Releasing
Old Habits
These are practices that
I do whenever I am trying to release a pattern that no longer serves my
highest good. I am using smoking as an example but you can fill in
any other habit instead of smoking. Sometimes addictive patterns
emerge from emotional charges. You get stressed at work for example
and you take a smoke. Whenever emotional charges occur, they need to
be cleared. I have written about this in my page on Recommended
Daily Spiritual Practices.
1. Buy a small
notebook that can easily fit into a shirt pocket or purse. Whenever
you engage in the habit that you are trying to release, write down the
date, time, the people you were with and the reason why you felt drawn to
engaging in the pattern that you are trying to release.
2. What you are
trying to do is to identify the triggers that are supporting the old habit. Also a lot of time we have unconscious agreements with
others to support us in maintaining our old habits. If you
conscientiously do this for a week, you will know exactly what the
triggers are for your habit and who in your life is supporting you in
doing this behavior.
3. After a week,
take out the notebook and make a list of the triggers/reasons you indulged
in the habit and the people who appear to be supporting the habit.
Post both of these lists up in your home and take time throughout the day
to look at both lists. This will help you to understand what the
underlying foundation of the pattern are.
4. For triggers,
begin to recondition yourself. Say for example that you want to give
smoking and that you have a trigger that after you eat you usually smoke
or whenever you have a break you smoke. After you eat or have a
break, instead of smoking - take 30 deep breaths instead.
5. For the people
list, look at who is on it and begin to evaluate the relationship.
If some of them are people in your work group that the major thing you
have in common with is smoking, tell them that you are trying to give up
smoking and that you will no longer want to take smoking breaks
together. Explain to them that it is not personal that you
just have a hard time for the present watching others smoke when you
cannot.
6. If the people on
the list are family members, you need to explain to them that you are
trying to give up cigarettes and ask them to support you in this.
7. For those
periods when you are just dying to smoke, for the first week, make a
promise to yourself that if you still feel this strongly fifteen minutes
from now you will smoke. If you do feel that way fifteen minutes
later, go ahead and smoke. During week two change the time period to
a half hour. During week three change the period to an hour.
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