Habits of our mind

A Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity discussion topic

Copyright 2008 by K. Ferlic,   All Rights Reserved

Habits of our mind
Habits
Overview of the issues and problems with habits
Body memories
Hardwired patterns brain patterns
A starting point to changing habits

Consciousness has an inherent ability which is characterized by what we call mind. It is that ability to think, judge, analyze, remember and all the other things we associate with mind. Mind however, has the ability to create patterns of thinking and actions that it uses again and again to the point that the chosen pattern begins to dominate at the exclusion of all other options. We call these patterns habits.

Habits exist at any and all levels of our consciousness and our being and we, as consciousness, become bound by these patterns. Some are erased in the sleep segment of the cycle of going to sleep and awakening. But many remain long after their usefulness. Unless we become aware of our habits and chose to change them, they will continue to have the potential to control and direct our creative life energy Many will rise unexpectedly for many lie dormant and activate when the environment conditions are correct to resurface and become energized.

Within the creativity perspective, habits are seen as a way to both put our creativity into autopilot so to speak to create nonconsciously and to go to sleep without going to sleep. That is, a habit allows a part of our being to go to sleep such that we can nonconsciously respond to life and nonconsciously create our experiences.

Habits, as many aspects of creation, are neither good nor bad. In generally there is nothing wrong with either creating nonconsciously or allowing a part of our selves to go to sleep. To experience any creation, it is necessary for the creator to forget how they created the experiences they have so as to experience the creation. Habits are only additional way consciousness has of going to sleep so the creator can enjoy the experience of their creation. Rather they are something to be understood so we can use them to assist us in our creative endeavors and be aware so as not to be controlled by them.

Habits is a topic on which you can spend as much or as little time as you wish. Although they lie at the root of how we create nonconsciously, all that needs to be said is we need to become very aware of the habits we have and we will need to be prepared to break any habit that does not serve us and allow us to be free and self determined at every level of our being.

Habits form whenever we continually repeat a way of thinking or acting and that way of thinking or acting becomes instinctual or something we do without thinking because it has become second nature to us. What we don’t realize is that much of our life is controlled by the habits we have created in our life. Many of them go back to our earliest days of life and we formed them before we had a consciousness awareness. As a result it is not easy to go back and understand exactly how we formed some of the habits we have. Additionally many patterns are copied and mimicked from others and will not always remember how and why we copied the particular pattern. Breaking and changing the habits, and/or releasing the memories that caused us to have a particular pattern, is not always easy. Sometimes these experiences are embedded in the body and/or hardwired in the brain.

Although there is nothing wrong with the formation of habit and they can serve our creative endeavors, there some issues and problems which arise from habits. One of the big issues we face is relative to the habits we form is the challenge is to awaken the appropriate part of our consciousness giving rise to the habit so that the habit can be changed to create something which better serves us.

The most significant problem with habits is we create patterns of thinking and actions that mind uses again and again to the point that the chosen pattern begins to dominate at the exclusion of all other options. This, in turn, robs us of other creative options and limits what we can create.

Additionally, we have many habits which lie dormant and we unexpectedly become aware of their existence. Analogously, Habits are like dry creek and river beds. When the rains comes the water flows into dry creeks and rivers through a given landscape as the water flows to sea. There are an infinite number of way for the rain that falls on the terrain to flow back to the sea. However, because of creeks and rivers the water becomes channeled into a given patter. The same type and kind of phenomenon occurs with our creative life energy. In the same way creek and rivers are the paths of least resistance for water to flow back into the sea. Habits of the mind are the paths of least resistance our creative life energy faces to dissipate in a physical experience.

Our belief structure form a terrain much like the crust of the earth through which our creative life energy flows to manifestation. The flow of energy within our inner landscape is reflected in our outer world as the experiences we have.

The crust of the earth is ever changing yet it holds the pattern of the weather it has experienced in the way the weather has shaped and formed the land. In a way similar to the way the rains falling on a particular part of the land form streams and rivers, the experiences of life form patterns that our creative life energy falls into whenever we experience the same types and kinds of experiences that originally formed the pattern. As we change our beliefs, we change the inner terrain to create different types and kind of experiences. When we cause our creative life energy to flow in a particular direction the waters flow into those dry river bends continually repeating the past.

