How to Change a Bad Habit with Mindfulness

First, we should acknowledge that we live in a highly addictive society. Our culture with the strong desire to constantly fulfill and satisfy our cravings and desires. Snack foods created with the perfect blend of fat and sugars. Shopping options from your favorite stores one click away on our computer screens…. never realizing we needed all this “stuff”. First I am going preface this reflection in terms of our habits that we deemed as harmful habits, something we would like to change about ourselves. Something we wish to change or unwind from rather than a positive habit, an action that is a helpful to us.

What is a harmful habit?

1. Habit is a repeated action/ a pattern we engage in frequently that causes uneasiness for us, that causes us to suffer

2. There is also a belief that we should be able to control it; to overcome it

3. We have a feeling of a moral failure when we don’t overcome it, when we can’t control it

The Anatomy of a Habit: First occurrence of a habit is that We get caught, hooked by a trigger Trigger is likely Cued by an emotion or a feeling, thought or smell Once we are triggered, we engage in a behavior (habit) to satisfy our yearning We go through our routine to satisfy our yearning… engaged in something satisfy us Shopping, another bowl, another glass, another postBut know… whatever we practice becomes strongerEach time we go through this pattern of behavior, it becomes stronger, more engrained in our being, who we are, how we respondHow do we unwind this behavior, this patterning?

3 basic mindfulness practices to help you:

1. Practice Self-Compassion

   • Bring compassion to our behavior, to this patterning

   • Often, we blame ourselves for our habit, experiencing self-aversion, even hating ourselves for this habit we should be able to control, fix or overcome

     1. Something this phenomenon is called the second arrow

     2. The first arrow is the suffering we experience from the habit, but the second arrow is how we beat ourselves up about having this habit

     3. We can’t work with our habit without addressing the contempt we hold for ourselves

2. Can we be present with what is actually happening?

   • What is it that we really long for?

   • What is it that we truly need?

     1. Peace?

     2. Ease?

     3. Belonging?

     4. Safety?

   • This action is sometimes referred to as the “U Turn”

     1. Waking up from the trance of our habits, our habitual ways of being

3. How can we interrupt the patterned behavior?

   • If we were planning ahead, how could interrupt this action or behavior?

   • How could we interrupt with mindfulness, with awareness?

     1. Other activities that takes us out of behavior

        1. Maybe we read our favorite inspirational book or inspirational quotes

        2. Maybe we journal about three things we are grateful for

        3. Maybe we send off a kind email or text to a friend (random act of kindness)

        4. Group support is also one of the most effective ways in breaking habits

           1. Accountability to others but more importantly their support

           2. Relationships matter

And when the three practices above three don’t work for us and we engaged yet again in our harmful habit… can we be compassionate with ourselves?  Can we meet this too with kindness?  Because we know at some point we are going to fail, we will again engage in our patterned behavior, but can we meet our moments, meet ourselves in a more compassionate way?  Each time we choose to meet our experience with kindness and compassion, we are creating the space for the next time, the momentum for the next time, to be more aware for the possibility of change, the unwinding of a conditioned response.  And maybe even realizing self-compassion might be enough.  But also know and trust that this process takes time.  It is a commitment that we make.  Commitment is something we do over and over again.  Mindfulness is a process and a commitment; self-compassion is a process and a commitment; and breaking a habit is a process and commitment that we can choose time and time again… moment by moment.

"I knew I was on the right path as I started to feel peace where I used to feel tension.” – Yung Pueblo