Let Go and Be Free Podcast: Episode 32 (Changing Unhealthy Habits)

 Noticing what your unhealthy habits are is the first step to overcoming them. On this episode, I share my own struggles, what unhealthy behaviors I used to cope with an unstable family upbringing, and share multiple skills that have helped me in my life.

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Transcript

Welcome to the let go and be free podcast, A podcast for those who grew up in an alcoholic or dysfunctional family. I'm your host, Ron Vitale, author of The let go and be free 100 daily reflections for adult children of alcoholics series. If you'd like to learn more, feel free to visit, let go and be free.com. And with that, let's get on with the show.

And welcome to this week's show. When started thinking about, you know, unhealthy behaviors, unhealthy habits, things that you may have learned when you were young, you know, growing up in a difficult environment, you know, maybe you had a parent that was abusive, could be physical, could be emotional, maybe there was alcoholism or addiction. In your family, there was a lot of struggle. You know, I guess the question, you know, for you is like, where you are now in life? A lot of these patterns, a lot of these behaviors are kind of grown over decades, how do you overcome them? How do you free yourself, you know, from the past, it's not an easy thing. And it can be overwhelming, you know, you might sit there and think like, well, I'm always this way, how do I, you know, how do I quote unquote, fix myself. So I wanted to focus on some positive things that you could do to help yourself, but I wanted to zero in on one particular one.

So, like, for me, when I was growing up, one of the, I guess, survivor mechanisms that I had was like, anticipatory preparation, you know, like, I never knew, as they would say, the other shoe was going to drop, you know, you'd be thinking things are going fine, everything's going great. And then boom, something would just blow everything up, you know, you just would be blindsided by, you know, something that would just just ruin everything for you. Typically, it was because there was a lot of, you know, instability, and uncertainty.

You know, in my life at that time, when I was younger, I mean, there were times where, you know, when my parents divorced, we had to move back in with my grandparents lost, all my friends had to go to a different school. And then my mom remarried, we had to move again. And then second marriage fell apart, and we hadn't moved back home, move again, go to another school. So when I think back at my life, I went to let me think 1234 I think there's like five different schools, from kindergarten up until high school.

And I'm not saying that that is, you know, an insane amount of number of, you know, moving, I'm just saying, for me, that was a lot of change in which, you know, moving to different neighborhoods, different schools, needing to make different friends, losing friends, trying to get back and learn from his friends. So, you know, the way I coped, my coping mechanism was always to be prepared for the worst. You know, just over prepare, just be prepared for anything, anyone, anyhow. It didn't matter. And when I was young, I think that served me well. But as I got older, you kind of can't live your life, always being prepared for something bad to happen. You know, it's like always waiting, always like, you know, walking on eggshells, because you you just knew something bad was gonna happen.

You just didn't know it. That's very difficult way to live. And it also takes a lot of stress. You know, takes the joy out of life. You know, because I found that anytime. Something good would happen. The the first thought that would pop into my head is like, well, when's the bad thing going to come?

How long is this good thing got to last or even worse? It's not gonna last a good thing isn't gonna last too long. Some of the bad stuff happened. And you know, when I examined that and a few events Ever gone through those feelings, you know yourself, when examined that, some of it, I kind of could put back on me and that, you know, maybe I was afraid of a new opportunity, maybe I was afraid of making new friends or stepping outside my comfort zone was a lot easier to always be stressed out.

And, you know, being prepared for the worst or when something bad was going to happen, and then say, see, look, that that bad thing happened that I thought was going to happen did and I'm so glad that I was prepared for it, instead of just saying, Well, I'm going to enjoy this moment now. You know, nothing's perfect, nothing lasts forever. But I'm going to enjoy and be in the moment, instead of zipping around. Stressing out being prepared for something else that I don't even know, may or may not come. And then when the bad thing did come, just being like, Oh, see, I was I was so ready for it. habits like that, take lots of energy, they are stressful, they pull you down.

And you know, in the long run, they don't serve you, they imprison you in a cycle of, you know, anticipatory worry, anxiety, and stress. And you just go on a cycle of, well, if this one bad thing happened, then of course, it's going to happen again. And it may not you know, you every day is a different opportunity. Every person that we meet is a new opportunity for growth, for love for sharing for compassion for empathy.

