Why are we sometimes not living the life we want for ourselves? Why are good habits so goddamn hard? What are good habits?!
These are a few good questions for anyone looking to make some positive changes in their life. Positive changes being those that forge a path toward a happier healthier existence. Something we all want, literally, no one is excluded from wanting that. Sometimes (hell oftentimes) the answers don’t come as easily as we’d like them to and that’s actually a very good thing. Please read my thoughts on this, I hope they provide some hope and enthusiasm for you to embrace the difficulties of your noble path of self betterment. :) That would be the best outcome.
A few years ago marked a new trajectory for my life’s journey. I had moved to an incredible city (London, UK), met some lovely new friends, scored a cool job (at a craft beer shop haha, oh times have changed!) and enrolled in a post graduate course to keep me busy. So many great things going on and I can easily say that during this period I was riding front seat on the struggle bus every single day.
Every evening I would struggle to not binge eat whatever was in my sight and every morning was a fun little game of snooze until the last possible moment followed by a cortisol induced mad dash to whatever thing I had to do that morning, whether it be class or work. I call it living in a hamster wheel and I believe you know (to some degree) what I’m talking about. There was little I understood of my inability to be more consistent at getting up early for a morning run or yoga. I did manage those things, it was just hard as hell and I would be dashing out the door hoping I would not miss the £18 yoga class that would not be refunded if I showed up late to!
AND this was nothing new to me, it was a well worn pattern. Because even though I had already invested a few years walking (running actually) a path seeking weight loss and and fitness, it was never really about mental health or wellness, or balance. Those were just words, empty, like so many we use today.
[My weight loss journey: I’ll write about that sometime]
Even worse (or funnier depending on how you look at it) I was quite convinced that one could read one’s way out of any life difficulty; so convinced, in fact, that I had read many books on time management, habits, and human psychology. And reading these books was great, I sure felt smart and would happily advise anyone who was on that same struggle bus, like I had some special answers. I knew how all the “successful people” did it. It never dawned on me that I actually had no clue. I intellectually understood these principles well, however the path to creating lasting and meaningful change eluded me. Only from a place of knowing myself deeply did this quality begin to show up in my life.
Alright, so here I was, wanting to make a better way for myself, (LIKE WE ALL DO!) and it was not until I felt a degree powerlessness and a real sense of misery in my inability to change my circumstances that I began to understand and acknowledge that my current efforts were in vain. Things had to change and everything came down to my own self management. Therein lies is a very important discovery that I would like to highlight… My back was a against the wall. My situation had become intolerable to me. And until then I had considered my circumstances, i.e. the world around me, to be the cause of my suffering, when really, it was of my own making. And I have come to believe rather firmly that this is a pretty universal and human condition. AND the very special, easy to overlook fact, is that this discovery coincided with a practice that brought about in me deeper self-inspection and self-awareness.
That was a few years ago and since then, things have fallen into place quite remarkably. Shockingly I give all the credit to practicing yoga and ESPECIALLY meditation. We really are a victim of our patterns until we actually are able to observe the process. From that space I was able to begin to make small incremental changes and also feel my way into a deeper understanding of the underpinning mechanisms of my behavior.
Ah.. I’ve really gotten in the weeds on this one haha :) Well as you can see it is a very personal journey. We all know what good habits are. They come pretty naturally if we strive for balance. Meditation helps tremendously because with it I start to take notice of the things that are yanking me around (to put it one way haha) the cravings, the feeling of burnout creeping up on me. THE dreaded hamster wheel. Yeah I still hop on that sucker from time to time. The difference now is that I have confidence and ease with the highs and the lows of life, the peaks are still high and yet the lows are milder and more… educational than miserable. I know they won’t last forever and THAT insight only comes from wisdom, my own personal experience.
What? You thought I was going to give you all the answers?? Hell no! You gotta find those for yourself. But trust me, you will find them and it will be well worth your time to invest your awareness and energy into figuring things out your own way. This is life, I would never think to rob you of your journey.
Big Love,
Jeff.