Many blessings!

Many blessings,

Art Gonzalez
Check my Squidoo Lens at: Quantum Knights

I’m grateful to be of service. Please, keep me posted as to how it goes! Sometimes all it takes is one minor shift in perspective to inspire a world of change within us.

Have a wonderful day!

Again, blessings to you!

Chris, thanks for another very thoughtful and incisive comment.

First and foremost, it’s important that people realize that the habit has served a purpose to them. In most cases, a “bad” habit is protecting us from something.

For example, suppose we have a bad habit of staying up late at night. We may not realize that we actually are staying up late at night because we have nightmares and our unconscious brain believes that the less we sleep, the less we will be subjected to our nightmares.

Now that’s a simplistic example. It can get more complex, as well as more real than that. We may choose to overindulge in sweets as a way to make up for the lack we feel elsewhere in life… so in this regard, eating sweets protects us from the pain we would feel if we actually had to look at how we feel lacking in other ways.

So in most (if not all) situations, a “bad” habit is a protective instinct. Once we understand and accept this, we’re then empowered to make changes.

Here’s a quick tutorial for changing bad habits to good ones:

1) Take the time to write down every single reason why the bad habit is a GOOD thing to have. This shows you how it is protecting you and has your best interests at heart.

2) Then after that, we can take the time to write down every single reason why the bad habit is keeping us from what we WANT to have.

3) Next, thank the parts of yourself that the bad habit was protecting (from step 1). Gratitude is a powerful force of change, especially when directed inward at ourselves. This lets your inner-self know that you truly do appreciate that it was protecting you.

4) Then let that part of yourself know that you no longer need protection from those things, and instead would like for those parts of you to be of service in new ways.

5) Identify those new ways. Connect with the parts of yourself that want to experience what you described in step 2.

Let those parts of you know which ways they can be truly of service to live in new ways (i.e. either new better habits, or moving to a place of awareness with no habits at all).

This entire process helps our inner-selves realize that we trust it has our best interests at heart, we are grateful for that, and now we’re ready to guide ourselves to a new place in which we no longer require protection from the things our bad habits were protecting ourselves from.