And to always be on one's guard also puts up walls. So, you know, to think of it this way, it was hurt many times, you know, in life of people let me down. There was you know, murder, emotional abuse, psychological abuse, there was like all kinds of things that happened. You know, in the course of, you know, my family life. And when I look back at those times, putting up walls was a good way of protecting myself, you know, if I didn't know, you know, let's say, If I lived where I was, and I was going to a particular school, I had no way of knowing, when we were going to have to move next, you know, I would try to listen in on the conversations of like, you know, are things going good, are things going bad?

You know, if I would hear, you know, my mom and stepfather fighting, I'd be like, Oh, is this going to be the end and that means we're going to have to move soon as the relationship falling apart. And then eventually it did. But, you know, that took time that took years, but always living on those egg shells of expecting things to kind of like fall apart and be bad, complicate things. And, you know, from family dynamics are, are very complex, you know, especially, you know, you hold to a different standard new people who come into the family.

So, you know, if you, if, if parents, your parents were married, and they divorced, when they remarry, it's difficult because, you know, you're gonna have to get to know and trust somebody else. And if you don't trust that new person, you know, it makes things more complicated, because then you have this like, wall up, you know, where you're just like, I just, you know, calling somebody, you know, father and they're not your father, that that's a very complicated relationship. So, having gone through that, and then seeing that second relationship fall apart, where my own instincts were correct, where I was, like, I don't think this is gonna last and it didn't, you know, but being a kid and you don't know anything, you know, being like a teenager and being like, well, I don't like this person, but you know, I got to pretend that everything's fine and go along with it.

And you, you know, you try to do the best that you can, you know, and then you know, when I think of things and the walls that I put up by weary always thinking I need to be prepared for when ever the, you know, next tumultuous period of my life is going to come up that block those walls are a convenient way of allowing you to not create strong relationships and intimacy with other people.

Because you look at it, and you say, well find me in my own little, you know, ivory tower here, you know, in my own little world, and I can just be as insular as I want, because I know that things are gonna go bad. And I want to be prepared, you know, for that situation, and I want to make certain that I don't get hurt. The reality is, all of us get hurt, you know, in life. I mean, that's just just the way life goes, you can't skirt through life, and say, you know, I want everything's thing to be perfect. I don't want to get hurt. Because when you do that, those walls that you put up, become so thick, that you don't allow yourself to be open to love, or two new experiences.

You know, and I look back at that. And this is just one example of like, these unhealthy behaviors of, you know, always worrying and being stressed out about a bad thing that's going to happen, like, when you're cruising in life, and you're thinking things are going well, and you're like, well, this ain't gonna last forever, you know, something bad's gonna happen, and I need I need to be prepared for it, I need to, you know, get myself strong for that. When you when you do things like that, you just limiting yourself, and it puts you always in a defensive posture. And if your defenses are always up, you, you know, one your batteries, you're going to be tired after a while.

And then people will look at you as though you're always on your guard, and kind of be reserved around you. So, you know, when I think of unhealthy habits, you know, unhealthy behaviors, it's, it is difficult, because it's shining a light on your imperfections. And all of us have imperfections. And, you know, I've heard different speakers, different meditations over the years, people that basically say, we are all hole, we are perfect as we are. And then you know, some people say, well, that's not true, we all have faults, we all have mistakes.

And I think that's the beauty of it, we're never going to be perfect. And there's no need for that, you know, chasing after perfection, or trying to excise, you know, the quote unquote, bad parts of us out is impossible. It's embracing the goodness in us, the darkness in us the complexity of who we are, and making choices, healthy choices on a day to day basis. You know, if we have a bad habit, I don't know, smoking, or overeating or whatever, trying to beat ourselves up and change instead of getting to the underlying truth of why are we falling into those patterns?

And how do we find acceptance, to resolve those unstable feelings within us is a harder road, but would be a much more productive road. Instead of you know, often what people do is well, you know, it's the New Year's time of the holidays, and my New Year's resolution is to be a brand new person, I'm going to do these 50 things. And, you know, six weeks later, you know, it's like maybe mid February, persons never go into the gym again. And they fallen back into, you know, old behavior patterns. And instead of trying to reinvent yourself, you know, one of the things that I like to focus on is embrace who we are, and then work on, you know, in therapy, with the issues that we're trying to overcome.

