Deep down in all of us, there is a habit that is costing us the quality of life we want. And yet, we persist. We continue to do the habit(s) despite the knowledge that things would be better, much better in our lives if we stopped the habit(s).
I have a lot of good habits in my life. I adhere to a pretty good diet most of the time. I hike. I work out 6 days a week. I get at least 6/7 hours of sleep a night. I pray and write a gratitude list every day. I have many good habits. But there is one habit that I cannot seem to get rid of that costs me the quality of the life I want.
Which I will own up to in a minute...
But I want to take a minute to acknowledge that there are many people who struggle to do the things I do every day. Many people would kill to have the work out schedule I do. Many people’s lives would be altered drastically if they followed my diet regime. The point of this blog is that all of us have at least (most of more than one) a habit that is blocking the progress of a better life.
And I think, I can be bold and say that I know what it is for all of us. Each of us has perhaps a different habit, but that habit is grown out of the same space. Lack of self worth which is simply an outgrowth of fear.
I will use myself as an example. The thing I tend not to give myself is my own attention. Sure, I have a pretty routinized schedule, but that schedule is very much designed around others’ schedules. The habit I have that stands in the way of me having the quality of life I would like to have is that I prioritize other’s over myself, repeatedly. And it is because I am afraid that if I put me first, really, that I will cease to be important to these other people in my family, in my friend group, at work. And so because I have habitually and repeatedly put myself last, I have inadvertently taught everyone else that is ok too.
And ultimately it all comes down to fear. Fear that I will not be enough, fear that I will be too much. Fear that I will get what I want, fear that I will not.
What would really happen if I put me first, always? I made sure my needs, all of them (emotional, sexual, financial and physical) were taken care of first and then set about assisting others?
I would have an amazing life that I would label selfish, self indulgent and self centered. And right there the habit I need to cut gets underscored and highlighted. I am not at the center of my own life. And the truth today is that I am more at the center of it than I ever have been before...but in truth, I have done a bang up job of assuring that I come in last, because I am codependent and somehow thought that if I put you first, that someday you might also do the same for me. I will tell you that has not worked out well for me...like at all.
So the habit I need to cut is this idea that if I put me last, you will put me first. I need to show up for myself and make sure that I am caring for myself the way that I would like others to care for me. I can see now that I have been intermittently committed to this notion. Always willing to abandon me when someone else (a child, a boss, a lover) insists that they come first, or that my own needs can wait.
There are so many things I want to do in this life. So many things I have the time for but fail to accomplish because I have this rather nasty habit of getting lost in you so that I don’t have to look at me...
We can call it codependence. We can call it a traumatic response. We can call it whatever the fuck you want to call it. But when I really look at it. When I stare the issue down, what really comes into view is that I am afraid to own my own life. I am terrified to exist on my own. I am afraid that if I choose me, and not you, then I will be the only one that ever chooses me. And I think, fuck, I know, that I have been trying to solve this fundamental feeling of aloneness since I was a kid. I have always been trying to solve the issue of one by the addition of others. And for the most part, the more others, the less attention I have to pay to my fundamental fear that I am going to always be alone.
The cost of this habit has been exponential to my life. I see that and I wish that that view could produce in me the stamina and staying power for me to cut it the fuck out. But it is hardwired in there. I would so rather get lost in you than really deal with me. You are so much more exciting and alluring. I find myself and all my bullshit to be tiresome and banal. I need the excitement of you...at least that is what I have told myself all these years.
The truth is I am a pretty exciting person. But I am so caught up with being everything to everyone that you never get to find out because I do not have the time or energy to do the work to create the conditions where a deeper connection might prevail. I, in a life, have just become a human doing, a maker of lists and endless tasks. And in so doing, I have created an acceptable level of boredom in my life. I am slave to the schedule I created. I am slave to the patterns and habits of my daily living. And in this subrogation to the almighty routine, I give up the life I really want for the life that feels manageable and safe.
The quality of my life is lacking. I do not give the relationships I love the time or attention they deserve. I, instead, bleed myself out over ones that are lacking and unsupporting a great deal of the time. I have gotten better. The last two years have been relationally revolutionary for me. Never in the history of my life have I let go of so little that I thought was so much.
I can see the great tides of change building in front of me. The new life I want is always going to cost me the old one. That is the price for all of us. In order to gain something we want, always requires that we acquiesce something that we still want or believe is serving us.
I know deep down the life I want for myself is available to me. I just need cut the habit of putting you, whomever you might be, first. Of allowing myself to bleed myself out and over all of you...and the cost of this habit will always be the life I want, for the life I am willing to accept.
Again...still.
What is your habit that is cutting you off and away from the life you really want? Do you know? Write me and tell me! I would love to hear about it!
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