HOW TO REPLACE A HABIT (ISSUE 150) OCTOBER 14, 2014

By Diane Gold

How to replace a habit is an age old idea with lots of answers. Having been trained in the martial arts, I see the answer as martial arts 101: be patient, be focused, be immediate and be consistent.

THE HABIT

The habit cycle I’ve mentioned often, along with Charles Duhigg, author of The Power Of Habit, Leo Babauta, the author of zenhabits.net, medical doctors and psychologists who clinically study how we are the ways we are and lots of others who know it from the inside out.

Just to review, the habit is the culmination of a repetition of the following:

The Urge

The Behavior To Satisfy The Urge

          The Reward

THE HARMLESS HABIT

Picture a nice hot summer day at the beach with friends. Someone hands out a pretty, colored spray bottle filled with water to each person. In a playful crowd, it will take little time for someone to get a playful desire (the urge) to depress the lever of the spray bottle (the action) which would result in an expulsion of water on our friends (the reward). On a hot, sunny day, this would be harmless and probably welcome.

If this group goes to the beach all the time and brings spray bottles, they could all develop the habit of seeing who could spray whom first. This is the development of a habit. Because habits remain with us, if this group does not see each other for 20 years, and they finally meet at the beach with spray bottles; it will take them all but 10 seconds to start spraying each other again.

THE UNSUPPORTIVE HABIT

Not all habits are so innocent. Some are toxic and destructive, and we want to replace them. Picture eating too much, deliberately throwing up what we eat, doing drugs and alcohol, biting nails, cutting school, eating junk food and a whole lot more.

If we continue to do any one of these behaviors over and over again, we develop a habit that does not support a responsible and healthy life. Everyone has habits. Some of us are prone to unsupportive ones. Those of us who have these unsupportive habits, very often, have multiple of them. Drugs often go with alcohol, which often goes with gambling which often goes with nurturing dependent relationships which often goes with biting nails, and so on.

THE GOOD NEWS

The fabulous news is that, no matter how many unsupportive habits are lurking around, there is a way to replace them, 1 at a time. And the replacement of 1 may positively affect the desire to act out the others.

If you need habit help, go to http://warriorsofweight.com/warriorsofweight-consulting.

ONE TAI CHI STEP AT A TIME

One of the mistakes we all make, at one time or other, is that we decide to take action to wrench something or many things out of our lives. We actually sit around dreaming about being a different being devoid of the habits that are causing us discomfort.

If I’ve learned 1 thing from the joys of tai chi and from replacing unsupportive habits, it is that we can succeed by taking 1 step. It’s counterproductive to take more than 1 step. I know we multitask by being on the phone while driving the car while texting while having a conversation with our passenger. These actions are actually 1 swift and consecutive behavior at a time. But, adding 1 step, with no rush, is the way.

THE FOCUS

Often times, we focus on removing things from our life. As illustrated with the spray bottle example above, as well as by a myriad of scientific research studies, once we develop a habit, it is ours. It makes little sense to focus on removing it when we can replace it. That does not mean that each habit has to be front and center just because we have developed it. It means if we replace our old behavior that caused the unsupportive habit with a new behavior that supports us, we will replace our habit with a new one. Yay!

So, we focus on some new behavior, only 1, repeating this 1 behavior over and over again until this behavior is our new habit.

THE TIMING

What’s so fascinating about habits is that, to replace them, we have between 5 and 15 seconds to act. Any longer than that and we will go back to our old behavior. If we are thinking about elaborate schemes to get rid of our habit or 5 step techniques to beat the habit; we will, unfortunately be stuck in the recidivism loop. Even 2 steps splits the attention. That’s why it’s 1 step to replace a habit Timing Is Everything
But, as we say, timing is everything.

CONCLUSION

How to replace a habit is as simple as 1-2-3, in principle. I know it can feel impossible. That feeling is just a feeling. As we say in kung fu class, when we put you on your knuckles in push-up position and ask you to hang out there, with appropriate form,

“It’s only pain.”

This is another way of teaching us to take 1 action step. If we choose to look at the pain associated with the action, our concentration may falter. If we focus on taking the 1 step only, that is, for the knuckle push up, checking each part of the body while maintaining the flat back position with tight fists, flat knuckles, elbows bent, arms no wider than shoulders, heels together, toes apart; we will succeed. When we act with the pain on the side, we will complete the exercise. If the pain becomes the focus, we have lost our direction.

The same with the new action to replace our habit. If we concentrate on the pain of leaving our old behavior, it is likely we will not do our new behavior. The pain to replace a destructive habit will be there. All we have to do is do our 1 new behavior, our 1 step. Bam! Then, we do our 1 new behavior again. And again and again until it becomes the habit of choice.

The pain will get less. When? In how long? The answer to that is “when it does.” That is not important. What is important is replacing that habit.
Onward, warriors. We are stronger than we think!

ACTION STEPS

1) Know that you will feel pain, and that that is OK and normal.

2) Know that the pain will not stop you, even though it feels excruciating.

3) Know that the mind will make you look at the pain.

4) Remember to laugh that the mind is making you look at the pain.

5) Remember that we have all gone through it, and many of us continue you to go through it daily for the sake of continuing our habit replacement.

6) Remember, you can ask for help from someone who has done it at
http://warriorsofweight.com/warriorsofweight-consulting/

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DIANE GOLD, PUBLISHER AND AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Turning Habits Into Health, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert, dedicated mom, studying plant-based nutrition, peaceful conflict resolution and habit replacement.

She believes we can replace a habit with a directed mind. She says,

“One of the biggest reasons to teach meditation and tai chi at an early age is so that we learn to focus on what we are doing as opposed to focusing on our feelings, the weather, the past, the future.

“In order to change a habit, we need the ability to act without thought. If we haven’t had focus training, this is a hard command.

“From wherever we are at this point in our lives, we can focus on 1 step, bypassing our feelings. The only thing we need to do is take the 1 step. I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m saying we can do it if we just do it.

“I have faith in you and me. I have done it. You can do it.

“Finally, let us all take good care of ourselves because we are so worth it!”

SOCIAL INFLUENCE, HABIT CHANGE AND WHAT’S MISSING! (ISSUE 98)

By Diane Gold

What is it with social influence and habit change? For habit change, it seems very obvious that people like support. And that more people change a habit using a buddy system or enlisting an accountability partner or group. This article will focus on what about groups helps us and what’s basic to success.

THE MOTIVATION WE GET FROM GROUPS

When thinking about social influence and habit change, I think of doing physical fitness like tai chi, going to the gym, going to a weight watch group, going to a rehab center. The function of each of these group activities is motivation of some kind. Let’s look at how the group motivates us.

1) We are social creatures and can enjoy being in the company of others.

2) Because we are the ultimate creatures of habit, a new group setting can be a safer environment than one we have been around when acting out our old habit.

3) We can get courage from hearing that someone else understands us, whether we are talking about drugs, weight loss or anything else.

4) Being with others is a big distraction that can assist us when breaking in a new habit. After all, when we are alone, we are our sole distraction, and the only person on whom we rely; but, in a group setting, we have more social influence keeping us on track.

5) Because we are so impressionable, for the most part, we pick up the habits of others. Therefore, if we are around people who are productive, we will be more inclined to be productive.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

We should note that the group experience is not everyone’s preference. If we look at how Americans spend their time, according to the America Time Use Survey, done by the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, a similar percentage of people work out alone as together. But this statistic is not specifically for habit change activity, so I would suspect if there were a time use survey done for people who are changing a habit, there would be more groupies than soloists.

SUCCESS RATE

When we look at the amount of people who go back to their old habits after six months, a year, five years; it can be disheartening. There’s an interesting statistical article from 2004 about how treatment doesn’t work at:
http://www.soberforever.net/currenttreatdoesnt.cfm.

Unfortunately, after writing about how treatment doesn’t work, the article’s publisher contradicts itself by saying its treatment facility has a success rate 30% higher than anyone else.

It is fairly accepted that most people who become residents in rehabilitation centers succeed between 3% and 10% of the time to maintain their habit change. The data at centers is usually compiled without scientific method, and, because individuals only answer survey questions to arrive at conclusive data, it is extremely difficult to maintain study integrity.

SIDEBAR

This fact reminds me of another modality whose studies are sporadic, don’t always use scientific method and are small. It’s how tai chi, which saves lives, does its magic. Studies that involve mind-body answers and compare one’s lifestyle before and after are very expensive. To conduct a nice-sized primary study (one that uses fresh data to arrive at conclusions vs. a secondary study that analyzes and interprets a primary study), it can cost $250,000 and that would be for a small mind-body study.

