Consider these two experiences:
It’s a crisp early autumn day as you begin walking through the woods, sensing fall in the coolness of the air on your face. You see the play of light and shade as the sun shines through the leaves swaying in the breeze. You feel the weight of your body on your feet as you walk along the path, and feel the beating of your heart as the path inclines up a hill. You hear the chirp of the birds, the sound of the season’s last cicadas, and the distant rumble of a truck. Thoughts of daily life come and go, but don’t interfere with your enjoyment of the simple pleasure of a walk in the woods. Nothing special, yet you feel alive and present, open to your experience and to life.
Take the same setting, but this time as you begin to walk your mind is caught up in worries about all the work you have to do and fears that something important will fall through the cracks. You remember a difficult encounter with your boss earlier in the week and worry about what that might mean for your future. This thought hooks on to concerns about the poor grades your teenage son received on his latest report card, and worries about the friends he’s been hanging out with. You take your phone out of your pocket to see if any important messages have landed in your inbox since you began your walk.
You’re barely aware of your surroundings as your focus is consumed by your anxious thoughts. Like a seesaw, your mind flips back to ruminating on the past and forward into fears and anxiety about the future. If you stopped to pay attention, you might notice that your body is tense and tight, reflecting your mental state. You’re distant from your bodily experience and your environment.
It’s easy to develop patterns and habits that take us away from our present experience into rumination, worry, and fear, which, in turn, lead to stress and suffering. It’s easy to slip into overeating or over-drinking or other unhealthy behaviors without awareness, offering momentary relief but separating us from our deepest intentions.
Fortunately, mindfulness provides practices and skills to help us change unhealthy habits and live in greater harmony with life.
Bringing attitudes of mindfulness to unwanted habits
Different kinds of habits have different feelings associated with them, but all can be changed when met with a kind, interested, and accepting awareness. There are four main categories of habits—habits of wanting; habits of distraction; habits of resistance; and habits of doing—that encompass many of the most common behaviors we seek to change.
The 4 Main Categories of Habits:
1) Habits of Craving
Habits of wanting, craving, or addiction have an energy and feeling tone of moving toward something we desire. The body and mind focus in on the object, be it a drink, drugs, food, cigarettes, or sex, or any other object of desire, and our sense of well-being and happiness becomes tied to getting what we crave. Working mindfully with habits of wanting means opening fully to the feeling of wanting as it manifests—in the body, the emotions, and the mind. If something triggers the urge, you can open to the sensations, feelings, and emotions and say “yes” to them and meet them with kindness, interest, and acceptance. If a thought arises, such as, “I’ll feel better if I have a smoke/drink,” meet that thought with kindness. Choose to stay with what’s alive in the body and the emotions without acting on it. When you learn to stay with the uncomfortable, unpleasant, or difficult feelings, you weaken the hold that the craving has over you.
2) Habits of Distraction
If you become aware that your attention has moved into an unhealthy habit of distraction, such as spacing out watching TV or surfing the Internet—or if you catch yourself before moving into it—bring close attention to your bodily experience and emotions. Stay with these sensations and feelings, then bring to mind the question: What would I have to experience if I didn’t turn toward my habitual behavior? You may locate a feeling of tightness or numbness, perhaps, or a restless feeling. Meet the experience with a kind, curious, and accepting attention. See how, when met in this way, the feeling will come and go in its own time.
If something triggers the urge to move toward an object you crave, you can open to the sensations, feelings, and emotions that arise—choosing to stay with what’s alive in the body and the emotions without acting on it.
3) Habits of Resisting
Habits of resisting, which manifest as frustration, annoyance, impatience, anger, judgment, and similar emotions and mind states, tend to have a different feeling tone. We feel as if we’re defending ourselves, resisting a threat, or protecting ourselves from something that will harm us. Often we’ll feel tightness, tension, contraction, agitation, heat, or other “fight-orflight” sensations. The accompanying thoughts or beliefs in our mind may urge us to act in a way that will change this unpleasant situation or experience.
We can meet the habits of resistance by bringing our attention back to “what am I experiencing right now?” then meet what is here with a kind, curious, and accepting awareness. Bringing awareness to your breath helps to ease feelings of tightness and tension. Putting your hand on your heart can help temper thoughts of “I need to do something.” Sending a wish of peace and well-being to yourself, perhaps whispering “may I be peaceful,” can create a sense of inner space within which the difficult experience and sensations can be held. Here, too, the practice is to bring a kind, curious, and accepting attitude to what is present—choosing to stay with your direct experience rather than moving into habitual behavior.
4) Habits of Busyness
Finally, we can respond to habits of doing