How hard is it for you to break a bad habit?

            How hard is it for you to break a bad habit? No matter how disciplined we are, bad habits are hard to break because the brain chooses what it’s been accustomed to. If it has been accustomed to negative thinking or negative habits, it tries to make sure we get what we prefer, or at least, what it thinks we prefer. Because of the brain’s tendency toward negative thinking, negative thinking takes longer to change, and because changes don’t come easily, sometimes we give up and sabotage our progress toward happiness.

In the article, “Prescriptions for Life: How to attain your goals, great and small, and create a life you love,” Susan Baili highlights a few things that we do to sabotage our progress toward being wholesome, happy human beings. (Susan Biali, M.D., Psychology Today, August 3, 2011). Then she offers the following tips on how to stop this negative behavior:

1) Admitting to yourself what you're doing, and when you're doing it.

In other words, keep track of what you’re doing, when you tend to do it, and what causes you to do it. She explains that most self-defeating habits center around the way we mis-manage food and money. If we target these two areas first, we change other habits a bit more easily.

To bring about a change in our bad habits, Baili suggests that we set goals and put them in writing. In a notebook of 8 1/2 X 11 paper, list goals for each problem area. (For every problem area, use a separate sheet of paper.) Save room at the bottom for commentary. Take, for example, goals around food and money. On a separate page for each problem area, list goals around food and money, list things you do to ruin it all and sabotage your goals, and list actions or behaviors you might choose instead. Follow my diagram below:

1. Problem Area: Food

Goals	Way(s) that I sabotage	Behavior to use instead

2. Problem Area: Money

Goals	How I self-sabotage	What I will do instead

3. Problem Area: Starting Arguments

Goals	How I self-sabotage	What I will do instead

We all self-sabotage from time to time.  When you find yourself entertaining negative thoughts that might sabotage your progress, stop those thoughts immediately. Catching ourselves in the act of misbehaving and doing something immediately to stop our negative routine is the key to success. Negative thinking leads to more negative behavior, which causes us to sabotage our progress. Breaking bad habits takes practice, persistence and patience, but bad habits can be changed one day at a time.
(c) M.D. Johnson (2013)

Depression stories - I. Ana

·        Depression stories

I. Ana

Secrecy, negativity and inexpressibility, that’s how I remember my depression.  You hide the fact that you feel confused, sad, and insecure.  You face an influx of negative thoughts every minute of the day, especially when your mind is supposed to be idle. You have no words to express or describe the way you feel—chaos, confusion, negativity swirling into an abyss from which there is no escape. Every day begins and ends the same—sadness, negativity, helplessness--so you try to hide behind work, behind isolation, even behind anger. You feel persecuted and victimized, and your life seems meaningless. If you could stop the negative thoughts just long enough to recognize what was happening, you might be able to realize how twisted they are and make them go away. Or you might try, if you weren’t so tired. Fighting negative thoughts can be exhausting. When feeling depressed,  small problems seem insurmountable.

With the problems of the world hovering overhead, you feel the urge to cry almost every day,  and you will cry, if someone looks at you the wrong way. When you’re alone, you think the weight of the world rests on your shoulders, feel the darkening horizon pushing the very life out of you, and the world seems harsh and cold. You try to push past the oppressive barrier that separates the person you are from the person you were before the traumatic event, which you don’t seem able to forget. But your mind keeps returning to the horrible incident. You see the events like they happened yesterday, and they keep you from appreciating what's happening today. As you try to  think beyond the clouded barrier, all you feel is exhaustion. You see nothing you want to eat, except a donut which you reheat in the microwave. You wish you had an appetite because for some reason, the donut tastes terrible.  You wash dirty dishes, turn on the evening news, and fall asleep on the couch or in the recliner, and you rarely dress for bed. You’re just too exhausted.

You try to think of people you can talk to, those who won’t judge you or gossip about what craziness  you said. You imagine accusations that you are just not good enough-- too this or too that. Not enough this, not enough that. You hear the thoughts over and over in your head. You anticipate being discovered, labeled, and ostracized, so you find imaginary answers to imaginary questions until you’ve exhausted all possibilities for rejection. After you ruminate all day, thinking, rethinking and over-thinking negative thoughts and perceptions, finally you abandon the idea of calling someone. It’s too risky. What if they think something is wrong with you? You feel you have no one in which to confide for fear they might say you’re losing your mind.  So you to hold on to appearances, a new hair style and make-up. The next day you buy a new outfit and try to dress better to offset the fact that you’re feeling worse.

Almost every night is the same. You replay negative incidents in your mind until you arrive home from work, call the kids on the phone just to check in, open the refrigerator and find nothing you want to eat. You imagine yourself devouring a slice of pepperoni pizza but you don’t feel like ordering, and you’re not as hungry as you thought. Furthermore, the walk to the corner pizzeria would be exhausting. Ordering by phone, even more so. In the past, you loved pizza but now you don’t. You don’t notice a loss of appetite, only that food is boring. So you seek a quick-fix solution, a slice of cheese and a glass of Cabernet or two. Then you do some office work and watch the evening news. After a nap on the couch, you awake, ruminate about negative happenings during the day, dreading the next work day. Past midnight, you pray you can get some sleep...[to be continued]
(c)M.D. Johnson 2013

Nature is perfect, so why aren't we?