WHAT’S MISSING?

So, what’s missing from all these programs that include one-to-one therapy, group therapy, peer group therapy, tai chi, chi kung, yoga, massage, sauna, meditation, organic vegan food and more?

I’m going to repeat what makes up a habit: a cue, a behavior and the resulting reward. This habit model doesn’t change. So what are we shooting for?

When we go into a program and do all the therapies mentioned above, we have one purpose. It is to change a habit. This requires that a new system be put in place. To build this, we must change the mind and develop skill and build our foundation. After all, we need to have something to hold on to when our urges show up in order to direct us to execute our new behaviors we have developed.

BUILDING FOUNDATION

Let’s use how tai chi changes us since I have seen it first-hand in many hundreds of people. Any mind-body work or other creative discipline can do it as long as the instructor understands how foundation is built and instructs it starting with the basics.

People think tai chi is for exercise or defense, alone. It’s really for perception change. By doing a powerful exercise as tai chi is, we learn a systematic approach to movement. This system gives us tools to use in everyday life. As we acquire the patience to endure tremendous body exertion, we are learning a tool that works with anything in life. We have the understanding to know that the physical exertion and mental concentration needed to physically execute the movement is teaching us to follow through. And it is showing us we can do it.

This type of training gives us a foundation of skills that can be used to change a habit. They are self-esteem, pride, temperance, patience, tolerance, strength, balance and many more. These are the traits needed for habit change. If a rehab program misses teaching these skills through some type of system, the program participant is left in relatively the same condition as when s/he arrived, only learning a few rote skills which usually fade away, exposing the old habit.

CONCLUSION

We are socially influenced in many ways. When we see lots of people doing the same thing, we are more inclined to do that same thing. I always give the example of helping a fallen woman on the sidewalk. If no one has stopped to help, we are less likely to stop. If someone has already stopped to help, we will be more likely to inquire if we can help (unless we are public servants or feel like public servants and believe it is our duty to protect).

It’s the same if we surround ourselves with people who do not take drugs or drink or overeat or gamble. We will be more likely to accept behaving in a similar fashion, especially if they know we are working on habit change. If we keep repeating a new behavior in place of the old habit at the same time as building a personal foundation, we will succeed. And what’s missing at the start will no longer be missing. We will have developed, not only new behaviors, but a structure within ourselves that will sustain the way we wish to live.

ACTION STEP SEQUENCE

In order to see how easy it is to reach out to another, meaning, to form a group, here’s an action that might be helpful.

1)  Approach someone who is in your life or just someone you meet at the library or supermarket.

2)  Tell her (him) you are doing an experiment and that you need help one time between 6 pm and 7 pm one night this week. (It can be a different time.)

3)  Tell the person that, when you call, you will ask her to tell you how important you are to your mission.
_________

Let us know how it goes.
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DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Turning Habits Into Health, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert, dedicated mom, studying plant-based nutrition and habit change.

She has been influenced by group dynamics and seen how others sometimes get trapped. She says,

“Fortunately, I was raised to be very independent. But groups still influence me. Whether we are helped by the group or our own personal way, the one that works is the right one for each of us.

“As for building a foundation, there’s only one way to go about it: one step at a time. Slowly, with consistency and follow-through. As we begin to build upon ourselves, we become very strong. Then we become the social influencers, and nothing more is missing.”

HABIT MASTERS; WE ARE (ISSUE 90)

By Diane Gold

Habit masters, we are. During our forming period, we don’t think about it, often. Once the habit is formed, we don’t think about it either. Unless it impedes our lives.

Both habits and mastery require many lessons. They are both learned behaviors that require extreme repetition. Habits are responses we cultivate as a reaction to a certain feeling, urge, itch, trigger, craving. With repetition, these responses become semi-automatic behaviors that become part of our infrastructure until we change them. Mastery is a state of prowess developed through repeating any skill set.
Wouldn’t that make us habit masters?

COMMONALITY

So, here’s the habit infrastructure as we know it: urge leads to behavior leads to reward. We feel an urge. We do something about the urge. Our behavior gives us a reward. (Such as right now, sitting here, writing, in a doctor’s office near the health food¸ my trigger was writing the word “craving,” believe it, or not. My behavior will be to go get a frozen vegan pretzel product which is one of the only processed foods I allow myself, with lots of control so that I don’t do it every week.) My reward will be the realization of my own drooling for a pretzel (unless I decide to temper the urge by drinking two glasses of water, to quote my own advice).

When we get the same urge over and over and do the same behavior to answer the urge, isn’t that actually mastering the management of that urge? In some cases, this “management” supports our positive life style. In others, the habit burdens us or diminishes our effective productivity.

Obviously, when we hold a door for someone because we want the reward of being seen as or seeing ourselves as humanitarians, this is a great habit. When we get the urge to eat sweets, such as cookies or cake, and we answer that call by eating a whole bag of cookies or an entire cake; we may increase our weight, tax the body’s ability to healthily process glucose and develop the loss of urge control: a non-supporting habit.

When we drink alcohol on New Year’s Eve, that may be considered a harmless ritual, unless we learn to repeat that ritual over and over again several times daily.

When we eat snack foods that are made of fake food, we are cultivating a habit that is not good for our health. Unfortunately, often times, snacks are purchased because they fill us up on a severely restricted budget. Even more dismaying is that children will learn to eat poorly because their families cannot afford properly nutritious food. Or do their families not even know the ills of junk food because they, themselves, were raised on the same snacks?

WHY SNACKS

When we are young, many of us have been given snack foods for various reasons. Here are the more common reasons why:

1) Our families want us to stop demanding attention from them, so they bribe us into complacency by feeding us snacks, which often cause hyperactivity so we become more demanding.

2) Our parents, not knowing the pollution in snack foods, want us to be happy and want to show they love us, so they let us eat snacks the way their parents were raised.  And, chances are, parents raised before the 1980s,  did not begin in-depth food education in their early childhood education.

When I went to school, which was in the 50s and 60s, we made chocolate pudding or Kool-Aid in school as part of our cooking class. Sadly, nutrition was never part of the lesson, other than a tomato was red, it was spelled t-o-m-a-t-o and it was a fruit. (An Oxford Dictionaries review stated why the tomato is a fruit and I realized that the green pepper [or any color capsicum] “grows from the ovary in the base of the flower,” so just like tomatoes, are actually fruits, but used as vegetables in cooking.

NOTE

Starting with the Millenial Generation (Gen Y) – that is everyone born from the early 1980’s and afterward, will have access to more appropriate eating patterns than any generations before. There will also be more creative ways to eat well on less money because of global awareness due to global communications technology.

3) The most frequent reason people eat snack food is because healthier food is more expensive.

FACT

Just the other day, I spoke to a seventy-something who was the legal guardian to a child under seven. She received some $16 a month in food stamps, and the child received $29 for the month in food stamps. True, the woman was supposed to be receiving child support from each of the child’s parents, which was why the food assistance allotment was so low, but each parent was not able to contribute. There are companies that make little snack packs of processed food knowing the financial constraints exist more often than not. And they take that to the bank.

THE HABIT

Whether we repeat our training, we learn, whether it’s riding a bike, learning to walk, learning to swim, answering our food urge mechanism by eating snack foods, answering our alcohol trigger by drinking to excess; we learn well how to immerse ourselves in the habit.

It is said by scientific reporting that we don’t forget our habits; they are always there. Bike riding and swimming are two great examples. We still have those skills even if we take a thirty year break. Or, let’s look at drug use. People who take a thirty year break from taking drugs will be the first ones to tell you the habit is there; they are just not exercising it for the day.

Habits don’t go away. We are habit masters.

ACTION STEPS

The skills used to develop a habit are focus, repetition and follow through. These are the skills needed to change a habit, too. Of course, passion is involved in the original learning and should one choose to make a change.

Once we master one path to a habit, developing a new habit is not foreign to us; and it will be easier to develop a new one.

With that said, here’s the set of steps:

1)   Identify a skill set you have.

2)   Recall the amount of training you needed to learn it.

3)   Identify a habit you have.

4)   Recall all the times you repeated it to develop it.

So now that we have proved these major similarities,

5)   Pick a habit that you want to change.

6)   Focus on a new behavior to the old urge.

7)   Repeat the new behavior the same time every day or several times a day.

8)   Be consistent.

9)   Write about it so that we can post it or not (your choice).

10) Notice what keeps getting in the way, if anything.

