Habit Disruption: getting out of a rut
The Work IN episode 2
The Work IN: Episode 2
... in today's episode we're going to be talking about habits. Now this is often the time of year when we start to look at turning over a new leaf, or choosing a new year's resolution or letting go of some of those bad habits. But for many people, we struggle to keep those habits going after about mid February, maybe March. And I think there is a real reason behind that behind why we so often just give up on our best of intentions.
So we're going to take a look at this from a yogic perspective and talk a little bit about something called samskaras, and in the yogic philosophy samskaras can be described as habits on their surface. But for today, I want to let go of the surface behavior habits that we think of when we start to talk about habit change. And as a health coach we can translate that into behavior change right.
So as fitness professionals we are often talking to clients about behavior change, and that is our goal really for health and wellness is to tap into a client's big why, their bigger reason for wanting to make whatever change that they've decided they want to make. Whether that's giving up smoking or drinking more water or exercising five days a week. Those are the surface habits, the behaviors. And those are often the things that we see. So, of course, that's what we look at in terms of whether or not we're going to be successful at changing these things .Does this outward behavior change?
But we want to go beyond what the eyes can see. And that means getting underneath the behavior. And looking at the pattern of thought, the pattern of emotion, the patterns that really drive us to our behaviors, those are the big why's.
Okay. And that's what we're really talking about when we start discussing samskaras, these patterns. And you could even get very very deep into this. If you can picture your brain and the neurons that are firing all through the brain. And when we start to talk about neuroplasticity about how the brain learns new things. All of that actually taps into this samskara philosophy and this samskara idea of patterns.
Now, in our brain,iIn our primitive brain especially, we are always looking for patterns in everyday life. So the brain, no matter what it is that you're doing or what you're rationally thinking, the brain is constantly trying to make connections and recognize a pattern of what's going on to decide how it's going to help you survive that situation. So if we understand that those patterns develop, over the course of our lifetime, those thought patterns, those movement patterns, those emotional patterns. If they are being developed constantly and over the course of our lifetime, then we need to take just a small look at why they are becoming so ingrained. We have to kind of look at this, like, a survival system.
Our brain is really only trying to help us survive. And so every time, it creates a new pattern of thought, or a new pattern of movement for us the underlying cause of that pattern, the reason we keep coming back to doing something, the way we do it over and over and over again. The only reason for it is because it keeps us safe. And it helps us survive. And if we can start to look at our outward behavior, our outward habits, with that filter then ask the question, Does this still help me survive? Is this truly serving me? And if it isn't. What is it that I can replace that pattern with, what can I give my poor little primitive brain to do or think or feel that is different enough, and feels safe enough that it can replace this old negative pattern.
Those are the kinds of things that really take quite a bit of work, they take quite a bit of awareness, mental awareness, physical awareness and emotional awareness and we're not always ready to make gigantic changes because of that.
But those are the reasons that so many people give up on some of these really major health changes and these new habits that they may want to incorporate in the new year. It's because they feel so safe, and they're so deeply ingrained in the brain in our survival patterns.
So, if we want to make some of those shifts if we want to shift out of a rut, a pattern, a deeply ingrained pattern of thought, of movement, of behavior, of emotion, whatever it is, then we need to cause a major disruption. Something needs to disrupt that pattern enough to bump us off that path.
So, if you can think about it like, if you've ever driven on a, on a dirt road where the tire tracks are really really deeply rutted. So much so that really it's just bare dirt there, and almost like two ditches. And so if you're driving on that deeply rutted road in your car. It's fine, it's fine while you're on that path while you're on that deeply rutted road. If your car fits into those ruts. It's going to keep you there. You almost don't have to steer anymore because the road is going to keep you in line. Now, just try to turn out of those deeply rutted pathways and see how difficult it is. If you don't have four wheel drive, right.
We need to dig that deep, when we are changing some kinds of deeply rooted patterns in the mind, in the body, and in our emotions. That disruption can come in a lot of different ways. We can talk about this in three different categories. We're talking about movement patterns, emotional patterns and thought patterns. so let's just take movement at first.
All right, so let's, let's look at movement first. It's a good example. It's a simple example because it kind of moves into that whole behavioral pattern. We think of movement as, as a kind of a behavior, how the body moves. When we adopt certain movement patterns, how we walk, how we sit, how we sleep at night. Over time those become very very comfortable right. So it's really comfortable to sit in a chair a certain way. We sometimes will cross one leg over the other. And then, that is always how we cross our legs. So just try to switch legs and see how comfortable that is. Disrupting a pattern like that is going to take a very long time. And the reason it takes a long time is because the body has made some changes on the inside to support that particular movement pattern.
