Replacing bad habits with better habits and turning the process into an empowering personal growth

Funny! I started to write my article and suddenly, it was my “7:00 o’clock wine glass ceremony of ending the working day”.

This is my habit every night. Just like Pavlov’s dog’s Conditioning:, “gling gling gling” Ihave my one wine glass ceremony and I turn off my computer.

Yet, this night I was so motivated/passionate to write this article, so you are finding me here writing you about: “Replacing bad habits with better habits and turning the process into an empowering personal growth”, after my glass of wine:)

What is a “bad habit”? You may say it depends on culture, values, and social norms. Yet, ifyou look for the broadest cross culture /society definition, which also includes health aspects, I hope you would agree to the essence of the following content:

 A  “bad habit”, is  an out of control set of actions and automatic behavior, that leads to negative reaction by the people interacting with that person at “that state”, and /or creates accumulated negative health physical / psychological /social impact on the person him/herself.

Let’s observe this definition taking in mind, some examples:

Anger blowup:  we all may have “short fuse” sometimes. It  happens, when we can’t stand the situation we are in, we feel unfairness, or we feel someone deliberately is trying to hurt us for no justified reason. We shout, curse, and even find ourselves throwing something to make our point. Ifthis is a one-time situation, we can forgive ourselves and the social circles we are part of may view us as troublemakers, but forgive us.

However,if we violently hurt someone as part of the anger scene, it may turn to be an alert sign with consequences. If this reaction happens more than once, we maybe tagged by other as “ s/he has anger issues, watch out” If it happens in our work place or relate to our workplace, we may be laid off or punished.  If it happens more than once, – we may embarrass our close family and our romantic partner may even decide to separate.

 Obesity:

We may be great employees, positive family members, and community contributors, yet when lunch time arrives, we turn to be silent beasts. We eat the most unbalanced fatty/ high carbohydrates meal that adds few inches to our belly (and other body parts) every day.

When our weight pass the average profile of a regular “fat guy,” people may start gossiping and our employer or we will be required to pays more for our health insurance. We will set a bad example to our children and health issue such as heart attack or diabetes is often part of this scenario.

Computer/smartphone freaks:

Did you watch the line of people standing at 4:00 am waiting for an apple store to open to sell their new iPhone version?

Observe people from an anthropological perspective. Some of us, view the world through the prism of their smart phone: selfie, Whats- up, emails, social networks. You can seea family going out for dinner, and everyone is busy with his/her mobile toy. This device gets into our bed at night and takes the attention of our loved one.

Is this a bad habit? – view the definition/description above and decide for yourself.

Last but not least, marijuana:

Let’s say you live in Washington or Colorado, how do you integrative marijuana in your daily routine?

 Do you smoke occasionally to relax? Does it have accumulated negative effect on you? Do attentiveness and your senses lose their sharpness? Do you get nervous, stressed, and angry when you don’t have “thesmoke of the day quota”?

Bad habits are alerting signs when they cause accumulated negative health effects on us, and when people we value, distant from us as result of our behavior.

The problem with habits is that they become automatic programmed set of responses. Weare enslaved to them, without awareness. Bad habits are illusionary solutionsto unsolved problems and conflicts. They make us put our heads in the sand asmomentary satisfaction.

How about deciding to be aware, before it’s too late and gets out of control?

Can you “catch yourself “a moment before the button of bad habit is being pushed?

It has to do with deciding to explore the operating system of your being.

You may go to psychotherapy for years, you may take a business coach, but nobody will do the following: viewing in “high resolution” – the cause and effect of your “spaghetti body- mind behavior”. Why do I call it spaghetti? Because nobody can really tell,“What Triggers What” ,in the complex interactions between thoughts, emotions,sensations, memories, imagination and actions.

Only you can decide to start observing your behavior and record changes in your moods, weather,conflicts at home, conflicts at work,  what you eat, and how these conditions affect your body and mind.

There is no road map. Yes, there are psychological and physiological research papers and statistics you can learn from. Yet, are you a statistic item or do you believeyou can be proactive and  learn self-managementtools to replace bad habits with better habits?

My perception is, that even if you may need help of a consultant, psychotherapist,or psychiatric, “you are the driver of your life”.

You should be active in creating anew positive scenario that will be a framework for a positive habit, that will eventually, replace the bad one.

For instance:

Have a note book or an app, and write down in what situation you lose your tolerance and become wildly angry. If you find out it happens too often, get help. However, don’t bepassive . Be proactive and participate in the healing process. After all – it’syou and your life, your health, happiness and even your job that you may sabotageif you ignore bad habits.

If your eating habits, are 150%  more  calories of an average meal, get help to change your eating patterns. Add healthy snack such as cucumbers, peppers, and celery,(ifthey resonate with you) drink more water, take a walk.

If you “get high” every day, and you are not focused, or too “easy going” without accomplishing your missions, If you have memory problems, watch out. You need to replace thishabit or you may be in the slippery slope path to addicted.

Find the right therapist for you that will have you as a partner in the journey of discovering a better habit that will replace the bad one.

The better habit should fit your personality and bio-mental-emotional and spiritual essence. You should raise a flag if you are offered a tool or new habit that yourtherapist views as good for you, but it does not resonance with who you are.

If you don’tknow who you are, it’s about time to explore. Observe yourself as an anthropologist. Don’t be judgmental, or grade yourself in a negative way. Justview and write down the connections between parameters /features in yourexternal environment or in your internal mind that may lead to a bad habit. If these connection appear often, you can define it as a conditioning of the mind.   A goodhabit is an habit that will make you passionate, motivated and vital and  balance your bodymind,  make you creative, and loving. A good habit will encourage a life style of good health wellness and well being.

Yourimagination is the simulator of your mind. If your psychotherapist suggests acertain music that in her/his opinion is relaxing, but you feel it irritatesyou, don’t use it!

You canuse your memories to retrieve a good positive experience that you can use as aframework of creating a new positive habit. You can add positive flavors fromyour imagination to support the new habit that you are forming. Have your therapistgive feedback to your suggestions.

Embeddinga new habit in your subconscious is a process. Yet with awareness and will, youcan imagine you are already using it. Do you know the phrase – “believe it achieveit” or “fake it until you make it”? You can use deep meditation or self-hypnosis to embed the new habit.

Vibroacoustic therapy mat may be ahelpful pragmatic tool to get into meditative state even if you are not ameditation type person. Special frequencies together with training may be veryeffective.

Replacing bad habits with better habits, maybe  an empowerment personal process and opportunity.

Find andapply your positive habits. Drive life, enjoy your journey.

AvigailBerg-Panitz

Integrativetherapist, expert in personal holistic wellness at work and at home

www.avigaili.wix.com/avigailbergpanitz

The ownerof The SoundWell Corp

www.vibro-therapy.com