We develop our habits for survival. Not because we need the drink, the cigarette, or to read the paper in order to survive, but because they seemingly provide us with some necessary want or need we carry close to our heart.
There are other habits I've developed along my way. Let's take creating safety for example (though the same would be true for connection, acceptance, being respected, being me, or countless other desires). While the desire for safety may be a basic human need, I've developed character traits and behaviors throughout my life in order to keep myself safe. Maybe it's the shyness. The reluctance to share feelings or ideas. It could be why I avoided the park as a kid and chose video games instead. All in the pursuit of safety.
As an adult, it's interesting to see these patterns showing up over and over again. They show up as reluctance to share my ideas at work or even to tell my spouse how I'm truly feeling. In the face of these situations my persona or facade go up creating a wall and I feel fear as my inner world feels invaded or violated even by seemingly the simplest of events. My body may tense and I feel my face constrict as I try to hide what I'm feeling from showing. I tell myself it isn't safe to wear my feelings on my sleeve. All in the interest of maintaining my habit. I may grab a cigarette in order to create that moment of calm. In my calmness I want some time to myself. There I find safety and peace. All this... The persona, the wall, the cigarette or drink, finding myself alone, in service of keeping myself safe in the old ways that used to work for me.
Used to.
However, like stated earlier, old habits die hard. While these may have been necessary and served me at some earlier time, today they don't. They hold me back and keep me from getting my raise. They prevent closeness with my spouse. My habits hold me back from asking for what I need. My facade puts on that smile when really I'm feeling sad. My behaviors find the quick temporary fixes for what I'm looking for and don't create a space for me to fully show up.
It may be more difficult to let down the security blanket of my persona than to drop any vice I've every picked up. It's become my way of being. My modus operandi.
So I try stepping out into the light and exposing myself without the protective way of being. Without the wall. Without the habit. I feel the fear and I do it anyway in the interest of getting what I really want. Safety. Not safety in seclusion or isolation but safety within relationship. Or course I won't find it everywhere I seek it, but if I don't seek it, I won't find it anywhere.
I may need to grieve. There's a reason I've held on to these habits for so long. As much as they may hurt me today, once they served me and my habit has been a comforting friend for a long time. So mourning and grieving the old way may be in order.
Old habits die hard. Until they do I have so much to learn from them. For now I know I'm on the right track.