We have something called fascia. That is a connective tissue that runs over all of our muscles just beneath the skin over all of our muscles, joints and organs. And its job is to provide a kind of a scaffolding, a connected support system throughout the body.
The interesting thing about the fascia is that it will tighten down no matter what your movement pattern is whether it's a healthy movement pattern, or, or not. It's going to tighten down to support you in that place. So if you have a posture, forward head posture, or rounded shoulder posture when you're sitting at your desk. Your fascia is going to shrink to fit to help you to stay in that position, and keep you in that position in the most efficient way possible. Because of this, it is very difficult and takes a lot of effort to sit up straight, for any length of time to be able to bring your shoulders back and bring your head back. In fact, you may even feel tension or discomfort in the body or soreness in the muscles when you're not allowed to sit that way.
So, disrupting that particular movement pattern would take a lot of physical therapy, maybe specific workouts, specific exercises, maybe some chiropractic care. I mean, it would take a lot of effort before you may be able to sit up nice and tall and straight with perfect posture at your death desk for any length of time. So you can apply that same kind of disruption to our thought patterns, as well as to emotional patterns.
Let's remember the whole reason that our primitive brain has established a pattern of thought movement or feeling is simply to keep us safe to help us survive. And to help us navigate our world with as little effort as possible so it falls back on these patterns of movement, thought and feeling. Just to keep you safe.
That means that there is absolutely nothing wrong with how you think, or how you feel about any situation. Every thought and feeling that you have is absolutely valid. It comes out of real experience, your history. And so I don't want anyone to be confused here that we are judging, any of our thoughts or feelings about any particular event or lifestyle or anything like that. But understand that those thoughts, our thoughts, our thought patterns have been developed over a lifetime.
By building some mindful awareness and pulling back just a little bit to the point where we can observe our thoughts, without getting overwhelmed by them we can start to make some objective choices about whether or not those thought patterns are still serving us the way that they did in the past.
It's not that they're bad or wrong, that we must change the way we think about things. But every once in a while it may be a good idea just to take a step back and observe. And the reason for that is because many of our thought patterns or our belief patterns are coming from other people.
What I mean by that is that our childhood has most likely been influenced by our parents, our caregivers, our teachers. And while we may owe those people quite a bit of gratitude for their teaching, we ourselves are individuals. And once we've reached adulthood. We have every right to reassess those thinking patterns, those ideas, those beliefs and make sure that they are what we need them to be in this moment right now.
Now, along with our thought patterns. We can talk a little bit about emotional patterns. Emotional patterns. Now, this may be a little odd to think about I mean, sometimes it's a challenge to wrap your head around, even what an emotion is. But what we need to understand is that at a neurologic level in the brain, every time we experience anything, the brain tries to encode that experience in some way.
It does that by associating that experience with some kind of emotion. And the stronger, or more intense, that emotional response is, the more visceral that emotional response is, the stronger the memory of that experience or event becomes in the brain.
So, I don't know about you, but I feel like sometimes I have forgotten more things than I ever knew. And part of that is because, you know, there was a lack of focus in the moment when those things were happening. Part of it is because some memories are so overwhelming with the amount of emotion that is attached to them that they overshadow the really mundane things that happen on a day to day level.
It's not that your brain forgets these things, it's just that they haven't risen to the level of intensity with that emotional encoding. And then, over time, the brain starts to use those moments to develop its own emotional patterning.
We have a memory. We have a memory that's been encoded with a very very strong emotional visceral response to it. And then later in our life, any event or experience, that is even the slightest bit like that original event those same emotional responses are triggered over and over and over again.
This is how we can get into a kind of a default reaction that’s based not on the reality of the moment, but on a memory of a past event. It can be very confusing for the people around you.Iit can be very confusing for you because those emotions can be quite overwhelming in the moment.
Disrupting that pattern takes a lot of effort, and that effort needs to come, not from our rational side of the brain, but it needs to come from the body from a different visceral response from the body.
We're going to talk a lot about how to tap into our internal connection between the nervous system and the mind on the podcast, and this is just one little step in. Hopefully it's piqued your interest, and we're going to get a little deeper into that next time on the Work IN. But until then, think about how you can start to disrupt some of your patterns, whether they are behavior patterns, movement patterns, thought patterns or maybe even emotional patterns. Thanks for joining me...until next time, work IN everyone.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
The Work IN
is a podcast about de-stressing fitness to balance real health with real life. Shake off the culture of stress, come down from high alert and rediscover resilience. Explore natural, lasting ways to deal with stress, tension, trauma and anxiety with your host Ericka Thomas, Certified TRE provider, yoga instructor, health coach and nutrition specialist.