Page 55 - Taming Your Gremlin A Surprisingly Simple Method for Getting Out of Your Own Way (Rick Carson)_Neat

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Simply Notice Your Habits

Your gremlin has trapped you into forming habits for living your life. These
habits, or habitual behavior patterns, fall into two general categories:

Habits for Responding to Emotions
Habits for Responding to People and Circumstances

YOUR HABITS FOR RESPONDING TO EMOTIONS

Emotions fall into five basic categories: anger, joy, sadness, sexual feeling,
and fear. When one of these emotions is conjured up, your response may be
a habitual one based on a belief rooted in the past. For example, if you
learned from experience or from being told that anger is hurtful and that its
expression is mean, dangerous, or simply uncouth, your habit may be to
block your anger. The same may be true if you equate joy with immaturity,

sadness with weakness, sex with promiscuity, or fear with cowardice.

It is difficult to become aware of your habitual behavior patterns
because, to borrow an old adage, you can’t see the forest for the trees. It is
as if you are of your habits—until, that is, you begin to simply notice them.
As you begin to practice being centered, to establish the here and now as a
home base and to regulate the flow of your awareness from your body, to
the world around you, to the world of mind, your habitual behavior patterns

will become more and more obvious to you.