Breaking Addictions and Changing Habits

We go through life picking up various lifestyle habits and patterns from our parents, from our peers, from our culture in general.  Some manners of life are beneficial to us, some are not.  When addictions or other challenging habits are developed, changing them can be an easy adjustment or a lifetime goal.  Though the time-span of change is very individual, the method and process for change is similar for all.  By understanding these human similarities and using them as guides, we can develop a plot-line for goal achievement and success.

The first step is to acknowledge that change needs to happen. 

How do we know when there is something that we need to change? 

Life just doesn’t feel right.  Things are not easy for us.  We are not happy, fulfilled or thriving.  We feel rushed or tired, angry or complacent.  Our actions are not our best.  Our thoughts are not our best.  We are not “in the groove” with life.

When we become more aware of our lives, we may notice that we might also not enjoy some of the company that we tend to keep.  We may see little value of the exchanges within our relationships.  They could be rife with friction or drain our reserves of time, energy and finances.

The second step is to identify what needs to be altered.

The toughest challenge of changing a habit is identifying what it is that needs to be altered to get the results you truly want.

You’ve been in denial for a while.  It’s comfortable there; you don’t have to think.  You know what to expect.  The pattern is well worn, which is why it’s become habit.  Even though you know life could be better, your faulty logic protests that at the very least, you know the pitfalls of the patterns that you’ve accustomed yourself to accommodating, and you haven’t died yet.  You're just miserably taxed with the lifestyle of trying to avoid falling into them again, or pulling yourself back up and out again and again when you do.  It is a life worn by living in the state of reaction, rather than being conscious, mindful and pro-active.

Do you really want to fly off the handle so easily?  Do you really want to sneak around and feel guilty about overeating, or having an affair, or getting wasted?  Are you tired of hating yourself and tired of how people misperceive you?  At what point will it take for you to know that it’s time to change before there is even more destruction to your self-esteem, your potential and your integrity?  

After becoming aware that there is a habit or pattern that you’d like to change, establishing and manifesting the change becomes the next challenge.  Practice mindfulness in each decision you make, each thought that you create and each action that you choose to display.  Have an accountability system set up for yourself.  Check in with yourself, your friends, your mentors.  Pray for guidance. Ask for help and support when you need it.  Being able to show your vulnerability requires inner strength.   

Distract yourself less; pay attention more. Where are you headed?  With whom are you going? Don’t put yourself on auto-pilot when you are in the driver’s seat of life: remember, you control what direction you are headed.  Never doubt it- this life is yours to steer, so where do you want to go? 

The Jealous Crow Chapter 3

The dawn would be too quick in coming.  During these final hours together, Seneca and her mother spent these moments in quiet reflection.  Rare words were exchanged, but when spoken were thoughtful and loving.  Her mother quickly put together a bag with provisions for her physical nourishment: a few red apples, a handful of dried figs and another of dried almonds, a slender jar of olives, an alternate set of clothing and a few trinkets of memorabilia she hoped would bring her daughter some emotional comfort.  Neither of them knew what Seneca would face on this immediately pending, forced journey.

The old crone simply continued to rock back and forth, humming an oddly familiar tune.  The melody was simple, compelling and hauntingly beautiful.  She recognized it, but could not place how or why.  Was it from a dream?  It was as if she were caught in the circle of time, the repeating notes of the meandering melody and the eerie rhythmic creaks of the rocking chair plucked at the strings of her memories.  The maid closed her eyes, wondering how the old woman knew this tune and why it chilled her very soul to hear it.

Seneca could feel herself altering further as daybreak approached.  Her mind was sharply attuned, but her body felt much lighter; sounds, colors and scents were losing their richness.  Her mother’s voice became fainter and the outline of her form became fuzzy.  Seneca rose quickly from her place by the fire to go and embrace the mother of her childhood.  As she approached, arms and eyes wide open, the world she knew faded completely into mist.  Nothing remained but the old woman and the sound of her low graveled laughter.

Seneca drew in a deep breath and surveyed her surroundings.  There was nothing, truly.  Mystified, she turned all the way around, dark eyes drinking naught but milk-colored mist.  She viewed no discernible form aside from her own body and the dark mass of the old woman.  Nothing else could she see in the white thicket of fog.  

