Have you ever looked at your habits and thought about when they developed? A good many of them probably started when you were quite young. Why did they develop? One possibility is that they developed to help you cope with something in your life.
Maybe it was your parents’ alcoholism, as in my case. Maybe it was domestic abuse, or being left alone a lot. Perhaps it was an over-controlling or hypercritical parent. As a result you might have made a habit of escape, or defensiveness, or pretending. And maybe those habits served you well, maybe they really did help you cope.
But what about now? Do you still need that habit to cope? Do you still have that parent around you? Are you still bullied at school or under pressure from someone? Or is it now just a habit without a purpose?
If that is the case, maybe you don’t need it any more.
What are the habits you would like to do away with?
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832, German writer
Napkin Dad trivia – I mentioned above about my parents’ alcoholism. My mother spent 3 months at an alcoholic rehab hospital in 1973. She was sober from then on until her death in 1988. My father also quit drinking around the same time (though he sometimes would fall back into it a bit, but never with the same fervor) and is still sober at age 93. I quite drinking in 1993.