March’s series of blogs called “Clearing Negative Patterns” has been inspired by  excerpts from Coventry Magic by Jacki Smith.   

Just to recap: For 2015, we are dedicating ourselves to unleashing your personal power. Since this is no overnight task, we have broken it down month by month. March, we talk about what it takes to break negative patterns that keep you stuck.  We start with the acknowledgement that habits are very challenging to actually break and how to even start that process. Each Thursday, there will be a new instalment about breaking these habits and clearing negative energy.  These blogs are really just a summary of the real exercises found in Coventry Magic by Jacki Smith, for more detailed explanation, I recommend checking out the entire book.

Habits Can Be a Bitch to Break

There are habits that are not great for you.  Biting your nails, twirling your hair or even popping your pimples.  Then there are habits that are really, truly and I mean seriously unhealthy for you. These habits are addictions, they stunt you and keep you unhappy or from growing, yet they comfortable and familiar and so hard to let go.

Our brains are wonderful and efficient machines, but man it can be so zombie like. For many people, including myself, I am amazed how disconnected my worker bee brain from my conscious thoughtful brain.  Since our computer brain is efficient, it likes to hard wire pathways into the brain that make certain actions or thoughts easier to go to.  Think of it like the path of least resistance.  Your brain in some ways is so good at what it does, it can gid pathways to deeply in your mind that it seems almost impossible go a different way.

This is what you are dealing with with are dealing with a habit.  To really change something about your bad habits it is going to take a lot of effort.  I am talking about daily work.  It will take planning, introspective thinking, identifying the root of your habits and working daily on rewiring those pathways in your zombie brain.  It will require becoming more conscious in your everyday steps.  Think about things before you do that, ask yourself why you do it.  Why do I drive this way to work?  What is the first thing I do when I get home? How do I spend my time with my children?  Why do I ask the questions I do?  Just keep in mind even doing this is going against those already established paths that you have in your mind.  This will be tiring, frustrating and your instincts will tell you to just give up. HOWEVER,  if you can keep doing it, day after day. You brain will slowly start to rewire, slowly dig new paths and every day it will seem more and more natural and if you keep to it, you may even find that you have started to actually change in a bad habit or two in the process.

Personal note from Monica: If you would like me and are curious to know more about how habits work in the the brain, I just started a book called The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg. I am really excited to read and learn more about that brain of mine and to  help me understand and build bridges between my thinky side and my zombie side.