11) Write about it and contact us.

12) Keep working it until you are experienced at the habit change.

CONCLUSION

If we have followed these action steps, we will have a habit to put with all the others. We are, again, the habit master.

The trick, as I have found it, is to notice that, if we leave thinking out of it, we can accomplish mastery. We can tell ourselves that we will think later, since we are too busy acting.

Our mission is in front of us, shielded from distraction. Once again, we will become habit masters.
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DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Turning Habits Into Health, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert, dedicated mom, studying plant-based nutrition and habit change.

She has worked with many people as a teacher and has had the opportunity to see the way that they proceed towards a goal, whatever that is. She says,

“Although there are many people out there who say one group is different from another and one person is different from another, these statements have merit. We look different. Our personalities are different. The societies we choose may be different. The way we raise our families may be different. The pain we have suffered at the hands of some other group is different.

“What turns out to be the same is the way we work as human beings. our infrastructure. No matter what, when we feel an urge, we choose a way to behave even if that choice develops a habit without control. Makes me wonder how the prejudice habit actually began.

“The same is true for matters of the heart. We are similar within a realm. We all act with or without jealousy, we act with some brand of morality and we all cry when we are hurt. We all want to be loved, recognized, respected and important to some cause. We all pursue what is important to us.

“So I conclude that we are more the same than anything else. If aliens came to invade the planet, we would all work together to sustain humankind.

“Which is why I say we are habit masters, well trained in what we have repeated a lot. This doesn’t vary from person to person. The technique to change a habit varies slightly from person to person. But if we stop distracting thoughts and do the task at hand, we become the same as our sisters and brothers of other tribes and masters of our habits.”

ARE YOU LIBERATED? AND WHAT THAT MEANS FOR HABIT CHANGE (ISSUE 88)

By Diane Gold

YOU ARE LIBERATED

“You are liberated,”

was the response I got when my student asked me my age, and I told her with no hesitation. She then responded that she doesn’t share her age. Her withholding her age is part of a social more that is, in my opinion, holding us from being liberated.

Hearing these words brought back a whole series of memories starting with a story my mother told me about her childhood. Now, I know that I have always been an explorer and that if a rule or tradition didn’t make sense to me, I always questioned it. I was encouraged to do so by both my parents.

Let’s go back to my mom. She was extremely free, meaning that she didn’t live by societal rules that were empty, prejudiced and thoughtless. She was ahead of her time, realizing her self-worth as more than a housewife and a mother. She was a great example of the Women’s Liberation Movement that was prevalent in my youth in the 60s, even though she was not from that generation. And she passed it on to me.

So, let’s backtrack to when my mom was one-year-old. (This photo is not my mom. Because of her free spirit, I believe she would laugh if she saw this representation. This photo is used with lots of love and memories of nurturing.) She told me that she loved to see a plate break on the floor, that she would laugh with abandon at this phenomenon. Maybe it was the excitement of seeing the pieces scatter. It was a favorite activity, nonetheless. And my grandfather used to buy her plates so that she could knock them off her highchair so that she could laugh and be free. Yes, he was liberated, too.

My grandfather was a great fan of the second-hand store, which we now know as the thrift store. I got some of my most precious toys from his jaunts to this type of store. Apparently, this is the kind of store from which he bought plates for my mother to break. He was encouraging of her happiness and thought this would make her a free and happy human being.

Most parents would discipline their children away from this type of behavior at this young age. Of course, at some point, my mother was taught that plates are for eating and not for throwing. But the freedom she had in her formative years surely affected her. I firmly believe that this type of childhood education allowed my mother to be the free and happy spirit she was.

I did not throw plates, but I was encouraged to be my own person, ask questions about anything for the purpose of becoming a productive and liberated person. I can’t swear that my parents were thinking of the word “liberation” when they were raising me. They just saw no need to teach me to be seen and not heard as was and still is a popular method of child-rearing. Personally, I think this method can repress a child’s spirit and disable a child’s curiosity. Respect for elders and familial hierarchy can be taught in many ways, but free speech, in my opinion, should begin at the earliest of ages.

This leads me to the idea that when people are repressed due to upbringing, they tend to end up with less than even temperament, such as bossy or submissive. These traits usually cause some sort of life tension.

OLD-SCHOOL CLARIFICATION

Let me clarify that many people raised in the “be seen and not heard” old-school philosophy are successful, happy, shining and wonderfully balanced. There are, however, many of us raised with restrictions every time we turn around, such as don’t speak unless we are asked a question, always be available as a servant to our parents, all friends must be researched for family stature and then brought to the house for approval; we are often stressed, repressed and depressed because of it. Certainly, we are rarely liberated and feel the pain of not being trusted.

I’m not suggesting that all parents should buy plates for their kids and let them toss a plate from the high mount, the highchair. I’m also aware that there’s no proof this plate activity had the huge influence on my mom that it could have since this event does not have a control subject meaning we had life-long data on another subject of my mother’s age who wanted to throw plates and was restricted from doing it. My mother was one of the most balanced human beings I ever met, and her father assessed the wonderful laughter that came from this plate activity as good for her.

NON-SUPPORTIVE PARENTS

Many parents, due to frustration, money problems or runoff behavior from their parents, may not treat us well as children. These actions certainly shape us and affect the way we see the world. They do not have to define us.

RESULTS

For those of us who wish to keep what we have been given in our upbringing,  this is our choice. We have to notice whether it is hurting us or not. I am the first one to say that traditions which are the habits of our family or tribe can be bolstering, rooting, unifying. However, if these habits or the perceptions from these habits hurt us, action would be a good choice.

THE LIST

Here is a sample list of habits developed from society or upbringing. These may or may not support our lives. When there is anxiety attached to any of these, action may be in order. Action is liberation.

1) We hide our age because we will be judged by it. Unfortunately, society does judge us by age. Revealing age out loud helps us adjust to it. It also can reduce the amount of judgment initiated about such a superficial trait.

2) We don’t speak up due to our self-image. This usually has to do with the fact that we are younger, older, the minority sex in the group, the wrong sexual orientation, a woman whose place (in in someone else’s mind) is in the home, the wrong nationality, religion or socio-economic level.

Today’s New York Times talked about scientific studies of how people who lived in poverty in their early years maintain the scars of this experience their whole lives and live shorter lives as a result. Unless they address their feelings.

3) We maintain a stance of submission. When we have been encouraged to be silent and non-assertive or when our families have ridiculed us, we have not worked at our assertive selves. Much like debate class prepares us to speak up, speaking out as children gives us the experience we need. If we have not been encouraged to do so, the repetition necessary to learn to be assertive may be missing. And, often times, it is easier to stay with what we know. Even if it eats at us.

ACTION STEPS FOR LIBERATION

1) Define one of the habits you have that causes discomfort. Do so by writing it down in a one or two paragraph statement. This can be solely for you, so there is no need to hold back.

2) Once you have the habit defined (let’s say, for example, that you don’t speak because of past negative reinforcement), go to the mirror in the morning and say to yourself,

“I restrict myself from speaking because my parents told me I wasn’t a good speaker. This is totally incorrect. I am a good speaker, and I am a valuable human being.”

3) Repeat this mirror behavior in the evening and alone, possibly when you are in the bathroom.

4) Repeat this morning and evening mirror work for a week.

5) If you have successfully completed a week, write a paragraph about your new found comfort with yourself. This paragraph is not dependent upon whether you feel the comfort level or not.

6) Read the paragraph in the mirror. An example paragraph might be,

“I certainly feel confident in myself. I can read this paragraph well. I know the more I read it, the more comfortable I will become. The more I feel good about my ability to speak, the smoother it will sound. The smoother it sounds, the more I will want to speak more openly. The more I speak more openly, the more ability I will obtain. I am a good speaker, and I am a valuable human being.”

7) Read this paragraph once or twice a day for a week.

8) If you have succeeded at reading for a week, add a week.

9) If you have succeeded at two weeks, add a third week. Feel free to change the paragraph that you are reading.

10) Know that you have taken the step has become your new habit.

CONCLUSION

When we are held down by our habits, whether from the constant memory of a family member or a bully saying we are worthless, or having to act like a Cinderella servant,  we repetitively are trapped experiencing the same feelings over and over again. We take on habits we don’t even know we have, and they form us.

Sometimes, we don’t realize we have them until we are passing them on to our children. Only then do we recognize how influential our childhood was and how impressionable we were to have kept a habit that does not positively support our life.

