healing + feelings

we survived by being faster in our cars and stronger with our tools, and better than we were before. We survived with language to build on the past with and weapons to fight the future. We survived because of our hands and our heads and the fact we make the universe itself knowable.

But then again, a mother will gain the strength of ten men to lift a full car off her baby. A man will spend eight hours nursing a puppy back to health and that dog will follow his every step from the doorstop to the grave. A best friend will dropkick an alligator in the water for the sake of him.

And I’ll tell you, maybe it was all of it. And maybe it was because we loved each other better than we hated, we loved each other in the dark before the lightbulb and loved each other more in the wilds before our walls, and we loved each other so thoroughly we made pyramids and libraries and monuments, and wrote not for the sake of money and food and living, but for the sake of wrapping each others hearts in velvet soft to escape the sandpaper winds of this world.

And that too is survival. That too is a reason. Not for our brains or our hands or our grit, but for our willingness to wrap each others wounds in bandages and set the broken bones of grandparents and sit outside windows and sing lullabies and love songs and cry over butterflies and sunsets and care too deeply. Care too strongly. Care too much.

The habit loop consists of 3 things:

Cue → the trigger that tells your brain to go into an automatic processing mode

Routine → physical, mental, emotional or spiritual habits

Reward → the feedback your brain gets after this habit is completed

A craving is what is driving the loop

Example: Food cravings The cue is seeing a food item on the counter and your body starts to anticipate the calories and the delicious taste. The routine is actually eating the food item and finally, the reward is the good feeling you feel while eating it.

To overpower a habit you need to recognize what craving is driving your behaviour. It’s about planning how to change that pattern. What can you replace the routine with?

You start with a craving and you anticipate it and then when you give in to that craving you feel a nice relief

New habits take a lot of discipline! Be disciplined, be mindful and check-in with yourself.

Replace self-destructive routines with healthier alternatives! Find what aligns with you.