As promised, here are my …

Habit Forming Tips for easy habit forming:

1. Make your habit very small and tiny.

I’m all about the grand gestures, and sometimes they work for me when it involves big goals like running a marathon or going to grad school. However, when I am trying to learn new HABITS rather than complete big PROJECTS, when I plan to overhaul my lifestyle, grand plans for change have failed!

In the past, when I have become sickened with my slothful ways, I have made charts about how I will spend my time. One hour for exercise, one hour for food preparation etc… After being shocked about how every single minute will be dull and accounted for with my new plan, I usually just end up feeling a lot of fear about the new super disciplined (and really tedious seeming) life I will be leading, and pre-emptively quit or quit soon thereafter. And the worst part is, I don’t just half-way quit, I grandly quit just like I grandly started, and I don’t implement my planned for habits!

Learn from my mistakes, internet people. I know how it is when you just feel you’ve got so much to change and you’ve waited long enough and you’ve got to do it all RIGHT NOW, but IF you want to make a behavior into a habit that becomes such an integral part of your life that you don’t want to have to think about it anymore, I suggest starting small.

How small? So small that it doesn’t scare any part of you.

For more tips and motivation about starting small, check out the relief inducing book Kaizen. (Here is an article about how a fiction writer is using small steps.)

2. INTEGRATE your habits into your life

For ease of habit formation, choose a habit that you can attach to something else you already do everyday.

For example, I want to move my body more. One of the next habits I am going to form is moving for 5-10 minutes right when I get out of bed. Attaching my new habit to my already formed habit of getting out of bed everyday makes it easier to start for the simple reason that it’s easier to remember to do it.

What is really cool about a new habit to an old habit is that this integrates the new behavior with your current life. For example, with my new habit, I’m just going to warm up and stretch without having to go to another room or put on exercise clothes.

I want movement to be that integral to my life, that it is just a part of how I do things, including how I wake up. It’s not that I’m exercising more (oh no, we wouldn’t want to do that now would we), it’s that warming up and stretching is the way I get out of bed. (see the genius?) In the future, I will attach movement to other parts of my life as well.

Integrating habits takes away the stress of “changing your life” and makes your new behavior just part of the easy way you already live.

Extra Tips:

1. When starting with your habit forming project, choose habits that you want to do everyday. Make it easy on yourself by not having to worry about what day it is. This will make it easier to just keep chugging along.
2. I also suggest the well known: make your habit measurable (AND SMALL!).
3. Record and acknowledge your success: give your self some stars on your calendar, or simply make a mark in a notebook. I am going to use Joe’s Goals to give myself some virtual stars. I am also adding my goal tracker as a blog badge for perceived accountability.
4. Make it easy on yourself. Start with only one to three new behaviors that you would like to turn into habits. Once those behaviors are habits, add a few more!

Do you have any new behaviors that you would like to incorporate into you life? Do you have any habit forming tips?

In the coming weeks, I’ll share the behaviors I want to make habitual, and update you on my habit forming progress.

The advice about living longer always says stuff like: have a close circle of loving and supportive friends and family, economic stability, close access to nature, and interesting work. OH BOTHER, close friends and family… well, I guess if it makes me live longer…

Well, duh. I mean, of course I want all those things!

The trick is GETTING those things. I’ve lived what is probably a third of my life and I’m still working on getting all that.

So, I am taking a few simple tips and from the site and putting them into practice:

1. Get rid of your full size plates and use 9 inch plates instead. OK! THAT I can do.
2. Put movement into your everyday life. This one is cheating ’cause I already do that. ;) Walking is pleasure and a perfect stress reliever for me. I’m going to try and boost this one by inviting friends to go walking with me more often.
3. And, I’m going to make more of an effort to go to church every week. I’m blessed to live 20 minutes away from a church with an amazing minister. I might as well take advantage of that.

What are three simple things you can do to live a longer and happier life?

My answer begins with who you should marry:

I think it makes sense to marry someone you are crazy about, someone who lights up your life and twinkles your toes, and is a decent person who treats people kindly, who is willing to work on a relationship, and who has goals that are compatible with yours.

So, if things aren’t going well and you think maybe you want out, should you call it quits? I have three answers for you:

1. YES

I think that if people are in abusive relationships, they ought to get divorced RIGHT AWAY! Don’t try and fix it! Get thee out!  The hard part is, what is abusive? That can be a trickier to answer than you would think when you are in a relationship and much easier to see when you finally get out.