There is always time to change a habit. The beginning only takes one step. Just as the mind can be liberated in one thought, it is the one step that starts the process. If we are not liberated as we read this and we choose to be, we can liberate ourselves now by taking one step. We must be patient with ourselves since our habit was not made overnight. We must repeat the step until it becomes familiar. Slowly, the step will become the habit, and the reward will be there.
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FEEDBACK

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DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Turning Habits Into Health, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert, dedicated mom, studying plant-based nutrition.

She has always believed it is almost as important to free ourselves inside as outside. There are ways to proceed that can make it easy. She says,

“It is devastating for people who do not have their physical freedom. But, for those who do, it is important to work on our inner freedom. Through small, continual steps, we can have this. No exclusive technique or direction is needed, only that we work on ourselves in some way. A little bit every day.

“This work can be done in honor of those who do not have their physical freedom and in hopes that we can all live with some freedom, inside and out.”

THE ONE NECESSARY SUCCESS HABIT ANYONE CAN LEARN: AND HOW TO DEVELOP IT! (ISSUE 86)

By Diane Gold

It would seem that it’d be hard to pinpoint one success habit that we need to succeed. But, it’s right in front of us and we all use it or lose it. The great thing is that everyone, more or less, can learn it. With respect to the developmentally delayed and emotionally fraught people I have and have not worked with and respect, it’s as easy as putting one foot in front of the other.

Let’s review the habit process, first. It is a behavior we have repeated over and over again after a cue which takes away pain or gives pleasure. We know that something TRIGGERs us to TAKE AN ACTION after which we get some type of result, commonly called a REWARD. This result or reward can be the joy of selling someone a product or an idea, which makes us feel powerful even though we often bill our mission as helping others.

OR it can be the joy we feel from the chemical change caused by taking some drug, alcohol or tobacco-like product, which we bill as fun but is usually to hide our lack of self-esteem. Or it can be the relief (joy) of preventing our bodies from going into withdrawal from lack of some drug to which we have developed a chemical dependence. It can even be as simple as the joy and focus we feel from taking a shower and feeling clean. In the latter example, we get up and feel dirty. This feeling triggers us to take a shower which leads us to feel that newness we feel after our skin is clean.

Okay, the one necessary success habit is not taking a shower, although most successful people respect themselves and others which would include bathing on a regular basis.

THE HABIT

THE HABIT is to take one step after we fall, collapse, fail a test, fumble a deal, lose our status, get insulted, get demoted, fail a test, get fired, separate from a significant other, get embarrassed or get knocked down. Commit to this one step. When we go to take it, it might be the most unsure move we have ever taken, or so it feels at the time. It is crucial.

THE ACTION STEP

Here’s the easiest way to take that step which has a time limit on it.

For just about anything, go out in the world for a walk and a talk. You may not have a smile on your face when you leave, but your perspective will be different when you return. That is the way we are built. Any little distraction, like a walk or a few words with another person, changes where we were headed the moment before – if we let it. (When we are focused on positive goals, we often choose to ignore these distractions. However, after a fall, distractions heal us.)

If you were fired from a job, send out one cover letter and resume within 24 hours. Not that you are interested in job hunting now, but the action step will insure that you cement the habit to get up after falling. Remember, we are creating THE ONE NECESSARY HABIT that will lead to success.

If your relationship broke up, talk to someone within 24 hours, even if it’s the server at the local  coffee shop. Talk about anything, but connect with a human being. If possible, be with a group of happy people and talk about incidental things, dance, shoot golf balls.

If you fell off the wagon – any wagon – meaning you used drugs, drank alcohol or gorged yourself after a period of abstinence; celebrate that you are starting your first day toward your goal by telling a member of your support system within 24 hours. If you don’t have a support system, go to a library and talk to a librarian or go to the corner store and say hello to the owner. Talk about anything, but connect with a human being, outside, in the flesh.

If you gambled your rent away or just lost your retirement fund in a financial crash; go talk to the poorest person you know or have seen and talk about what is important in life. You might see life from a different angle after the talk. And it might help with your fall.

Obviously, the idea is to make a move. Whether it’s walking, talking, dance, seeking out a poor person, sending a resume; the idea is to move forward to minimize the down time. When we tell another, we are opening up our negative dyke and allowing ourselves to let go of our disappointment and lead ourselves on a new path.

CAUTION

Do not wait to feel like taking a step. That’s the trick! You will not feel it right away. You will want to take time and beat yourself up. You can beat yourself up after you make a move, which means after you begin to form your new success habit. You can self-beat in 48 hours, if you still want to. But, within 24 hours, follow the action steps.

ADDITIONAL ACTION STEP ONE

Make sure to lie down to rest early on the day of the fall. Sleep heals.
If you can’t get to sleep, play some kind of word game until you feel sleepy, knowing that sleep will heal you to some extent and that you will need your strength for your action step.

ADDITIONAL ACTION STEP TWO

If we have experienced a chemical set back, meaning we have overeaten or done drugs or alcohol; our body will be in the fight or flight mode. Therefore, we will have to be aware that we will be getting cues to repeat the “fall” behavior. Every time we get our cue to do excess food or drugs or alcohol, we need to act according to plan.

Here’s the plan: we will drink a glass or two of water every time we get an urge. This will diminish and probably remove the urge or cue temporarily. The cues will become fewer and fewer and more controllable in time. And we can go on about our business without the fall we have just experienced. Our new reward will be our pride in self, our relief at moving toward our goal and development of our new great habit.

CONCLUSION

The important thing about learning the one necessary success habit is to follow through on a daily basis toward the goal we have set for ourselves. With substance abuse, when we get that urge, that cue to behave in a way that does not support our goals, we need to have a planned activity in mind so that we can take a positive action and get our reward. With losing face or money, the planned activity will be to take a step toward our goal within 24 hours AS IF we felt like it.

We each form our habits based on our personalities, our goals, how we were raised and how much repetition we have had at forming them. The more we plan and follow through with them, the more natural it will be to form a habit that helps us. And getting up after a fall is key. It puts us in position to have an internal resource for success, no matter what happens.

FEEDBACK

Please leave  a comment and LIKE.

DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Turning Habits Into Health, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert, dedicated mom, studying plant-based nutrition.

She loves talking about habits and tiny but crucial strategies to develop good ones out of the ones that no longer empower us or never did. She says,

“With a little focus, we can beat the habit game. We can learn how to manipulate our own habits and use them to our advantage rather than have them be detrimental to us. All we need is a little awareness, a little one-pointed attention and a little faith and we can re-learn how to develop a habit to our standards.”

WHY CHANGE A HABIT? YOUR LEGACY AWAITS (ISSUE 80)

By Diane Gold

Why change a habit?

There’s always tomorrow; I’ll do it when I come back from vacation; I’m too stressed out today; I have time to change; a day won’t make any difference.

One truth is this: the more times we do any behavior; the less offensive it becomes to us, the more we think it supports our positive lifestyle, the less foreign it becomes, the poorer our judgment becomes about the behavior and the easier it is to keep doing it.

Another truth is this: we don’t know what tomorrow will bring, so let’s live well today.
Imagine five amazing things in our lives that we would never want to give up which are our best reasons in the world to choose one great habit over a destructive habit.

1) We can get to see our daughter’s recital. We have put time into nurturing her creativity because we are truly attentive to what she is doing and value her before ourselves.

2) We can attend our son’s graduation from college because we made the time, we put aside our unrelated, selfish habits that would have interfered with the day.

3) We can go to our daughter’s graduation from vet school 2013 with all the joy in the world. We show the devotion that is in our hearts, we give attention to our daughters and we get to experience one of the milestones in our lives. Because we are putting our attention on our daughter and not on our own needs.

4) We get to write a book, because we are focused and determined. We are meeting deadlines we (or our collaborators) placed on us because we want to complete our book as part of our legacy.

5) When that awesome audition or job interview comes around, we are ready for it. Because we are directing our path to meet our priorities.

SOME DARK BUT CHANGEABLE HABITS

THE ADDICTION TO DRUGS, PRESCRIBED OR SELF-PRESCRIBED

Consuming substance makes the taker feel better, calmer, more balanced, less anxious, more powerful, more charming, less timid, less afraid, less insecure. When we are habitually consuming, we are not particularly attentive to anything other than the next dose, no matter what we say.

THE ADDICTION TO A SIGNIFICANT OTHER

When we are consumed with a negative relationship, we end up obsessed with another person. We treat ourselves poorly by being addicted to our significant other, almost always addicted to drugs or alcohol, whose demeanor toward us self-perpetuates the poor opinion we have of ourselves. Our human habit affects our children and creates misery. And, most of all, our children subtly lose their number one spot.

