The Power of Habit

“It’s not who you are that holds you back; it’s who you think you’re not.”

                                                                                      ~Dr. Hanoch McCarty


I have just finished reading “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg. In his thought provoking book, Duhigg skillfully displays the uniquely human interaction between conscious decisions and sub-conscious habits that define us as individuals.
Duhigg referred to the basic structure of our habits as “The Habit Loop.” 

“The Habit Loop” is comprised of three components… 

~ Cue (emotional stimuli…stress, anxiety, etc.)

~Routine (the movement/ behavior that follows the cue)

~Reward (What are the payoff/consequences?)

(This is also known as the ABC’s of behavioral modification)

Think about the chain reactions of our nutritional habits…In the presence of stimuli (stress) which has accompanied a movement (food) will on its recurrence tend to be followed by that movement. In other words, what you do in the presence of stress will tend to be repeated if the situation recurs.

So this three step process should be easy to change… right? … Just observe the cue that elicits the undesirable act…preform another act in the presences of that cue.

While I agree with Duhigg on all of his assertions (I do them), unfortunately, it’s just not that easy. The first step is the willingness to acknowledge the cue.

“You cannot change what you do not acknowledge” ~ Dr. Phil  

~What happens if we don’t want to recognize the cue?

~What if recognizing the cue means taking responsibility for our actions?

~What if acknowledging ourselves exposes our weaknesses?

~What if becoming aware of this stimulus presents uncomfortable memories?

Oprah Winfrey once said… “The thing you fear most has no power. Your fear of it is what has the power. Facing the truth really will set you free”

As we look within our own world, we scrutinize most things…the price of a car…the best flat screen TV’s…the most economical plan for our I-phones. But when it comes to our habits, we carefully avoid/repress examining the emotions that brings forth the cues of our behavior.

To keep cues at bay, we frantically struggle to fill every moment of our day with some form of diversion…work, computers, television, movies, radio, sports, food, alcohol, drugs, parties. Perhaps we distract ourselves because looking at our lives confronts us with our lack of meaning, our disappointments, our loneliness, and the unbelievably briefness of our time here on this planet.

Pascal may have been right when he observed … “if our condition were truly happy we should not need to divert ourselves from thinking about it…the sole cause of our unhappiness is that we do not know how to sit quietly in our room.”

Maybe the reason we find it difficult to sit quietly and examine the cues that create our behavior, is because doing so makes us anxious?

But only until we examine our lives, we can do little to make it less unhappy and more fulfilling.

"Know thyself… The unexamined life is not worth living” ~ Socrates    

It is my hope that by discussing these issues/cues, we can bring awareness to that which incapacitates our ability to confront and overcome the obstacles that prevent us from living a full healthy life.

Habits aren’t our destiny…but our destiny will be determined by the habits we create.

"You are searching for the magic key that will unlock the door to the source of power; and yet you have the key in your own hands, and you may use it the moment you learn to control your thoughts."                                                                                                                     ~Napoleon Hill

Wake up America...The Dangers of Yoga

There have been some recent articles that have come out regarding the dangers of Yoga. ( i.e. bulging disk, shoulders etc.) That is not what this Blog is about. I think there are far more things to be concerned with that lie just beneath the surface J

Recently an acquaintance posted an article on facebook concerning the dangers of yoga, and I have to admit, my ignorance blinded me from the facts.

When faced with questions concerning the nature of reality and existence, many people turn to yoga for answers. A "Yoga program" is supposed to be a repository of some kind of knowledge/information, or state of being, which is desirable in the sense that it makes possible a higher, or fuller, or more authentic life than that which we normally live. We go to Yogis to learn about the so-called "meaning" of life, or to participate in rituals which we suppose will have some effect on the way we exist in the cosmos.

The assumption present in this way of thinking is twofold… first, it is implied that there is something that we do not know, yet need to know, in order to live our lives rightly, and second that communion with the “Yoga life”, the desire for which attracts people to yoga in the first place, is not our natural state, but needs to be attained, and even more importantly, needs the intermediary presence of another person (yogi guru), a belief system (any yoga program) or certain sacred/magical rites in order to exist at all.

This “covert yogi maneuvering” is the Devil in disguise.

This Blog message is a wakeup call for this great country that we are so blessed to live in. I am so tired of all of these twenty-four hour news stations trying to mislead us about the world we live in today. They (FOX, CNN, MSNBC, ESPN 2) continually imply that our greatest problems we face are the budget deficient, unemployment, education and slow 40 yard dash times at the NFL combine. They will even go so far as to making wild claims about Americans (college students…TCU) having a drug problem. These outlandish claims are nothing more than a smokescreen to hind the real threat…Yoga.

That’s right…Yoga.

Let me ask you a question…Do you think it is a coincidence that Yoga has grown in popularity at the same time that Obama came into office?  

I have done my own research from a non-biased perspective of the “coincidences’” of Obama and Yoga.

~They both were born outside of America

~Yoga ends with a…Obama ends with a

~They’re both sneaky and have a hidden agenda

~Yoga is done in a dark room…Obama has dark skin

~They both make you sweat                                                              

So…do you think all of these similarities are a Coincidence?

Take a look at some of these other so called “coincidences”…

~Downward dog…doggy style

~In Spanish, Yo means I…ga means gay…translation…I gay

~Take the Y and move it to the back of yoga…ogay

~Have you ever heard a yoga instructor say anything bad about a gay person? (I don’t think so)

~Obama is for gay marriage…yogis don’t say anything bad about gays…again…coincidence?

~People who take yoga wear Lotus symbols on all of their cloths…this is the sub-conscious anchoring of a belief system.

Yogis (and Obama) want you to relax your mind so that evil can slip in and take you over. You don’t have to believe me…H. G. Bohn in his 1855 “Hand-book of Proverbs” proposed… “An idle mind is the Devils workshop.”

Adding to my frustration is all of these happy facebook quotes saying, “Come in and relax with our yoga family” … “a calm mind leads to a calm body” … and the worst… “Relax your mind and open your heart.” (Why do you think they want you to “open your heart”?)

Do you people not get it? If you can’t see what’s right in front of you, you’re either in serious denial or you’re just repressing the truth. (I know these are the same…It’s a joke)

Ok there it is…I’ve laid it all out. You can continue to be apathetic toward yoga and Obama, or you can speak out for this great country of freedom.

If I may quote Gandhi…“I’m as mad as hell and I’m not taking anymore”  

Peace

(I’m not sure if any of these facts are true…but they do support my position)