Living one's insights

It’s one thing to have insights and another to put them into practice. I catch myself more or less daily, acting against my better judgment. Because old habits are so ingrained in me. 

This has something to do with memory. I simply forget that I know a better way of doing things. I simply forget that I know better than doing certain things at all. And I forget that there is a better mindset to do things from. 

As with so many other things, this has to do with awareness. I lose myself in emotions and thoughts. I lose myself in the past or in the future, instead of being here and now. I lose myself in wishing for things to be different. And so I do things automatically, out of habit. 

I come back to awareness, awareness, awareness. It’s all about awareness. When I’m here and now my mind expands. I gain access to higher ways of functioning. When I lose awareness, I fall back into old patterns. Often I even forget that I can choose to bring awareness into every given moment. That every time that I lose awareness, it is a simple choice to bring it back to the present moment. It does not take any effort at all. But our minds are so used to everything taking effort, that it fools itself into thinking that this also takes effort. And so it resists it. 

Change can go fast if you take action

When it comes to my habits, they often can be change pretty fast if I take action contrary to them. One good example is that when I started doing things at my job that I previously tried to avoid because of lack of experience, this habit started to shift. It started after the first time that I consciously chose to break my old habit. 

Maybe the “consciously” part shouldn’t be dismissed here? I also wonder whether some habits contain sub-habits that they need to be broken down into. For example my habit of eating too much when I watch movies. Perhaps I first need to kick the habit of always eating when I watch movies. And if I’m more selective when I watch them and remove some of the more mindless entertainment, this might make my movie experiences more meaningful. And this might lead to a lesser need for other mindless pleasures associated with it. And if I’m going to eat stuff when I watch movies, I could gradually replace the unhealthy stuff with healthier alternatives. And so on.

I know that this probably sounds pretty trite and basic. But I think that many people would be surprised at how many things are on auto-pilot in their lives, while it flies under the radar under the erroneous label of free choice. I think it’s very much time to start taking our power back from our unconscious habits!