BINGEING ON FOOD OR ALCOHOL

Bingeing on food, the most amazing ice cream and chocolate – with potato chips and pretzels – for a year would make us pretty uncomfortable, result in gaining weight and probably mess with our ability to process sugar correctly. Similar results for alcohol, except the decline happens more quickly.

CONCLUSION

What do these all these habits have in common? Self-pleasure, self-relief, self-esteem issues. That’s SELF, SELF and, SELF. They DON’T have to do with giving, sharing and growing.

If we’ve been on both sides, we know the quality of being a loving family member rather than a needs based habit monger, wins out against the instant gratification horror show.
The invasive nature of habits is crystal clear to see when we don’t have one. Not so easy if we never had one. Those of us who control our many itches, urges or cravings are truly gifted. We are the few.

We understand that when people say, “Oh, why don’t you just have one,” when speaking about any consumables whose “one” would trigger a series of unhealthy behaviors; it is we who choose our actions. The Greek aphorism “Know Thyself” comes into play; if we have the control to consume “one,” great. If having “one” will trigger having 100 after that, we choose and smile about it. Usually, the “one” act leads to 5,000 more of that “one” action, so the decision to abstain is preferable.

PRE-PLAN FOR A HABIT

One of the most common habits to want to change is eating the wrong foods or in the wrong quantities. This particular habit plays the most mind games on us because we have to eat to live, and cannot quit food.

We use the same mechanism to change any habit, food included. We need to pre-plan what to do when our urge comes. We need to notice the pleasure we get from the new behavior. We can go for a run, we tie up our hands, go swimming, as long as it is some behavior that is different from what we used to do. And we repeat it. And we repeat it again. And, then, again.

If we do, we will be in position to build wonderful landmarks in our lives that will be our legacy. We won’t be emotionally distraught when big events pass by. We won’t be too overweight to get on a plane to attend a wedding. We won’t be recovering from two days of sleeping it off. We won’t be in a hospital because we overdosed. We won’t be unavailable for our families because we went to the casino.

THE CHANGING A HABIT CREDO

Here are what we can build by changing a habit. The following requires us to love ourselves at the onset or gradually

1) to be available for the legacy that our precious family creates.

2) to build a legacy that revolves around helping humanity and being productive.

3) to take part in collaboration that builds bridges of hope.

4) to be an example for family and community. Although what others say is not something of great concern, acting poorly can lead to pointing fingers, family-embarrassment or community judgment that leads to slowing of career and self. So it might make sense to be valued in public.

5) to look ourselves in the daily mirror and enjoy being the person we are, taking the actions we do, influencing people in a positive way, knowing we are contributing positive energy to the universe.

“Changing a habit” is easier said than done.
It takes a truly courageous person to do “it.”
The change takes constant repetition, first for 3 weeks, then for a year.
Support is available for the asking.
We can do it once we take one step!

FEEDBACK

Please leave a comment and LIKE.

DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Turning Habits Into Health, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert, dedicated mom, studying plant-based nutrition.

She has been studying habits for quite some time, especially how she changes her own. She says,

“Whatever your habit is, you are not alone. Whatever your habit is, you can change it. You may have to act as if you are a robot, carrying out a pre-planned move (behavior) with no thought for whether you want to do it or not, for a while. This act might be for as long as a year or as long as forever, depending upon you.

“I have watched myself start a habit and stop a habit. When I decided that stopping the habit after restarting the habit over again took too much effort, I decided to change my habit on a more permanent basis.

I want to be available for my children and my friends. I want to wake up early and feel clear and physically fit. What a great phenomenon to be in good health. I appreciate it and want to nurture it. From now until forever.

It’s not easy, but all it takes is one step. And then, one step. And then, one step. Etc. You can do it!”

BEFORE OUR MAIN ESSAY, A WORLD TAI CHI DAY ANNOUNCEMENT

World Tai Chi and Chi Kung Day is coming up on April 27, Saturday, at 10:00 am. There are events all over the world. It’s free and fun, for beginners or experienced people. If you are in Boca Raton, I’m coordinating the event at Sanborn Square, my 14th year in Boca. I would be honored to have you attend. Spread the word! If you’re not going to be local, I will look for an event near your location if you contact me.

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WOMEN AS SLAVES: HOW TO CHANGE THIS HABIT (ISSUE 73)

By Diane Gold

The perpetual work that women who are slaves perform is a habit.
As with anything else, we know that anything can be a habit. Habits are formed by repetitive behavior leading to some reward. So, what’s rewarding about abusing human rights? How can men morally write down stories on which religions are based that condone stoning women, placing women in a cattle-like position of being bought and sold, using women as slaves by the husband and using a god as the excuse for the actions?

Our own President Jimmy Carter’s article Losing My Religion For Equality mentions,
” Women and girls have been discriminated against for too long in a twisted interpretation of the word of God.”

HOW IT BEGAN

Here is how it started, as far as we know; and it is also why it continues. It is exactly related to why we have habits that stay with us unless we choose and then change them.

People who have control like to keep it.

Whether it is the news media, the banking systems or the political system in any country; these machines will advertise (using the news companies which they own) to support their agendas, whether this advertising is by way of print media in 2013 or through concepts taught in school, such as: men are more worthy than women or women are evil. This control premise also applies to the single farm girl who has 1 acre of land to farm and wants to fight to keep it in her possession. We all want to possess something, even if it means stepping on someone else to get it. This human truth is how it started.

Now, I don’t believe that blame is something helpful, but I do believe that, because women have accepted the position of inferiority, they have perpetuated a myth that carries on to this day. I also believe that, if women who are oppressed fight for their own equality (I am not speaking of the gentle oppressions where women make less money, have more domestic responsibilities, get worse jobs, but of stark, horrific oppression such as domestic slavery, sex slavery, trafficking, second class citizenship that exist in many nations), the fight would cause as many female deaths as in any civil war to date.

Women make less money, in general. Women have fewer civil rights in many constitutions. They are treated as second-class citizens under some laws.

Women accept being second class citizens out of habit or out of fear of being stoned, murdered, mutilated or disfigured should they be discovered at working on changing their working condition.

BORN INTO PROSTITUTION

There are women who are born into prostitution. In certain sections of the world, 3 generations of women can be found to be prostitutes. In the red light district of Kolkata (formerly spelled Calcutta), a prevalent family business is this: the mother is a prostitute as is her mother. The father waits for the female children of his wife to become 10 years old (or worse, 7 years old) so that he can turn them out into prostitution so that the family can eat and live.

When asked to leave the life, many child prostitutes say they don’t want to leave. This is their heritage, and they would be afraid to do anything else and leave the protection of the mother, father, aunty managing their prostitution.

According to a 2010 interview by the United Nations Office On Drugs And Crime, a 16-year-old sex worker in Sonagachi, Kolkata, India said,

“Ma [the madame] will never let me go, and … this is my home … I am here of my own free will. Even if I leave this place, where will I go? The society will always label me as a prostitute. I am scared wherever I will be employed, the men will rape me. Even if I marry a prince tomorrow and wear expensive saris … and sit in a big car; people will still think I am a prostitute. I cannot change that. I wanted to become a nurse and take care of people. I have a secret lover … and we are planning to marry. I will make sure my daughter is never born into a brothel, is educated and lives her dream.”

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

According to a verified BBC News report from 2001; prostitution, itself, is not illegal in India. According to a completely unverified source listed on Wikipedia; solicitation, brothels, trafficking are illegal in India as is working within 200 feet of a public place. Unverified map of legality of prostitution is here:
http:/warriorsofweight.com/images/prostitutionmap.jpg

Accepting the thinking that it’s OK to putting children into prostitution for money is a bad habit. It is also a way of thinking and acting that has been accepted in current and past society as normal.

If we do a behavior once, it is new, unfamiliar, easy never to do again. If we do something twice, it is easier to do it again. If we do it for a week, we start getting into a groove of familiarity, and we are on our way to making it a habit which solidifies in another week or two.

There are 3 habits at play. One is that the parent often the father) sends the female child out to sell sex. The second habit is the child does it thinking its normal. The third is that the act on the parent’s part is repeated over and over again as normal behavior.

With regard to nurturing children, people in every country think about how to give children the most opportunity for growth, education, socialization, creativity. In the United States, we protect our children until they have reached 18 years old, for the most part.  We protect them from harm and abuse from families whose financial need or choice to teach work ethic responsibility might put their children to work at the expense of their education, childhood or health.