You know, if we've got some serious problems, it's going to take work, but to try to just excise those things out and just be like, Well, tomorrow, I'm gonna, you know, cold turkey, I'm gonna stop doing X, you know, I'm gonna be a better person by doing why often doesn't work because we're coming at it from a different perspective. So in the example that I've given about, you know, always thinking the worst.

You know, I'm not saying that I've overcome that entirely. I think people in my family would Say No, he still falls into that, you know, weary mode. It's like my basic, you know, mode of operation. But it isn't something that I'm stuck with. It's something that I recognize and then say, well, wait a minute, I'm, I'm doing that thing again, I am worrying, I'm stressed out. When I acknowledge that I want to talk about it, then it gives me an opportunity to kind of get off that path. And say, I see what's happening here. I'm in a rut, I've gone through this process in which I'm, you know, reliving, you know, and using coping mechanisms that helped me when I was a kid, these things are not helpful for me today.

So what can I do? And again, it brings back to some of those earlier skills that we've talked about the past. Dealing with, are we hearing a parental voice? And we're following that you can have the candy before dinner, or refined following that child, his voice, I want the candy now? Or are we building at that adult voice that says, Is it healthy? For me to have candy before dinner? Is it true, that if I have candy before dinner, I'm going to ruin my dinner?

You know, again, very simple example. And as we grow and mature, thinking through those decisions that we've made in life, will help us be able to be on a path of healthy behaviors that are going to allow us to kind of thrive rather than struggle, and we're just basically trying our best as float, survive, as best we can. Whereas if we're thriving, we're challenging and saying, Well, why, you know, is it healthy, that I'm wearing all the time, or I'm anxious all the time, you know, always waiting for that shoe to drop. So it's going to be this second, you know, big thing that's going to come and blow everything out of the water because things can't stay good.

It's, you know, there's always going to be this bad thing that's going to come because history has shown in my life, that that's how it is, well, that's not true, we may think it's true, we might have a lot of evidence that it's happened too often. But that doesn't necessarily mean that moving forward, everything's going to be bad. So for example, if you're in a new relationship, and you think, oh, all my old relationships, they always fall apart after a certain amount of time, if you go into a new romantic relationship, thinking that way, you're setting yourself up for a self fulfilling prophecy. And you're not allowing yourself to be open.

And to be vulnerable, to share with the person and say, you know, I struggle with things when things are going well. I am always afraid that, you know, something bad's going to happen, I have a difficult time with trust, because I've been abandoned in my life. Like, there's these difficult conversations that take place over time, over months over years, when you're building relationships with people. And you know, doesn't have to be a romantic relationship. It could be with work, I went through a leadership training process, there was like a seminar, a couple, I thought it was like a two day seminar. And this weary aspect came out with me. And, you know, sitting around the table of, like, 12 other people, and everybody had their own challenges, but mine was, you know, I go into that worry mode. And so I was told to, when I feel that way, to acknowledge it to kind of pull it out and then take those emotions, put it off to the side. And then, you know, look at it from a different perspective.

Whatever challenge I'm dealing with at work to overcome that, sometimes it's very helpful to, you know, put things in a parking lot for a moment and just look at it from a different angle, different perspective, ask a colleague, you know, an opinion. And I remember, there was a work situation, the same thing, like, I kept hitting the same problem, you know, where I was trying to work on this project, and this other group just was resisting, was resisting, and I was trying to figure out how to solve it. I was looking at it always from the same perspective. And I asked two other people for their opinion, like, look, this keeps happening.

And they were like, Oh, why don't you just look at it from this perspective, like, you know, have you ever thought I have, you know, looking at it from this, and this would solve it this way it was it was something that was alien to me. And that, you know, my personality type was looking at it from one perspective, they were looking at it from a much more detached, unemotional perspective, and like just looking at it from a business perspective, like, look, this needs to move forward, if they don't come along, it's going to create these problems. So, you know, you just keep moving forward. And then, you know, keep the olive branch out to the other group, and eventually, they're going to come together.

