“Old habits die hard”…”we’re creatures of habit”…”I’m prey to my habits”. Ah, the judgments we trot out in support of the same old same old. Even the contemplation of change can be a challenge, but we really set ourselves up when we equate ourselves to robotic victims of patterns that we expect we don’t have the capability to shift, and therefore can’t muster the desire. Dropping the defeatist self-talk, we can begin to acknowledge ourselves as powerful captains of the ships of our own lives, with the wherewithal to manifest a sea change towards a more realized version of ourselves.
Habits and addictions are related, but they are not quite the same thing. Where an addiction is often a substitute activity for what we really need (love, light, vitality, emotional freedom), a habit is more of an umbrella concept that includes any addiction, any kind of daily routine or any patterned behaviour that regularly repeats without us contemplating whether it is right time in this moment to enact the habitual behaviour(s). They represent the memory of feeling good, though often they don’t reflect the same level of pleasure. Habit patterns can include strung-together activities such as making coffee first thing in the morning, followed by turning on the computer and checking email, followed by rolling and smoking a cigarette followed by a trip to the store. The majority of an entire day, weeks, or even years can transpire in similar chains of grooved activity. We’re on automatic pilot, and we aren’t checking in with ourselves. Gradually Body loses the will to live, since She is not being consulted in the moment about what She’d like to do right now, and illnesses begin to manifest.
Disciplining ourselves to change the habit without deep understanding of what was fueling it will likely only result in the habit changing form, say from being on the computer first thing every morning to exercise. The goal is not to replace an old habit with another habit that is deemed healthier, but to be able to listen to Body’s wisdom about what She wants to do in each moment. Sometimes when I’m entering a period of free time I will intentionally imagine several scenarios that I might engage in now, and then check in with my Body to see what we feel like doing the most, right now, be it what (or whether) to eat, or what to do. At my best, I might not allow my mind/spirit to imagine first, but simply invite Body’s wisdom to present me an unbidden picture of what She would like to engage in.
There are often emotions hidden beneath the habit that the routine has helped us avoid, that can only be entered into when we allow the habit to lapse in order to see what is running the routine. A crucial element in shifting the roots of habit patterns (without merely changing the form of the habit) is gaining understanding as to why we are engaging in the habitual behaviour, whatever it is, and often we need to clear emotional backlog hidden under the habit in order to truly get why we engage in the habit in the first place.
March 3rd is Virgo Full Moon this year, and the full moon cycle of March 3-17 is an excellent time to engage a shift of habits, with the assistance of the transformative, healing, magical properties that are the hallmarks of positive Virgo energies.