Conquering Behavior

Drinking-Smoking-Drugs-Anxiety-Depression-Procrastination-Low Self Esteem and more…

There comes a time when we simply feel as if we have no options.  We feel out of control of our lives and choices. We overeat, eat too little, drink too much, do drugs, watch television too much, oversleep, don’t go to work, don’t return calls, or avoid people we know. We fall into the void. The void is a place where we feel no control and we believe we can’t change our behavior no matter how much we want to.  It can hit us at a functional level where we maintain our lives, at a completely dysfunctional level or anywhere in between.  Why does this happen?

One of two things is happening:  

1)      We feel a sense of emptiness (a void), so we go into non-action and avoidance behavior. E.g. stay home, don’t connect with others, sleep too much, watch TV.

2)      We feel a sense of emptiness (a void), and seek to fill the emptiness by going into consumption behavior. E.g. food, sex, drugs, overeating, spending, etc.

It all comes down to the emptiness we feel, and often do not recognize.  This is the difference between symptoms (what you are doing) and causes (why you feel the way you do).  The symptom is the overeating, spending, alcohol, TV, sex or whatever your drug of choice may be. It’s all the same. Whatever we’re doing that is destructive to our lives is the symptom.  The cause is always a void in ourselves we are trying to fill. Unfortunately, the behavior never fills it.  In fact, any temporary relief we may experience is then wiped out by further regret.

Most of the time, we think the symptom is the problem.  Then we try to control our food, alcohol or other drugs of choice.  Either the behavior comes back, or we replace it with a new drug of choice. Meaning we stop overeating, for instance, but now we watch a lot more TV.  We stop drinking, but now we smoke three times as much.

The cause is always how we think and feel. This comes back to something Freud observed:  “We tend to repeat that which we have not worked through.”

I know that you can learn and work through the cause of negative behavior.  There are many proven ways to do so:  Traditional therapy, Eastern methods of meditation and self realization techniques, Life Coaches, Cognitive psychology, EMDR, self-study, journaling, 12-step groups and many more. Not every approach fits each person, but there is a way for you to move past the why and change your behavior for real.

On the other hand, there are countless programs and proposed solutions that attack symptoms. These simply do not work.

There are three important factors to keep in mind:

1. Understand that there is a difference between what you do, and why.  Don’t attack the what; learn how to change the why.
2. You can attack the why. Learn to stop the why from ruling your life.
3. You are not alone. These feelings happen to all of us and you do not have to stay stuck. There is help, and you can get past these feelings.

I wish there was an instant solution, but the changes that count take time.  If you really have the desire to change the why, it will happen. The lessons of cognitive work in TOOLS have given thousands of members the successful ability to take control and change their behavior. Depending on your affliction, TOOLS can work to overturn it.  

Next week we’ll look at the choices we make.

Wishing you the a great week,