If someone hits you, sexually abuses anyone, or in any other way degrades your soul, then I would JUST LEAVE (make you sure you research how to do it safely if you are worried about the other person hurting you- make your safety your highest priority.)

2. MAYBE

I just read on the Divorce Busting site that 1/3 of the marriages ending in divorce are abusive. That means 2/3’s aren’t.
If you are not in an abusive marriage, and you never felt twinkly about the person you are with, and you don’t have kids, I just don’t know. My only advice is that you do everything you can to improve the relationship and even if you decide not to try and keep your marriage alive, at least do everything in your power to be a true friend to the person you married.

I think that if you do decide to get divorced even after you make every effort to improve your relationship, the thing that will comfort you is that you have a healthy relationship of some kind and that you treated and continue to treat the other person very well. (And who knows, you might find that you can create a very satisfying relationship with the person you are with after all.)

3.Do Your Best To Save Your Marriage

If you once felt twinkly about your partner, if the person just annoys the hell out of you, you have lost interest in them, if you feel repeatedly rejected because they have lost interest in you, if you no longer find sex satisfying or any other host of problems- but they are not abusive, and especially if you have kids,

Then I would say do EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING in your power to make it work.

I’m thinking about this right now because I stumbled across the site: Divorce Busting and while I am very, very glad that divorce exists for anyone in abusive relationships, and I HIGHLY recommend high tailing it out of there (you can be so much happier when you are with someone who treats you well, you won’t even believe it), there are many people whose families are torn asunder who probably could have mended things if they had just known how. That is really tragic.

I really wish some of my friends, and my friend’s parents had access to this information back in the day.
Especially interesting articles from the site:

1.  The Walk Away Wife Syndrome
2. Hopefully Ever After 
3. He Must Be Teething

It’s an interesting issue that I’ve been thinking about for a long time and I’m not sure yet if my life is matching up with my values. I’m still working it out. And like Alicia Silverstone says, it’s not all or nothing.

Here’s a list of what I think of animal rights and what I do:

Eating

I think that it is ok to eat animals and animal products, but not ok to be cruel to them. I don’t think raising or eating factory raised animals is ok.

What I do: I only buy fish or birds to eat. I try and buy “organic” “free range” birds and wild caught fish, but it’s really hard to tell how the animals were actually treated. It might be easier just to be vegetarian. I eat eggs but only “cage free” eggs. I buy eggs from birds raised on small farms when I come across them, even if they cost more.

The book In Defense of Food has reasonable and balanced guidelines for eating in a way that is healthy for us and the earth. He doesn’t advocate vegetarianism, but does advocate eating heavy on the vegis and light on the animals. This is more of an ecological way of looking at animal rights rather than caring about individual animals as much, but he is against eating factory raised animals.

Animals I wouldn’t eat even if I were starving. They are part of my tribe.

Hunting

Watching animals die at factories on Peta is like watching animals die on the discovery channel. It’s a harsh world in some ways, but should we contribute to that? With our human ingenuity we have really pushed cruelty over the top when it comes to killing other animals, simply due to efficiency. To bring our behavior more in balance with the rest of nature, I think we should at least be as ineffective as other predators and hunt for food we eat. (We, like wolves, are predators- see our forward facing eyes and motions.)

What I do: My behavior isn’t in line with this belief because I don’t hunt. I did go hunting with my dad and older brothers when I was a kid. They taught me how to shoot a gun. I loved hunting until they actually shot a deer. Then I cried and cried and cried.

Food I didn’t have to hunt for.

Clothing

I’m allergic to wool. I have very few shoes. A couple pairs are leather. I keep my shoes for so long (decades) that I don’t feel bad about that. If everyone had my shoe habits, very few cows would need to be killed for leather. So, I guess moderation is my general principle here. I’d definitely be willing to buy shoes made out of other materials too.

I think it’s alright to buy any kind of animal made products at a thrift store because buying them at a thrift store doesn’t contribute to the industry that makes those products.

Pets and feral animals

I have a friend who is a vegan AND a biologist. She thinks that feral cats should be killed because they upset the native bird population. It’s an interesting way of looking at the issue. As a biologist, she is looking at the population as a whole, but as a vegan, there must be some concern for the individual animals. (I think it can be successfully argued that you can raise and eat meat on small farms and other ways that are in balance with the environment.) Interesting.

