Loving all your terrible habits.

There's a blogger I read, who recently wrote about how he kicked his smoking habit, which had been a pack a day for many years.

His idea was that we have to love our habits, and ourselves in our habits.
That’s the only way to let go of our vices.

This makes perfect sense to me: we need to love the part of our Self who wants to eat ice cream, or drink wine, or stay up way too late watching Netflix, or skip the gym/yoga/run, or use drugs, or smoke.

We need to love the part of our self who doesn’t show up fully present, who is withdrawn from connection, or sarcastic to others, or who has anxiety or anger or who simply can’t deal.

These are parts of our Self that are intricately wrapped and woven in our being. We can’t just shed those parts, and be left with our high and holy Self. We’re all of it: the good, the bad, the all of it.

Even if you stop smoking, drinking, eating junk food, doing drugs or whatever it is that you consider your “vice,” that part of you that wants that release, that self-medication, doesn’t go away.

Instead of fighting a vice, you might try something different: start to inhabit that part of you that is more grounded, more adult, more disciplined, more clear, and start to live there more often.

You will find that the weaker, lay-around-eating-chips self, soon takes second position. It’s still there, but you’re not interested in listening to it.

You still love this part of yourself, because it was invaluable in showing you how much pain you were in. But you relegate it to the place of a child, your immature Self.

You love it. But you don’t let it lead you anymore.

Try this out, if you’re trying to get through an addiction or bad habit. It’s a process to be sure, and you may not see change overnight. But over time, you will.

You can love your whole Self.
​But you don’t have to let your immature Self be in charge.