And that's what did happen. Whereas I kept thinking, like, oh, you know, this is not going to go my way. This problem is, you know, not going to be resolved, we're going to be in the cycle of dysfunction. And how do I fix this, and it's not fair that treating me this way. Whereas another solution was readily available, I just wasn't able to see it. But because I stepped out of this circumstance of my normal behavior, I was able to overcome that, and realize that there are different paths. So I guess what I'm saying is, if you have these unhealthy behaviors, it could be overeating. It might be your workaholic, it might be you're weary and have lots of anxiety. It could be a bunch of different things, it could be combination of many different things.

Maybe you distrust people all the time, because of how you are let down so many times, from different people in your family over the years, it could be whatever. I guess what I'm asking is, what if you took the opportunity to look at things from a different perspective, instead of thinking that you're broken, thinking, hey, this is all of who I am. And when you hit a pattern that is unhealthy, celebrating yourself, kind of accepting Yep, falling into that pattern again. Is that healthy for me? Is it true that I'm a bad person, these voices that I hear in my head, they're telling me these things, what comes out of that, and to have some skills to overcome that? Therapy, writing in a journal, and a relaxation technique, which I find extremely helpful. If you are in the worst situation, and you have no time.

The easiest thing to do, when I say easy, I'm not saying that it's easy to de stress yourself or to get out of it. But to do this skill is extremely helpful. Just take your fist clenched tightly, as you breathe in through your nose. Hold for a couple seconds, and then slowly exhale through the mouth. If you have more time than just a couple seconds, five, six minutes, do that same technique for every major muscle in your body, your hand, your shoulders, your feet, curl your feet up, hold and release your leg muscles, your pelvis, clench your jaw, the whole thing, go through everything until you get at the end, and then do all your muscles at the same time. Breathe in, hold tightly, and then slowly exhale through the mouth. And you're feeling the tension relieving your body. But the reason why I bring this up is that skills like this is a physical reminder to your body, that you could feel the stress, and then you have to control to let it go. That is something that is so important.

And I found it to be really helpful in the most difficult of circumstances of know how men are no matter how dark things are. That has been a great physical reminder to me that I can shake the system up. You know, again, whatever it is. If you have a toolbox of skills, of these activities, these thought processes that will help you break a cycle of unhealthy behavior. You're going to be more prone to be able to recognize when you're in that kind of a situation and then how to get out of it. As opposed to just allowing yourself to spin out and you just keep thinking like oh, I'm stuck. I'm this I'm that I'm bad. I'm booked boom, and you go into that, you know cycle of despair.

What I'm challenging you to do is to look at things from a different perspective. And to take the skills, things that we've talked about through the podcast, and apply them in your day to day. Again, I don't know what your challenges are, I'm only sharing what some of mine are. But there are some tools that are helpful for all of us, that we can use in our day to day, instead of feeling trapped, or worse, being unaware that we're trapped. Because we're so used to falling back into a unhealthy and unhealthy cycle.

We can rise above that by awareness, and then using the skills to help us break that cycle. Let go, and then to move on. So I hope I've given you something to think about. I hope that there are some tools now that you can look at and start practicing, as you're going through, it does not happen in a day, you don't just snap your fingers and then suddenly, everything is fine. It takes time it takes effort, little by little, you can get to a healthier perspective, and actually thrive in life. So thank you again, for listen to this podcast.

I appreciate you taking the time to listen. If you haven't, you know subscribed to the podcast. Hopefully you've subscribed to the newsletter. If not visit let go and be free.com. And if on the site, if you feel you would like to help support the podcast, there are four volumes of books like go and be free daily meditations, 100, daily meditations and each book. So all four books are over 400 meditations that will get you over a year, which I think is a nice way to kind of set out each day in a positive frame of mind. So I hope that this podcast gives you some hope. I hope that this podcast gives you some hope. You know what I mean? I'm hoping that together we can work and find a way to move forward and let go of some of these obstacles and unhealthy behaviors that have kept us you know, trapped and struggling in life. As always, thank you for listening.

Be well.

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