Building Awareness To Change Habits
Everything we are, and everything we do, arises from a habit.
All our skills and abilities, our cravings and addictions, whether good or bad, as well as our physical form, our emotional profile and our genetically derived predispositions and abilities – they’re all habits, either learned or innate. And those habits have been created from a combination of nature and nurture – that is, they have been instilled by our genetic history together with life conditioning.
I would even go as far as to say that our very sense of who and what we are, is a bundle of habits.
So then, – one might superficially assume that if we’re lucky enough to be born into a functional, loving environment, we’ll have habits that incline to good health and prosperity.
Conversely, one might assume that if we’re born into a dysfunctional environment, we’re likely to have habits that lead to misfortune and self-sabotage.
But the trouble with this assumption is, it would follow that no matter what choices we make in our life, our genetic predispositions and life conditioning will channel us in only one direction – happiness if that’s what we’ve been born into, or suffering if not. And of course, this may well be the case if we live passively – that is, if we allow our habits to run our lives for us. In that case, our destiny will certainly resemble our past.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
In the early part of last century it was wrongly assumed that our genes determined everything about us, from our physical and mental health to our destiny. But that assumption changed as more recent research showed that while our genetic code is certainly fixed, whenever we consciously and actively change our actions, it changes the way those genes express – that is, it switches certain DNA strands off, while activating other DNA strands, to cause new habits to form.
So what this says is, we’re not cursed by our past as many people feel they are. We can change the direction our genetic and life inheritance has pointed us in. All we need to do is to actively defy the pull of habits that don’t work for us, and purposely enact new habits that will work for us.
In this way we become who we choose to be.
All it takes is for us to be aware of habits that are being triggered at any one time, so we can either deny permission for them to enact themselves – or we can replace them with more functional habits.
So how long does this process of rejigging our habit profile take? Well, a 2009 study at University College, London, found it takes about three months to build a new habit, or be rid of a habit we don’t want. That’s how long it takes to get our genes to change the way they ‘express’.
So our destiny is not beyond our control. Sounds easy, doesn’t it.
Trouble is, ingrained habits enact themselves automatically – that’s their nature. Any habit, once triggered, bypasses the conscious mind and enacts itself. So then, if we are to resist the habit, we have to be aware enough to notice it emerging.
But here’s the thing – most of us are too preoccupied with the business of life to be aware of the subtle shifts of sensations and thoughts that lead to a habit enacting itself. As such, we usually don’t catch it before it becomes too powerful to resist.
This is where meditation and mindfulness comes in – because meditation and mindfulness practice builds an over-riding habit of awareness – so we can our catch our habits emerging before they enact themselves, and either consciously deny them permission, or replace them with a more functional habit.
So how does this work?
Well, in meditation we sit still with the actively conscious part of our mind – our attention – gently trained on the breath. Our purpose is to encourage our attention to quieten, and go still – to allow our more subtle aspect of awareness to strengthen.
As we meditate we notice each time our attention is distracted away from the breath. In this, we’re practice being immediately aware.
We’re aware of two things: Firstly, we’re aware that our attention has become distracted. And secondly, we’re aware of where it has gone – whether a sense, or a thought or a feeling.
In the instant we realize our attention has become distracted, we bring it back to the breath and resume contemplation.
This is the practice – perhaps oversimplified, but it’s basically what we do.
Practicing this simple exercise each day, we gradually find ourselves becoming more instinctively aware of what our attention is doing in each moment. And if we combine meditation practice with consistent mindfulness practice throughout each day (see my post on mindfulness) our habit of awareness gradually strengthens.
We become more aware of how we’re feeling, and acting in each moment – and more importantly, which habits are enacting themselves. And that gives us the ability to deny permission to habits that we don’t want, and reinforce habits that work for us.
Which gives us the ability to change what we are on the deepest level.
…………………………………………………………………………………….
Roger’s book, ‘BEING STILL – MEDITATION THAT MAKES SENSE’ is available now. Just click on the links below:
AUDIOBOOK (including ebook & MP3 exercises) – AUD $25.00