The U. S. Department of Labor’s Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (amended last on April 5, 2011) lists jobs that are considered hazardous for minors (under 18). Prostitution is not on the list because it is not legal. Even if it were, it is not a profession that many groups of parents would consider the choice profession to teach children. Other conditions that are “detrimental to their health and well-being” have various FLSA restrictions to see that kids go to school and are not overworked.

Internationally, people protect their children. Parenting refers to care, love, guidance. However, financial hardship changes what we do, what we will do and, as a result, how we end up. This is universal. Not all governments protect children or enforce laws that are on the books, especially when bribery is rampant.

WOMEN AS SLAVES

In certain cultures, women are forced into being one of many wives, forced into being consorts, forced into the life of a sex slave, a baby machine or a maid. This is partly the fault of women who accept this. But their alternative would be death, ostracism or, at least, fear of death and disfigurement.

The families of some girls who sell them into bondage are making a hard choice in
order to feed their other children. This decision, though ghastly, must be the hardest one in a lifetime, but is the only alternative to starvation in the eyes of the family who commits a daughter into this life, similar to killing daughters in China before 1979 for the good of the state.

WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT THESE SITUATIONS?

1) EDUCATE BY CONNECTING

Talk is cheap, and having lengthy discussions about how terrible these situations are does little. It boils down to changing a habit, as I see it.

Introducing young girls to associations of women who want to escape or have escaped prostitution, slavery, mutilation and the like opens their minds to new options. Instead of the habit of obeying the parent or aunty who demands the child go into prostitution, the child who has been exposed to alternatives is more able to take the first step toward changing the habit of submission and changing the thinking for the future.

One such association is Apne Aap, founded by Ruchira Gupta, a former UN worker whose film The Selling Of Innocents won an Emmy in 1997, and 22 women working as prostitutes in Mumbai’s red light district. Their message was to highlight the link between trafficking and prostitution laws, believing that changing the laws would change the reality.

Although all the founding 22 women from Mumbai are dead due to suicide, AIDS and hunger; this inspirational group still reaches 15,000 women as a safe house and education center to help women get out of the trapped life and to institute enough influence to outlaw prostitution as a crime of exploitation.

2) WRITE ABOUT THE ISSUE

Although journaling helps one to stay balanced and sane, it does not get the word out. Taking one’s safety into account, there are media sources that publish stories of inequality. The more people write, the more they will heal themselves and the more they may have their story published. There is danger in going public with one’s real name, so a pseudonym may minimize the risk, depending upon where one lives.

3) SPREAD THE WORD

Join a group that works to eliminate abuse of power against women. Decide to offer your time to get the word out to those women who are unaware they have options. Your time spent can change the habits of many women who don’t know any better, are complacent with an abusive type of life, who are waiting for encouragement to take their first steps.

4) RESEARCH ABUSE IN RELIGIOUS LITERATURE

Take a good look at the books we use as daily reference. Rewrite some of the archaic interpretations of our religious and social doctrines to fit the modern time citing women as equal to men. Or, at least, consider how they got there.

5) SEE A DOCUMENTARY ON ABUSE OF WOMEN

At this time in history, there are so many films available about violation of human rights. Go check one out. If you are so inclined, offer to have your own screening with 4 others in your home.

CONCLUSION

It is time we worked on changing the concept and reality of women as slaves. It is time we all became better human beings. It’s crucial to engage in conversations. It is also important to consistently talk about abuse of women in literature and in every country in the world.

These customs and habits have taken a long time to evolve. We can work for change by following the action steps. By not abandoning the women in terrible circumstances, we take small steps toward the goal of stopping the abuse.

FEEDBACK

Please leave  a comment and LIKE.

DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Turning Habits Into Health, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert, dedicated mom, studying plant-based nutrition.

She considers abuse against people a shortcoming in the human spirit. Why would we think it right to be hurtful. She says,

“If we are taught that God said we are supposed to abuse women, we are being fed convincing evidence to justify second class status and abuse. We, as thinking beings, need to consider the flaws in such terminology that ostracizes anyone. We are all equal.

“If we are taught that it’s OK to abuse someone, we need to do our own research and come to a different conclusion.”

WHAT MARTIAL ART IMPROVES BALANCE, GETS RID OF STRESS, FEELS LIKE DANCING AND HELPS CHANGE A HABIT? (ISSUE 72)

By Diane Gold

Okay, you knew. It’s tai chi, the system of movement that looks like rolling liquid that never stops. It teaches personal protection and awareness, creates relaxation of both mind and body (yeah, spirit, too, but there are too many discussions and interpretations on that subject that we won’t mention again in this piece), improves health, feels good and looks good.

In order to talk about how tai chi helps change a habit, let’s define the different aspects of the training, similar to what happens when someone joins the United State Military Service or a dance troupe.

According to Staff Seargent Curtis Osburn, USMC, San Diego,

“…from the minute recruits get off the bus, they are guided through physical challenges, mental challenges and moral challenges.”

So far, this sounds like any martial art. We get strong  of mind, body and moral fiber by going through the physical demands of the movement system. The physical regime prepares us to be flexible of mind as well as body.

According to New England Journal Medicine, Feb. 9, 2012, tai chi helped Parkinson’s patients with balance more than stretching and weight training.

But tai chi has other functions. There is scientific evidence that tai chi also improves flexibility, focus, respiration, muscle response, memory, mental attitude.

To the tai chi player (as the rest of the world says it), it feels similar to dancing or swimming because each movement is connected to the previous. I like to call it “air surfing.”

So, how can this change a habit?

Okay, remember that we build habits by receiving some signal (THE CUE) which leads us to do the same BEHAVIOR over and over to receive a REWARD. We eat 3 pieces of pie so we can say,

        “Yum.”

We take chemical or recreational risks because we like “the instant stimulation or rush” or because someone prescribed it. Sometimes we get stuck repeating the behaviors over and over again in a habit.

Where it used to be unusual for us to eat 3 pieces of cake, now it is normal to do so and seemingly impossible to stop. We crave it regularly.

Where it used to be occasional to drink champagne at New Year’s Eve, now it is normal to skip dinner and drink alcohol. It is seemingly impossible to stop. We crave it regularly.
The once exceptional event has become the standard way to act. Those brave souls among us who want to change a habit to support their lives in the best way possible want to reverse the process.

Tai chi can help. Here’s how.

In order to learn tai chi, we have to concentrate on the actual movement we are doing. We do the same movement over and over again until it becomes familiar to us. Sounds a little like a habit, right? It is different from jumping rope, doing a dance routine, going to the gym because every time we do it, it is different. Tai chi movement involves every single part of the body. And we are different of mind and body every day. That is why it is different. As with any martial art, the movement is a tool for training and changing the mind. However, the physical way we execute the motion is related to our mood at the moment, what we choose to express, how relaxed our body is and whether we are working on warding off a potential attacker. These factors affect the movement and make it unique in the world of movement arts.

The fact that tai chi involves mind, body and the way we live our lives, but all we have to do is watch our moving hand or foot to grasp our own attention is the very reason it can help change a habit. When we get the CUE, that urge, craving, onset of desire to behave habitually, we can

CHOOSE ANOTHER BEHAVIOR!

We just have to plan it!

I’m being a bit dramatic here because this statement is all we have to do, even though thinking about it may make it seem impossible. Of course, it may not be easy or we would have done it already. But it’s doable. I’m living proof many times over.

TAI CHI AS IT APPLIES TO CHANGE OF HABIT

Here’s where tai chi comes into play. And these are the sequential steps that allow us to change a habit using tai chi:

1) Tai chi teaches us to take our time with movement because understanding the movement takes time.

2) In order for us to be successful at tai chi, we learn patience.

3) This patience with learning tai chi, a martial arts system, translates to patience in our lives and more control over what we do, including our impulses and the cravings that appear out of nowhere and demand some type of behavior.

4) This control translates into having the strength to do a new behavior, different from the old one, that also creates some type of reward.

At the beginning, meaning for 3 to 4 weeks, if possible; it’s a good idea not to look at the new reward or evaluate it or compare it to the old reward. We have to remember it took lots of repetition to learn the old behavior, so give the new behavior some time to become beneficial to our lives before deciding to judge it. Otherwise the mind will play the old trick that the new behavior doesn’t work for us (which is. most of the time, a self-con so that we can go back to our old behavior).

Just like with tai chi, the reward of a new behavior takes time to learn, time to appreciate, time before it becomes a habit.