Nature is perfect, so why aren't we? On a continual basis, Mother Nature balances herself, so we get natural disasters. Likewise, She balances us. We are part of a perfect system that includes our biological make-up and natural mental processes. Like animals, we are rejuvenated on a daily basis. We cocoon, molt, and shed. For example, in the way our bodies take a life of their own in order to keep us healthy and safe, we remain in a state of constant biological rejuvenation, just like animals, especially birds.

According to Cornell University experts, " birds (and other animals as well) lose what they can't use. Our bodies do the same, but psychologically, we have a difficult time adjusting to change and accepting our circumstances. Of course, the circumstances will change because in reality, life is a flowing, changing process that demands acceptance. If we hold on to things that are meant to be impermanent, we suffer psychological or physical distress.

According to buddhist texts, suffering is caused by holding on to what was meant to be temporary--friends, family, personal possessions, appearance. The list goes on and on. Our body is a perfect ecosystem (I think we can call it that). It takes care of itself by perpetually changing. It balances good and bad bacteria and purifies itself, despite the abuse we inflict upon it. We lose hair, cells, fingernails, and even our memory of painful events. Our brain balances our fears and fantasies but when it cannot keep us safe, it shuts us down through mental disorders like PTSD or depression and forces a psychololgical "time-out."

If we take care of our bodies, our bodies will take care of us. We naturally lose what we can't use in order to manage what we need. Animals understand this, and who knows whether they discuss it or not? For example, birds molt, snakes shed a layer of skin, animals shed their winter coats or hibernate, and butterflies cocoon. Mother Nature is so phenomenal, how can we not embrace a Higher Power, call It what you may? Through our universal sense of balance and perfection, we have the power to heal ourselves of whatever is ailing us.

To highlight my point, the excerpt below was borrowed from http://www.cornell.edu. Consult the website for a detailed discussion of how birds heal themselves through molting:

"A feather is a "dead" structure, somewhat analogous to hair or nails in humans. The hardness of a feather is caused by the formation of the protein keratin. Since feathers cannot heal themselves when damaged, they have to be completely replaced. The replacement of all or part of the feathers is called a molt. Molts produce feathers that match the age and sex of the bird, and sometimes the season.
Molting occurs in response to a mixture of hormonal changes brought about by seasonal changes. The entire process is complex and many questions remain regarding how the process is controlled. A basic understanding of molting patterns can, however, be a useful aid in identifying many species and in determining their age."

Have you ever sang the words, "His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches over me"? How can we not believe in a perfect universe, some way, some how? How can we not have faith that in the most trying times, we are able to heal ourselves? Because life is perpetual change, every new day is a new opportunity to be better, stronger and wiser if we only believe that on some primeval level, we are angels working toward perfection.
(c) M.D. Johnson (2013)

Sometimes we dump, sometimes we get dumped on.

The natural flow responds to change, which keeps our universe in balance, but sometimes when we stop this natural flow and insist on standing on principle or seeking a solution, we stop the natural flow.

We all could use a bit of tweaking from time to time. We all have something we could improve, and standing on what's familiar can stunt our emotional growth. Sometimes, we feel uncomfortable in situations that seem pointless or boundless. When this happens, we might try to find solutions to someone else's problem instead of simply listening. For example, I can be impatient with myself and others. Instead of listening to whatever it is, I'll rely on circumstantial evidence and make judgments based on evidence alone. Then, I'll offer a solution to take the sufferer out of the misery. When it comes to listening, I sometimes find myself becoming impatient with what might be considered repetitious, self-defeating, self-sabotaging behavior. Instead of empathizing with the individual who expresses emotions over and over, I'll offer a solution or two, even though I fully understand the rule, "Listen more than you talk."

In 2013, I plan to change a few things about myself. I will remind myself that I don't have to fix things, though I'm accustomed to doing exactly that. Not fixing things is outside of my comfort zone, but life is change and sometimes, fixing things can slow the process.  I know it's important to take time to simply listen without passing judgment or fixing something.

Listening means letting someone express whatever they must in the best way they can, without feeling the need to do something about someone else's problem. It requires a sense of acceptance which allows us to go with the flow. There an important rule, however. While making sure to listen, it's important to take care of ourselves, understanding and respecting our emotional boundaries. If a topic makes us uncomfortable, we don't have to listen beyond our personal level of tolerance and become a victims of circumstance. We can determine how long to allow ourselves to be "dumped on," so to speak.

Sometimes we dump, and sometimes we get dumped on. It's the law checks and balances (if there ever was a law). I'm slowly learning that there are no rules when it's time for dumping, except to go with the natural flow and take care of ourselves. Sometimes, people don't want solutions. They just need to express themselves. We might know this, at least I do. Still, listening without offering solutions is a work in progress. But that's what a New Year's resolution is all about--change.