I think it is horrifying to kill feral cats. I think a good thing to do with them is to catch them and spay or neuter them. Growing up, we adopted stray cats that wondered into our yard and spayed or neutered them. Last year my mom caught feral cats in her neighborhood in traps, got them spayed or neutered, and then released them back into her neighborhood. So, when it comes to these cats, I think of them as individuals, but when it comes to hunting, I’m ok with hunting for food because I’m thinking of the effect on the population overall and how it balances out ecologically.

I’m not saying either of these ways of thinking are better. I’m just thinking through this and noticing these interesting inconsistencies.

Feral cat in my mom’s backyard, neutered but not killed, and still on the prowl.

Animal Testing

Cosmetics: Absolutely not ok with me. I try and make sure I only buy things that haven’t been tested on animals. To survive, I can understand eating other animals, but for the sake of looking cuter?? No way.

Medical testing

This one is tricky. There is A LOT of lab work being done on animals in research centers and universities. I would never do this work. Does this make me a hypocrite for using the medicine that comes out of this work? My Granddad is on three medications for Alzheimer’s right now. I’m glad this medicine exists. It seems likely that it was tested on animals. What do you think about using this medicine?

I went to a lecture at the university I was working at. What they found out was facinating and might help humans a lot, but when I heard how they figured it out using lab animals, I wanted to cry and retch. After seeing that presentation I thought, maybe it isn’t so tricky. Maybe the sum total of what we’ve gained by dissecting creatures physically and dissecting reality into it’s component bits in our Western intellectual tradition does not equal what we would have if we lived and thought more holistically.

Granddad who I love very much who is helped by medication probably tested on other animals.

What do you think about these issues? I would love to hear from you.

Thoughts? Insights that makes any of this more clear? Any of your own inconsistencies that you notice?

In his new book, he talks about how the different parts of our brain can work together in harmony. There are a few ideas in his book that I’d tweak and some additional information I think would be useful to add that I might talk about in another post. He suggests a lot of homework that I haven’t done yet, so I can’t speak to the effectiveness of this program. I have hung a lot of the affirmations he suggests up in my house and I’m beginning to see the value and wisdom of them.

In his book, he says that, among other parts, we have the emotional legacy of our baby self who had limitless possibilities and was all powerful. About typical affirmations that say that anything is possible he says, do you really want your two year old self running the show? Hmmm… Read below to see they type of statements he suggests you tell yourself.

AWAKEN YOUR STRONGEST SELF: Speaking from Your Higher Brain*
Neil Fiore, PhD

When you, from the perspective and roles of your Strongest Self, speak these compassionate statements to the frightened and overwhelmed parts of you, you can:

• Create inner peace by connecting your identity to something stronger and wiser than your ego
• Transition to a new, robust self-image
• Access support and strength to cope with changing situations and relationships
• Reduce the stress and anxiety of struggling alone, separated from your True Self
• Empower yourself with the protective role, higher perspective, and compassionate voice of your Strongest Self

The following inner dialogue is more powerful than typical affirmations because you are speaking to a part of you that is separated from your larger support system and, therefore, is easily overwhelmed and stressed. You are empowered to protect and guide the parts that have limited––and out-dated––ways of coping with life. You, from your new perspective, can shift to an expanded identity that empowers you to protect your body and smaller “selves” and guide them toward inner peace.

In the compassion voice of your Strongest Self, you replace stress with safety and
connection by saying:

• Regardless of what happens in life, your worth is always safe with me.
• Regardless of what you can or cannot do, you are always worthwhile.
• Regardless of whether you win or lose, you deserve love, pleasure, and freedom from self-criticism.
• Regardless of what happens to you, you deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. I will always respect my life and my body.
• Regardless of who stays or who goes, I am on my side. I will never abandon you. [My tweak: "... I will always stay with you."]
• Regardless of how healthy or ill you become, I appreciate the effort, wisdom, and protection given me by you, my body and my spirit.
• Regardless of how negative or intense your emotions, I acknowledge their validity for you, and I accept them completely. I am strong enough to be with your emotions. [My tweak: "Regardless of how positive, negative, intense or mild..."]
• Regardless of how uncomfortable others are with you, your feelings or your body, I will always accept you and remain at peace with you. [My tweak: "Regardless of how comfortable..."]
• Regardless of what happens in life, and regardless of your problems, I accept you and love you completely.
• Regardless of the health or weakness of my body, I can always heal my spirit.