“Well now,” Seneca stated evenly and turned to face the crone.  “What do we have here?”  The young woman’s eyes seized the other's gaze and held it there with quiet, unassuming authority.  “Tell me what you know.”  The sound of her voice was muffled by the heavy tomb of cloying mist surrounding them, a strained string of sound stretching to be caught by fog-cottoned ears.

The old woman's body clenched tightly and she started to shake.  A few attempts were made to cough.  After she had finished her bout of gritty laughter, she stated evenly, “I know many things.”  Sipsis cocked her head with amused annoyance, dark shadows dancing in the hollows behind the green orbs of her eyes.   “What would you like to know first, milady,” she asked, her brittle voice licked with filmy cynicism.  Thin lips curled around grey-stained teeth as she regarded Seneca with wayward reflection.

With a dose of ire, Seneca sucked in a sharp breath, held the shock of cold moisture fully in her lungs then slowly released it to mingle with the mist.  Droplets of dew coalesced and clung to the long, loose strands of her black hair, beaded her brows, laid claim upon her body entirely.  Luminescent hands smoothed down the front paneling of pleats at her waist, the willowy fabric of her dress clinging to her form with its heavy embrace.  Her vision was clouded, her skin wetted with blankets of shifting mists, but her mind was undampened and her will was unwashed.  She would know fully of her circumstance and stepped a pace to close the distance between them.

She implored of the crone, “What is this place?  Who are you?  Why am I here? What happens next?”  As the unnerving initial shock of her present situation started to subside, the rush of questions began to bubble and boil, a torrent of tumbling force.

The old crow-woman sneered and lifted an arm to broadly sweep the area of mist, “This is the Ethereal Plane, milady.  The world you knew is separate from this place.”  Her voice creaked with age as she continued, “I am called Sipsis, and now, because of that curse you’re wearing around your neck,” the crone lifted a long bent finger and pointed with her haggard sharp nail to the willow-tree pendant, “I am bound to you.”

Somehow Seneca had known this about their relationship; something had indeed altered both of them during the transformation.  Sipsis had become her thrall.  The realization disgruntled her.  This was a true curse indeed.

The old woman continued, “You’re here because the Fates have deemed it, dearie.”  The crone cackled morosely, “Just as They have deemed me serve it with you.”  So it was true, then.  Both of them were trapped here in this foggy reality where nothing else seemed to exist.  Quietly absorbing these pieces of information, Seneca allowed the hag to continue in answering her last question.

Nothing had prepared her for what happened next.  

 “Follow me,” Sipsis creaked with a sickening twist.  There was a flush of dark feathers and the old woman was once again a green-eyed crow.  The ebon bird squawked and started to fly off into the mist.  Blinking in disbelief, Seneca hurried to catch up to the large, flying crow.  In her haste, somewhere in the midst of the mist, she left the bag of provisions her mother had given to her.

Ruefully, Seneca lost sight of the crow.  It was too easy to lose track of anything not more than two feet nearby in these cloudy conditions.  The young woman stalled her pace and cursed her bad luck.  Not wishing to disorient herself further, she stood still to get her bearings.  While she looked around the foggy terrain, she became increasingly alarmed at the vast nothingness that she perceived.  She strained her ears to hear the flapping of dark wings or a call from the crow to give her a sense of direction, a sense of hope in this dense white-scape.  

Nothing.  That’s what came to her, and that’s what she was in right now.  Hearing nothing, seeing nothing, even noting no discernible scent, she started to walk purposefully straight ahead.  She was bound to find something if she kept moving in one direction.  Sipsis went somewhere, didn’t she?  Blasted bird.  What good was a servant if they left you?  Suddenly, she stopped straight in her tracks with the realization.

“Sipsis, come here,” she said clearly and a bit more loudly than necessary.  The rook was soon flying in large circles above her head.  It was to her relief to spot that fowl bird, troublesome as she may be.

In a fit of dark hurried flurry, the crow swooped past Seneca's shoulder and emitted a shrieking "Caw!" near her head.  Another, closer sweeping pass of the bird lifted the young woman's hair, the current of force carrying the crow's piercing call right to her ear. "Fly!" called the crow and then flew up and away into the sky-sea of mist once again.

Though Seneca was ready to keep her sight locked on Sipsis when she spotted her, she was not ready for that piece of advice.  “Fly?” she murmured to herself in surprise.  “I can…” it was spoken in question more than stated as she fully extended her ebony wings for the first time.  “Yes,” she soon was nodding, the ease of moving her wings without will was effortless, as if she were born knowing.  She had only forgotten.

