A recent study in Germany suggests that we spend a full quarter of our waking hours resisting urges.  Yes, our desires are frequent, variable in intensity and largely unproblematic.   Our urges create conflict within ourselves and can intensify to the point that we act on them, even when our best selves do not want us to.  If you are longing to make a positive change in your life,  such as getting in right relationship with food or with others or even with living the life you want,  there is science around resisting urges.

Habits are cobwebs at first; cables at last.--Chinese Proverb

There is new research on the habit loop, which finds that when a habit emerges, the brain stops fully participating in decision-making. Like being asleep, some habits can be effortless and occur unthinkingly. Hundreds of habits influence our days, how we get dressed, talk to our kids, fall asleep. The brain’s dependence on automatic routines can be a double-edged sword.   Over time, the habit loop “cueèroutine èreward” becomes more and more automatic.

The ANTI New Years Resolution

 

“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, 

not to people or things.”  Albert Einstein 

 

Most New Years resolutions fail by February because we lack skill or motivation or both.  Setting all-or-nothing goals, goals that are too vague, unrealistic, too ambitious, too numerous, or goals that we really don’t  want to do, set us on a road to frustration and failure.  Changing behavior requires sustained priority setting and focused effort on ourselves and our environment.

“No crying on the yacht”  is what I overhead a mother tell her teenage daughter shopping in a clothing store.   While a hilarious and abrupt way to identify corrosive self-pity, it can keep the spirit of thanksgiving with us all year-round.  A healthy outside starts from the inside. Being kind and compassionate are a natural part of health and lay the foundation for wellbeing, for both our inner life and our relational world.  

So when we find ourselves descending into a swan-dive of self-pity, remind yourself, ‘

 

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”

Having power is having integrity of the soul. This requires that you regularly express your best self.  If something is getting in the way of that integrity, ask yourself, if I met my 17 year-old self on the street today, would s/he be proud of who I've become?

We humans are the only species on the planet that can refuse to be who we are.  The snake slithers, the bird flies, but we humans can close off important aspects of ourselves.

Divide and Conquer 

 A military metaphor: in order to rule [the self] don't allow alliances of your enemies [unfulfilled or unspecified needs]. 

“Truth isn’t always beauty, but the hunger for it is”  

 Nadine Gordimer, South African Nobel Prize Novelist 

The overweight epidemic continues to skyrocket, with more than 2/3rds of us overweight. Most of us are unhappy with unwanted pounds that have a profound deleterious effect on our health and wellbeing. 

July 20, 2012

"Set up a life that does not need escaping from."   

There is a dramatic difference between knowing and doing. We all have places that we may be stuck. There may be something in our lives that we know we want to change; yet we don't. A major reason we often fail is that we succumb to the willpower trap. Lasting change often fails because we rely on willpower, yet what we really need is skill. We all have unseen, powerful behavioral bullies that influence us and we are blind to these saboteurs. Behavioral bullies do not have one root cause, they can come from many sources, such as pervasive marketing practices, toxic communities, or life-limiting habits that include avoiding difficult conversations, boredom, stress, and lack of purpose, all of which impact mood and don't support the life we want.