To change the flow of our life, our work will be analogous to changing the flow of a river through a given terrain to allow it to flow into a new direction watering a different part or aspect of our being. The amount of work involved to diverting the flow of our creative life energy that is flowing within a habit depends on how deep the habit is and what environment sustains the habit. A deep river running through a canyon will be somewhat easier to divert than a deep river running through a plain with shallow banks.

In addition to forming and inner terrain which gets reflected externally in the experiences we have, as a result of the equivalency of energy and consciousness through the mind body connection, many of our mental habits become fixed in either our brain structure and/or in body memories. These physically fixed patterns become more difficult to dissolve.

The simplest way to understand how the body stories memories is that as we exercise, the muscles we exercise grow stronger. When we stop exercising the muscles return to a normal state. If we begin to exercise those muscles again in some other activity, we will being to remember how strong we were and how we use to live that keep those muscles in trim. We think nothing about these memories which surface and never really pay attention to how they are tied to the muscles we are beginning to exercise. How often do we start an activity and quickly remember something like, "Gee, it has been years since I did something like this before and we begin to remember the past." Or, our start and activity and say "I’ve never done anything like this before." We think our mind is remembering what we have and have not done. But we never pay attention to how much we are remembering is tied to the particular arrangement of muscles we stimulate by what we do. Of course, mind can over ride much of what we feel and the memories we have. To become aware of how our body stories memories we need to become very observant of what arises in the mind and when it does ask . "From where is this information coming?". Then, be open to what we receive.

In addition to body memories, the brain appears to structure itself causing learning patterns to become hard wired. Brain research on the common fly has indicated that there are brain chemicals that build up and then "fire" when one is engaged in learning. It has been observed it takes about ten learning events to form a fixed or permanent arrangement between the necessary brain cells to hold the pattern that one desires to learn. Additionally it takes time to replenish the chemical in the brain cells so little is gain by the tradition "cramming" technique to learning. Creaming is when we try to learn everything we need to know at one time. Based on how mental habit form, learning spread over time is more effective.

These fixed brain patterns can dissolve if they are not used and or we can change the patterns. It has been observed there is what is called a neuroplasticity to our brain. It was once thought that the brain once formed remained fixed. However research indicates the brain does change and is not fixed.

In some way it is analogy to a vine with many branches. The vine will grow where we direct it to grow. It continues to nourish life in that direction until we choose otherwise. However if we no longer want a part of the vine to grow or to continue to supply nourishment in a given direction, we simply cut off the energy in that direction by cutting the vine. The vine and the branches wither and dies.

In the brain, the hardwired pattern can dissolve. At some level of our being we actually create hard wired patterns reflective of what we learned. Those patterns must be dissolved if that pattern will no longer be used to govern our life. If we feel the changes we are making in our life seem as though we are rearranging our brain and parts of our whole body, the truth is we are.

Habits are very unique to the situation which created them. The more any given experiences is like the habit which create it, the more likely we will fall back into the habit. Being mindful and aware of all our actions is, of course, one way to catch ourselves before we fall into the habit. However, if we need to respond quickly, it will be very difficult not to fall back into the habit. In this regard, the more we change our life from the past, the less likely a particular habit will surface. Then again, as we change are life in certain types and kinds of what we think are new experiences we should not be surprised that habits from our transcendental mind, what many call past life experiences, being to show up.

Exactly what we need to do to change a particular habit will be very unique to us and to the habit. The recommended starting point is to consult our intuitive guidance and ask, "How do I go about changing this habit?" and then honor what is received. However, if there is a particular habit we do not wish to fall into, we may want to put some type of what is called administrative or engineered safeguard. An administrative safeguard is to hang a tag on a valve or light switch we do not want turned on such that whenever we go to turn the valve or turn on the light switch we see the tag and remember not to turn it. An engineered safeguard would be to put a chain on the valve or tape over the light switch such that we have to consciously remove the chain or tape before we can act. We can become creative and do similar things for many things we do in life. By bringing our attention and awareness back to consciously deciding if we want one way or another, In time we slowly condition ourselves not to act a certain way.

Related topics
A creativity perspective on body memories

The Password Protected Area provides access to all currently posted (click for current loading) Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity related discussion files and applications.

Top

RYUC Home   Why free?    Contact     Links     Programs/services      Contributions