*Adapted from Awaken Your Strongest Self [McGraw-Hill, 2006] and
Coping with the Emotional Impact of Cancer (BayTree, 2008)

© Neil Fiore, Ph.D., 1998-2007 All rights reserved. Permission is granted to reproduce, copy, or
distribute so long as this copyright notice and the full contact information listed below attached.
Neil Fiore, PhD, 1496 Solano Ave., Albany, CA 94706 voice: 510/ 525-2673
www.neilfiore.com www.yourstrongestself.com E-mail: neil@neilfiore.com

My name is Braidwood and I can not stand books that are fundamentalist when it comes to gender. You know the ones, “The Rules”, “Men are from Mars, Women don’t have a penis.” (or something like that.)

I have a couple friends right now who are really into a workshop that tells them all about what men are like and how men like to be talked to. (ARGH) It’s irritating, but because I love them I’ve thought about the appeal and I think it is this: relationships can be confusing and a set of simple rules can be comforting. “Finally, things will work out. I didn’t know these rules before, now I do, and I will be loved.”

I think the frustrating thing about it for me is that it is so all or nothing. I’m sure there is some good advice in programs like that, but it is either so freaking simplistic or the advice may be good but not attributable to gender. For example, one piece of advice is to ask a man to help you rather than blame him for not helping you. Men are so different than women, so it is probably hard for you women reading this to understand, but men actually prefer someone to say to them, “Will you please help me do the dishes?” rather than, “Why are you such a slob?! Why haven’t you done the dishes already!!?”

I know, it’s revelatory. I’m starting to question my femininity though because when I haven’t done the dishes I prefer that my roommate asks me to help rather than accuses me of being a slob too! Does this mean I’m not really a girl!?

So… it reminds me a lot of horoscopes. I sort of think it is funny to read a different month’s horoscope to people, because people who believe in horoscopes will say “See! That is so me!” No matter what you read. (I know, mean trick, but it’s so sadly funny.) I did the same thing once when my mom got a copy of “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.”

My mom, my boyfriend, and I were driving in the car and my mom wanted us to read to her while she drove. I thought it was inane upon first flip through and didn’t want to read it. My mom and boyfriend started in on me *didn’t I know that men and women really are different? — Do I think they’re the same?? — So, I gave in and started to read to them, but I read everything it said about men as if it said it about women and vice versa. “This is so true!” They said, ” You have to admit, this is is so true.” “There’s some truth to it” I admitted, “but don’t you think some of the things I read about the other gender are also true for you?” “Not really, not like what he says about men/women. It is so amazing!” It’s amazing alright.

““““““““

*I always think it’s funny that the first thing people exclaim when I tell them that I don’t hold some stereo-typical view they hold (and these stereotypical views are always different- women are clean, men are messy; men are organized, women are flaky; women are pragmatic, men are more romantic; women are more romantic, men are staid; men focus on details, women see the big picture; men see the big picture, women focus on details! “Tastes great, less filling!”) is that men and women are different! How can I not believe that! Like just because I don’t believe in their stereotype, I have trouble telling men and women apart. HOW DO I FUNCTION with this mental impairment??!

It just makes me laugh. What is all this fuss about men and women being different? Are a whole bunch of people insecure that they are about to be mistaken for the other gender or what? I don’t understand where this intensity around this issue comes from. I know that men and women are different. You would think that as a non-bisexual person, people wouldn’t have to question me knowing that. I only want to have sex with one gender- clearly some differences must have crossed into my blood brain barrier. I just think the differences are self-evident.**

** (I think that if someone has to intensely argue for certain differences, maybe they doth protest too much.)

I would love it if you would join me in blogging for Women’s History Month. For the artists among you, this looks like a fun year to blog for Women’s History. The theme is art.

Other ideas for posts:

What are some pro-women books, movies, and music you like? Who are your heroes? What is your experience being or relating to women? Men, this includes you too!

(Oh yeah, and don’t worry if you don’t actually blog for all 31 days, as we are already 6 days in to the month!)

If you would like to add this badge to your site, just copy and paste the following code in your blog code:

<a href=”http://authenticthreads.org/blog/2008/03/06/join-me-31-days-of-blogging-for-womens-history-month”><img src=”http://authenticthreads.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/nwhm_badge.jpg” /></a>

Just messin’ about the other night.

Game: one person is the interviewer, one is the interviewee, no pre-planning.

Result: 5 minutes of radio listening- frequent channel changes.

I hope you enjoy it! We did! :)

Oh bummer… the file is too big. Ok, instead, I’ve attached a picture of our cat visitor. S/he came back tonight! SUCH a cutie and SUCH a softie.

She has awesome links, and awesome advice. Just check out what she says about Letting Yourself Soar:

PS: She has created an extremely informative period chart. That is what took my “like” to “love.”

Tags: artbooks