Walking Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death

No one said life is going to be easy.  We’ve each experienced times of prosperous peace and tranquility as well as upset, darkness and dangerous disorientation.

We look to the words of experience, to history, to mythology, to stories we’ve been told to help us better understand why we feel the way we do, why we must undergo challenges, if we’re the only ones experiencing it and what we can expect and do about it.  During times of fear we often seek solace and guidance in scripture, calling to our mind those words which can give us the solidity of grounding our faith through the Promises we find therein.

The 23^rd Psalm of David is one example that many people throughout time have summoned in their despair and have used for comfort and hope.  

1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

This short song outlines the journey we go through as humanity, mirrored on a more intimate level also in the story of Job.

Throughout the verses of the psalm, there is always reverence for and implicit trust in our Creator.  We are taken to green pastures and still waters, our souls are restored by Him and we walk in righteousness alongside He Who guides and shepherds us.  We live our lives well, contentedly meandering with God through a pastoral existence.  We’re safe, content and taken care of.  Life’s good!

As well it is in the beginning of the story of Job; life was going along swimmingly.  He was blameless and walked with God, a righteous man blessed with an abundance of children, land and livestock.  Life was good for Job.  Until it wasn’t…  Like all of us, Job hit some gruesome hard times.  He not only lost all of his worldly possessions (his animals, his land AND his children), he also came down with some painful and obnoxious physical ailments.  Everything he had was physically taken away from him.  I’ll bet he was in some grave financial trouble, too.

Each of us have found ourselves walking in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.  We start to lose in life- lose our possessions, we stumble and lose our footing and what we thought was secure in our lives is taken away.  We’re snagged by thorns of set-backs, pelted by harsh, cold and worrisome words, we’re spun by emotional eddies until we’re dizzy with confusion, we’re picked up and turned about by the winds of life’s upheavals.  This darkness imposes from all sides around us: mountains of uncertainty, causing us to fear as we traipse through this shadowy valley.   

When Job was going through the maelstrom of his life’s darkest times, his friends came to him, cried with him, they ripped their clothes in anguish with him.  They begged Job to curse God and die.  But Job did not.  He knew God was still with him during the darkest, most challenging times of his life.

Even through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, God promises to stay with us.  We are not left alone, but it’s awfully hard to see that when we’re in the dark.  We cry out and cannot hear.  We try to look with our eyes and cannot see.  This is the shadowy veil that humanity (individually and as a whole) passes through.  It is during this time that our Faith is tested, for remember, God has made two promises in his holy relationship with us: He will not control us; He will not abandon us.

In both the 23^rd Psalm and the story of Job, there is a rainbow at the end of the rainy period.  Not only do we survive this abysmal path of darkness, upheaval and seeming injustice, we are given something even greater than what we experienced before.  Job was given was MORE land and MORE livestock and MORE kids.  David sings to us in his poem that after moving through the Valley of the Shadow of Death we are given all kinds of extra goodies - including goodness and mercy all the rest of the days of our lives and the promise to live in the resplendence of God’s own holy house.

You may wonder then, as many people have and do, what kind of gifts are we talking about here?  What can we hope for after we weather the dark and stormy night?  When do we know that we’ve passed through and made it?  Are we talking banquet tables, more dogs and cats and kids?  Fancy oils?  What do we get from this rite of passage?

It is important to remember that the overflow of God’s abundance will come in the form of spiritual gifts.  (We are talking about God, after all.)  Think now of what might you gain after going through absolute hell in your life and making it through to the promised rainbow of abundance at the other end.

Strength, conviction, confidence, courage, empathy, appreciation, profound wisdom- all of these riches you can rightfully claim after undergoing and surpassing with victory the vast tumbles of life.

Yes, sure, you can use these spiritual gifts to rebuild your physical wealth, but it will also allow you to build SO much more than that.  With your greater understanding, you will create amazing things.  

Your relationships will be built with empathy rather than egoism.  Trust will be restored in self, in others.  You will feel freer to explore and expand, evolve and involve yourself, because you know you can weather whatever comes your way.  You know that even if all of your creature comforts, your physical joys are taken from you, that you can rise up again like a phoenix from the ashes and reclaim yourself, stronger and braver and wiser than before, and even more than this, to now offer your exquisite journey and its beautiful hope to all those who are struggling and are looking for a hand to hold while they are in the dark valleys of life.