PRACTICAL ACTION STEPS TO CHANGE A HABIT

So once we have decided that we have a habit that is not supporting our life, here are some simple suggestions to start moving toward success:

1) WRITE IT DOWN!

When you are not craving, urging, desiring your old behavior – which may only be for a quick minute at a time – get out a pen and paper and write down what new behavior you will do instead of the old one. This way, you are contracting with yourself.

2) GO TO THE MIRROR

Go to the mirror and tell yourself that, when you get your next cue, you will do your new behavior.

3) BE PHYSICAL

Consider doing something physically exerting for your new behavior, like walking around the closest building or house, so that using your physical body has a chance at calming down your urges through the release of new hormones or neurotransmitters that feel good to the body. to   so that It should be physical and in a different location from the one where you do the old behavior.

4) CHANGE LOCATIONS

Make sure that you go in the opposite direction from the place where you did your old behavior. Sometimes if you travel away from the source, you will be too lazy to go toward it, or, by the time you get part way toward the location of the old behavior, your urge will be gone.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

It’s simple distractions such as these that keep us focused on our new behaviors.

5) CALL SOMEONE

Find a friend, a stranger or an association where you can call and tell someone you are traveling away from the source, or you are walking around the building. You are more likely to talk yourself down (talk yourself out of falling back into the old behavior) if you have a supporter.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

If you don’t know who to call, call 211, option 3, to talk to someone. As of February, 2013, this free service is available in 50 states (39 of them with 100% coverage) and Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico (100% coverage).

CONCLUSION

Tai chi is a beautiful system of movement that makes our minds more flexible to succeed at our goals. That’s why it is so helpful when we want to change a habit. It’s also another alternative we can choose instead of our old behavior. We can write about it, do it in a mirror, it’s physical, we can do it far away from our old behavior location, and we can call someone else who does tai chi.

It’s a great preparer for life’s changes. We become rooted physically from the actual movement we learn as our legs gain strength. We begin to see a glimmer of understanding about why it’s called an art – because each of us creates our way of doing it. Our will power grows and can support us when we change a habit.

PUBLISHER’S DEDICATION

This article is dedicated to the art of tai chi and what it does for those who do it. It’s also a good place to announce WORLD TAI CHI AND CHI KUNG DAY, April 27, 2013, a free event where close to one million people all over the world do tai chi and chi kung in public events starting at 10 am local time in the first time zone and continue in most time zones across the globe to create a wave of peace and harmony.

As the organizer of the Boca Raton event, we welcome you to participate. It’s the 14th year for Boca. We’ll be in Sanborn Square, Boca Raton, Florida 33432 to celebrate. Details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/148699685298664.

If you are not local to Boca Raton (which most of you are not), we may be able to help you find an event in your city. Bottom line, If it sounds good, put it on the calendar. It’s free and fun. If you can’t make it, think tai chi at 10 am on April 27, 2013.

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DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Turning Habits Into Health, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert, dedicated mom, studying plant-based nutrition.

She has seen how tai chi helps change a habit. She has watched people balance their weight, their emotional state, their physical habit of falling, their appetite. She says,

“Tai chi gives us a foundation, a root, like the root of a tree. When we have this infrastructure, we can require of ourselves new behavior by using tai chi principle. While doing tai chi, we do tai chi. We don’t think of shopping, finances, family feuds. In this same way, when we get our cue which used to cause the old behavior, we can do the new behavior by not thinking about it. We will just do it. That’s how we do tai chi: we just do it.If we are thinking about it, we’re not doing it. So we don’t think about it when we’re doing it.

“Similar to the scientist who can apply the scientific theory anywhere in the universe, the tai chi principle of “just doing it,” with no thought or mind deliberation, can be applied to changing a habit or any situation in life.”

MARTIAL ARTS OF THE MIND (ISSUE 71)

By Diane Gold

Martial arts are a group of disciples known throughout the world as the art of war. This article will mention 1 such discipline specifically, kung fu, which is the term that has been associated with Chinese martial arts, but the article’s focus is generic. It is about using the method that is used to train the body to train the mind. This is martial arts of the mind.

What many outsiders (meaning people who are not practitioners or people who learn bastardized versions that are one-sided fighting technique) do not consider is that this “art” very much includes discipline of the mind and spirit. An example of this would be that we learn that quickest is not always best. Of course, when someone is looking to hurt us and we can outrun the aggressor or execute a physical technique more swiftly, this is good and to our betterment. But the physical aspect is secondary, even though we spend hours training the body. It is to train the mind and spirit, for the most part.

Because of this training, we have the ability to consider taking the longer path if it is more strategic to get where we are going because we know patience, the first lesson in any martial art. We learn to take time out to consider, meditate, evaluate, even if, in physical combat, it is only a split second.

Another example of using the martial arts mind would be that we allow a hostile, aggressive person to beep her horn at us on the parkway and we let her go ahead of us. We are secure in ourselves so there would be no need to fight for “control of the road” just because someone wants to advance in front of us. Some would say that giving up position is cowardice.

To the kung fu artist or other martial artist, there is no sense in acting with impatience, hostility, irrationality unless the behaviors of the other affect us. If our self-esteem is intact and does not depend upon how others see us or treat us, we have no need to pump ourselves up like peacocks on display being macho to find a mate or bearded dragon lizards who puff their necks to make themselves bigger when they sense a threat.

Let’s look at the yin and the yang of things, yin meaning giving and yang meaning taking, more or less. If person 1 yells at person 2, person 1 is showing yang qualities, taking and aggression. Most people would react to person 1 by yelling back, giving it back to her. If person 2 does this, she is meeting yang with yang, like the standoff between 2 wolves, 2 rhinocerii, 2 warthogs. This causes friction, fighting, discomfort and rarely ends positively.

If person 2 is a skilled martial artist, she is trained not to develop aggression from someone else’s aggression. She maintains her own balanced nature. Often times, if person 2 lends an understanding ear and shows the yin, nurturing quality; person 1 will calm down. That is the nature of yin-yang. They balance each other everywhere, all the time. That separates us from wild animals.

Here’s a common scenario and a breakdown of possible action steps in response:
I have a conversation with my friend, and we disagree. My friend yells at me, insults me and walks out on me. I have 2 options:

A) I can choose to call my friend back later or the next day because I want to see how she is doing. Since I do not need to keep score of my friend’s poor behavior, I do not shun my friend because she shunned me. I take on the role of nurturer toward my friend. It usually ends up putting me in role of teacher, not that that is my intention, but that’s what happens when I call and communicate well.

B) I can choose not to call my friend because I am keeping score. Who does this serve?
When we are young, we say,

“I’m not gonna be your friend because you said this to me, and you didn’t apologize.”

This is expected because we work from our feelings alone.

When we are older, acting the way of the child does not utilize our reason and the wisdom from our experience we have taken so long to gain.

During kung fu training, we study and learn who we are. We do focus training which is mental and physical. We learn not to react because someone reacts. (We may act if we are in danger, but we act in the way that best suits the situation, not the way someone else acts.)

We don’t have to defend because someone has offended. If our personal space or that of someone we want to protect is not violated, we don’t have to take an action. Part of this is because we have physical confidence. But, mostly, it’s because we have a greater capacity for patience, tolerance and understanding because we have taken the time to look inward. We also have developed an attitude of responsibility to communicate clearly to others, because we have learned the right way to be.

CONCLUSION

Most of what kung fu or any true martial art is is a systematic approach to living our lives with temperance, forgiveness, honor, respect for others and respect for ourselves. So, before we go on with a few action steps, here is A SECRET, which is only an interesting fact, not known by many who haven’t studied kung fu.

The words “Kung” and “Fu,” together, refer to work successfully accomplished over time. Here’s the secret: What’s fascinating to most of us is that kung fu can refer to any work where someone has applied mastery. That means a chef, a hair stylist, a chemist, a firefighter, a writing professor can all be doing “good kung fu.” which is the translation when we say ho kung fu to someone other than a martial artist studying the Chinese variety.

What this means is that people who master their craft are kung fu artists. They use the same focus, patience, examination, reason, integrity, perseverance, creativity and self-discovery used by the kung fu master. So, the secret is not really a secret, as you see. But, it defines people and process and the fact that the study of kung fu is parallel to the study of music, dance, invention, psychology, masonry, cooking, surgery, oral presentation. And martial arts of the mind is studied by all who train in every martial art.

ACTION STEPS

Consider taking these action steps in the spirit of martial arts of the mind. You may find, if you haven’t already, that reducing aggressive behavior we show due to sadness or anger is not as hard if we give up our own behaviors that do not support us. These methods do not work 100% of the time, but they give us great opportunity.

