Habits and Compulsion

Habits and Compulsion

“We are creatures of habit” has one phrase all of us most likely have heard before. I would rather say most of us are enslaved by their habits.

Just to get things started here’s a definition of the term “habit”:

A habit is, something that one does often and regularly, sometimes without knowing that one is doing it. (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/)

Habits are parts of our everyday life and as such most habits are carried out almost unconsciously. Since they are such a subtle part of our lives problems usually arise when we either want introduce a new habit or when we want to get rid of one.

We’ll be taking a look at where most of the problems come from when we want to get rid of an old habit.

How do you get rid of a habit – you stop doing it. We all know that this is the only way really. But at the same time we see that just stopping a habit very often leads ta a relapse and doesn’t seem to be a sufficient enough process to break a deeper structure that underlies every habit. I think the relapse is always linked to the fact, that the habit is never consciously resolved.

As long as we act habitually we rarely question that action or behaviour. So we don’t necessarily can explain why we do certain thing without thinking about it more in depth first.
The good thing about trying to get rid of any habit is that all of a sudden thoughts start to arise about the particular habit you’re trying to get rid of. if you pay attention you will find that you have unconsciously made a case for why you do it.

We will find that we always have a certain string of justifications behind each of our habits. These strings justifications always end in a positive affirmation. We all like to have a final positive argument to why we do things the way we do them even if the behaviour itself is damaging – think about a smoker, he or she will always have a reasoning not to quit.

If we start to look closely we will find that almost always we are not attached to the actual action, but rather to all the concepts, thoughts and ideas that our mind has attached to set action. The string of justification also is a result of these concepts and ideas.

Now, if we stop a certain habit, our mind starts to rebel and begins to form negative projections opposing our very own justification as to why we usually act this way.
So your mind tries to trick you into continuing with the habit you’re trying to stop by suggesting how negatively the neglect of that habit will impact the future.

To illustrate this idea let’s use an example:
(It might be overly simplistic but it showcases well where the big problem with breaking habits lies.)

I used to drink coffee for the longest time. And every morning it would be the first thing to brew my coffee. So I decided to stop having coffee and of course once I had the thought of no more coffee my mind started to argue in the following way:

• I need my coffee to start the day well,
• I need my coffee to be energetic,
• There’s research that shows the health benefits of coffee.
• I enjoy it,
• It makes me feel good
• and so on.

Now if we look at the string of justification that my mind came up with – and right here I want to point out we are only making these justifications in front of yourself, because frankly nobody cares whether I drink coffee or not – I’ll simple invert these justifications and we’ll find all the negative projections and doubts that the mind will throw at us:

• My day won’t start well,
• I’m not going to be energetic
• What about the health benefits? Am I going to neglect them?
• What can I enjoy if there’s no coffee
• I will not feel good then.

Nothing wrong with coffee, but everything is wrong with our own ideas about it because you can clearly see how heavily entangled a cup of coffee is with our own conceptions about how it impacts our lives. Truth is that you are absorbed in the fairytale your mind built around a simple cup of hot black water.

This is just a simple example but I believe it clearly illustrates what we are actually a prisoner of - which are the concepts and justifications our minds have created behind the things we do.
Again it is important to see that our mind creates these structures for ourselves (and really for ourselves only) by which we are so easily imprisoned. Many of these prisons are real fortresses!

What to do about it?

Well there are tow steps that you need to take.

First one you need to roll out all the justifications your mind wants to use to hinder you from dropping that particular habit.
Once you can see all the arguments you have to chance to objectively observe them.
You have to drop the justification and your mind’s negative projections and start observing when you go for the second step.
Which is to stop the habit you are imprisoned by for a sufficient amount of time. You have to keep observing what happens as you don’t act out that habit. At the moment you stop the habit you have to be ready to objectively observe.

If you can’t keep your old justifications aside, you can never observe how things actually are turning out.
This is most likely the number one reason why people always fall back into old habits because they never truly drop there string of justification, step back and observe for a long enough time.

So for my coffee story: I haven’t had coffee in weeks and none of the negative effects my mind would project happened.
It feels more like there is one thing less in my life I need to worry about.

The experiential knowledge liberates you from your habits or should I say form your compulsions.
Sticking to the coffee story – experiencing that not having coffee doesn’t impact the quality of life at all is the real liberation.

One more thing to consider:

Depending on the habit there maybe some physical withdrawal symptoms. You just have to understand that this is simply your body. As much as your mind tried to convince you with negative projections not to drop that habit so does your body.
Your physiology is accustomed to a certain level of caffeine, so now it needs to get used to not having it. Your body now rebels and wants to make you get that coffee.

Here comes the thing you need to understand, or at least need to be aware about. The situation is as such:
You have decided to stop drinking coffee and to drop all the nonsense justification you came up with as to why you have to drink it.
On top of your mind now your body also annoys you with headaches because it wants that caffeine – and just to be clear your body wants caffeine and not coffee.

Looking at it this way we can plainly see that either the mind, the body or both can potentially beat you into submission.

My question to you is who is in charge? Your body, your mind or is it you? If you give in to your body’s desire, clearly you are not in charge! If you give in to your minds projections, clearly you are not in charge!
Your body and your mind both should be directed by you. However most of the time we find it is the exact opposite and your mind or your body direct you.

I am not saying that it is easy to break habits but at least you know who exactly you are submitting to.
Compulsiveness always arises from being attached, so stripping away compulsiveness leads to liberation.