clean yet comfortable. If you have a lot of clutter in this area, you’ll have to jump the hurdle of picking it up before you can meditate. We don’t want that…   you already have plenty of other excuses keeping you from practice…   why add one more!?

Consistency in your practice builds the “muscles” of meditation, creates endurance for those who want to stretch themselves past a 5-minute meditation, and ingrains routine that will help keep you coming back to the cushion. The benefits are countless, including lower stress levels, increased personal and interpersonal awareness, and calmer demeanors. For those of you interested in more medical benefits: lowering blood pressure and improved immune response are among the benefits too.

Next week we will hit the topic of The Fickle practitioner…   who likes to do all the techniques…  all at the same time.

After that, The Game Changer…  cultivating compassion within your practice, no matter what it brings.

If you’re enjoying this series, which started with Misperceptions about Taming the Wild Mind through Meditation, have feedback or a question, please feel free to send me a message.

Until next week, Happy Sitting.