1) Next time someone yells at you, decide whether the someone is important enough for the relationship to continue. If the answer is yes,

a) if the person is inconsequential, let it go completely.

b) if the person is valuable to you, tell the person s/he is hurting your feelings. When we personalize that what someone has done hurt us, this usually makes the someone stop, take note and change attitudes or even apologize.

c) if the person has value, gently have an internal dialogue with yourself. Recognize that the someone’s being nasty to you usually means you have struck some insecure bone in that person or the person is in pain on her own. Be compassionate of that insecurity or pain by not macho-ing out (yelling back to be the big cat on the mountain). Reach out to the person and ask how you can help and alleviate any bad feelings.

2) See how it feels to withhold aggression. Does it make you feel good or bad? If you feel good, great. Continue it. If you miss the anger conjured up by retaliation, at least you will know what you like. And you will have martial arts of the mind to think about since we can all learn it and implement it in our lives.

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DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Turning Habits Into Health, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert, dedicated mom, studying plant-based nutrition.

She believes that martial arts of the mind is something each one of us can cultivate. This comes with proper contemplative training. She says,

“The training must be systematic, so that we learn 1 step, then another, then another, leading to mastery of our own selves. The martial training applies in all walks of life, no matter what we are doing. We use the principles of empty mind and building a foundation that we employ in the physical training to learn martial arts of the mind.”

CHANGE A HABIT: HOW THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM HAS TAUGHT US BAD HABITS (ISSUE 70)

By Diane Gold

CHANGE A HABIT is an expression that can refer to making an adjustment to just about anything we do. It refers to habits that are both good for us and bad.

According to Chris Brogan, CEO of Human Business Works and New York Times Best-Selling Author,

“Habits come from repeated practice and some sense of reward (negative or positive) for the actions we take.”

When we think of habits, we often forget some of the great ones we have like drinking water, brushing our teeth, meditating, exercising, writing or shaking hands or bowing when we meet people. We don’t usually think about these because they complement our lives and preserve our health and self-esteem.

What we often think about when the word “habit” comes up are overindulgence in eating, drugs, drinking alcohol, gambling, etc. These habits are behaviors we have repeated so many times they now require a considerable effort to stop, different from what would happen should we find out that a good habit, tooth brushing, did harm to us.

Our behaviors of habit, whether supportive or not, have been learned on our own or with the help of our families. What I didn’t think of until I watched Escape Fire last night, a CNN documentary about the U.S. health care system crisis, is that many of our poor health habits have been taught to us through the misinformation given to us by the health care providers we trust with our lives.

Some of what we have been taught by these care givers is:

1) We need animal protein because plant-based protein is not a complete protein.

2) We need a portion of animal based foods in our diet.

3) The more tests and procedures, the better.

4) Going to our medical professional to get drugs is what we do when we are sick. Nutritional counseling is not part of going to the doctor. Why? In our current health care system, there is no reimbursement for our doctors’ talking about food.  What’s even more disturbing is that some 40% of medical schools only require 1 small course in nutrition. We have been trained that this is right, and we trusted this model until our rate of disease continues to soar.

5) Accepting a 5-15 minute medical visit is acceptable for full payment. This is all we’ve ever experienced because doctors and medical practitioners get paid by procedure and not for counseling us or how much health we achieve because of them. We are trained to accept this.

6) Living our lives without worry because new procedures, medications and technology will help us when we get sick has been a precept we have learned, especially since 1997, when the drug manufacturers in the United States got permission to broadcast prescription drug ads.

Unfortunately, we have lived our lives learning these habits. We have built habits around the idea of eating meat/poultry/fish/eggs/dairy for nutrition. The fact that there are a plethora of studies showing that these foods cause cardiovascular and chronic diseases means we will have to consider changing our habits and changing our knowledge to maintain health and, possibly, reverse sickness.

An example of reversal is Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn’s study on telomeres, protective protein caps at the ends of DNA strands that protect its deterioration. She discovered that they wear down from age and stress. With 30 minutes of exercise a day and a vegetarian diet, she was able to reverse this deterioration in her subjects. Wow!

Another MD in Escape Fire, Pamela Ross, comments,

“We have become a society where you drive up and get what you want; and you drive off.”

The habits we have developed of eating fast food is a direct result of the health care system’s misguidance through non-guidance so that we believed it was okay to indulge in greasy (oily and fried) food, sugary food, salty food, processed animal food.

The sad thing is, for the most part, we are not aware, especially in the poorer communities, that the nutritionally calculated value of drive up food is reduced to almost nil because of the negative health side-effects from eating it. The other equally devastating issue is that those of us who know that fast food is bad don’t know what to eat as an alternative for the same shoestring budget expense. Fortunately, children are learning plant-based alternatives and ways to budget for healthy food through their elementary schools. And they are bringing this information home. Go early ed teachers!

Dean Ornish, MD and Head of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, in Escape Fire, mentions the habits we need for good health: diet (meaning nutritious food and water), exercise, love and support and a healthy lifestyle. He has a strong reaction to those in the “system” who consider acupuncture and meditation for pain as well as lifestyle changes for health radical intervention. He says,

“Radical? Compared to cutting a chest open? Give me a break.”

His comment is made so that we realize to think twice about those in the medical field who continue to support the “sickness model” we have built in the United States and are leery about accepting the “preventive & integrative model” of health care even though the evidence
for success is apparent.

Ornish started his work in 1977 to establish that lifestyle changes (meditation, yoga, plant-based diet, personal support) can stop and reverse coronary artery disease. In 1998, he published research showing that comprehensive lifestyle changes turned gene expression on and off in 3 months. Holy moly!

CONCLUSION

If the habits we have collected regarding medicine, treatment, food, lifestyle choices have been based on misinformation, it’s time to take a look at the foundation on which they were built. This is going to mean changing some habits. It’s also going to involve re-educating ourselves as to which medical professionals know what. Of course, it’s difficult to change doctors. But, if the ones we have are not integrating the necessary health habits into the mix, it might be time. At least, we need to do our own research about some of the things in this article.

Why? Because we don’t want to wait until we get a disease to act. We want to act now so we don’t get a disease.

If we already have a disease, we might want to look at all options available to work with it. There are many choices between drug therapy and choosing to take no drugs. With more knowledge, we can become proficient at changing habits that do not support us. The aura around doctors, that they can do no wrong, is gone, even if we want it to be there. We must be more responsible for understanding our health. Hopefully, we can do this with the help of dedicated medical professionals, who will be open to our wanting to look at integrating lifestyle, nutrition, love and support and exercise.

ACTION STEPS

1) Increase your amount of daily exercise by 5 minutes. If you do not exercise yet, start slowly with 5 minutes of dancing, tai chi, walking or stretching. You can scroll down to the 4th video on this page to start: dianegold.com/tai_chi.html.

2) Add 1 new plant-based main dish to your weekly meal plan.

3) Call someone you know and talk about your excitement over your lifestyle changes. If you do not yet know anyone to call, you can go to askew2u.com and click some answers. Or your local librarian is a place to make contact.

4) Take 5 minutes a day for a week to research any habit you have that you would like to change.

5) Drink an extra glass of water daily for a week.

6) Continue, at least, 3 of these steps for a month. Enjoy!

FEEDBACK

Please leave  a comment and LIKE.

DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Turning Habits Into Health, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert, dedicated mom, studying plant-based nutrition.

She believes we can learn much by taking responsibility for ourselves. She says,

“Although we have been led to believe that our total health is in the hands of our doctors, they have not been trained in nutrition, for the most part; and many discoveries that would impact the profit margin of the manufacturers of pharmaceuticals and new equipment who supply doctors with their wares, have been withheld or not covered in doctor’s continuing education.

“Further, to satisfy lobbyists in the meat and dairy industries, nutritional discoveries do not make it to mainstream media, usually. As a result, we have been eating incorrectly, using pharmaceuticals instead of lifestyle changes as our medicine and have not been reaching out for the support we deserve.

“Until now.

“From now on, let’s make an effort to eat well, exercise well, meditate well and support each other. Let’s consider pharmacological regimes second, if possible, and changes in lifestyle first. Let’s get the new knowledge we need to make important decisions about our own lives.

“Special note: I truly believe in the wonders of drug therapy and its magic, when appropriate. And congratulate the drug research that has gotten us where we are. I also congratulate all the pioneers who are taking the time to research and report on plant-based nutrition and mind/body modalities to make these part of our new and improved U.S. Health Care System.”