healing ways - a series of healing stories

How Your Habits Affect Your Life

Fascinated, Fiona watched her mother, Julie, preparing the evening meal - pot roast - one of her favourites! Julie carefully diced the carrots and onions, added herbs from the garden, then cut off about 2cm from each end of the meat before placing it into the pot.
"Mummy, why did you cut those bits off the end?" asks Fiona.
"Because that's what my mother did when she made pot roast." replied Julie.
"Yes, but that's not a real reason. Why did she do it?"
"I don't know. I'll find out and let you know."

So Julie asked her mother, and was told that it was because that was what Julie's grandmother had always done. So Julie asked her grandmother, and was told that her grandmother's mother had always done it like that too, and again she did not know the reason for it. Fortunately Julie's great grandmother was still alive and at 98 was living in a rest home. Julie went and asked her why she cut the ends off the meat.
"Because it was too big to fit in the pot," the elderly great grandmother replied.

I think that this story is fictitious (perhaps not) but in either case it illustrates how we take on habits and unconsciously allow them to govern much of what we do.

Without habits, life would be intolerable. Imagine not having a morning routine before leaving home for work, school or whatever you are doing each day. This is one reason why retirement can be quite stressful - suddenly the morning routine becomes irrelevant. Consider also the unconscious abilities you have developed, such as driving and interacting with friends and loved ones. Without habits, each time you drove a car would be like the first time you ever drove a car; each time to interacted with a loved one it would be like the first time you ever spoke to them. Habits formed from prior experiences allow you to operate at the unconscious level in these situations, while enabling the conscious mind to rapidly take over in unusual situations.

Unfortunately, we also tend to collect habits and thoughts that are limiting, such as "I can't sell things", "people never like me", "I never have enough money", "I'm always late for appointments". So when an opportunity to do these things arises, you replay the habitual tapes in your mind, and you programme yourself for failure. Once you are programmed in this way, you will have great difficulty in succeeding. Even when things are going really well you will find ways to sabotage yourself, e.g. when you have plenty of time for to get to that appointment, you will delay leaving, do a few extra things, so that you again arrive flustered and late.

What if you broke the mould? What if you stayed in the present, prevented your mind thinking about previous outcomes, and actively felt what it will be like to succeed in whatever you are doing? Do you think that you would be more likely to succeed in what you were attempting? Whether you decide you will be successful or will fail, you will be correct. So why not choose success? All this requires is that you stay in the present with a conscious mind rather than let the old negative thoughts and habits take over.

The Journey can help you clear out negative, failure-generating thoughts, addictions, phobias and behaviour patterns and can allow you to reprogramme yourself at the deepest level for a life of success. Feelings that you are not worthy, that you 'need' to fail to gain sympathy, that success is for others not for me, or that you do not deserve abundance can all be replaced by positive habits and emotions which will allow you to fully mainfest success and abundance in your life. So how much longer are you prepared to put up with negative thoughts and habits preventing you from full success and enjoyment in your life? Why not do something about it now?