Don't Make It A Habit.

This may be the most profound statement I’ve written.  It is a key tenet in Curing Seriousitis™ . 

I am challenged by the statement’s negative aspect, the ‘don’t’. How can I not? Many teachers’ state that affirmations, goals, and intentions need be framed in the positive because our conscious mind doesn’t hear the ‘not’. 

Are our minds so crazy that when I state I am not going to eat after 8pm, my mind default to eating after 8pm? Are we that incongruent and contradictory? 

Wise friends have cajoled me with; “That’s what you don’t want, what do you want?”

“I don’t want to make it a habit.”

“That’s what you don’t want. What do you want?”

“I want to consciously, deliberately, and by design, choose, my reality, my life.”

When and how do my positive intentions become a conscious habit? 

What is a habit? 

Is it a fall from grace into a rut doing the devils work; sleep walking, becoming robotic? 

Is habit letting our evil inner siblings loose? 

Is it doing the same thing and expecting different results? 

Is the habit of indulging in mechanical reactions, routine patterns and addictions that allow others to indoctrinate me?

Don’t make it a habit really means creating life how I want it. In the practice of physical exercise and dance ‘the don’t make it’ a habit‘ there is no should, an ought, or have to,’ but a decision to enjoy and appreciate, my intention.

How do I stop from making ‘it’ a habit? 

Using an exercise metaphor, my body will find the easiest way to do an exercise. It cheats. Doing crunches, if I don’t pay attention to form, instruction, and my intention, the legs take over and I cheat myself of the benefits of the exercise.

I have a habit of watching my fingers as I type. This was a tough paragraph to type without watching, I kept cheating and looking. I get disturbed if I make a mistake. I feel very uncomfortable ungluing my eyes from the keyboard. It’s a battle to not watch my fingers. My habits trapped me until I recall the gradient approach to learning. Then I practice and I gradually free my attention, stop looking  and stop judging myself.

A habit can free me to split my attention. Like multi-tasking and in aerobics I can keep the structure of the movement but add a new way of doing the arms for increased cardio or change the rhythm and create new more graceful movements. It’s a way of finding more moments in life, more time to be present. Finding the magic of the space behind a musical note, a beat, allows more freedom of expression, to exercise more fully.

Be aware of what’s a habit and what’s not. Use the feedback to support goals. Don’t make anything a habit unless it’s your intent.