Humans NEED habits. Habits keep our teeth and bodies clean. Habits get us to work. What we usually think of as our routines are habits we use to accomplish tasks in less time and with less effort. We don’t have to consciously think about each separate action because behaviors have become automatic and subconscious. We can think of other things as we accomplish a task. [Are you actually thinking about your teeth and every stroke of the toothbrush as you brush?]

We NEED habits and develop habits readily, but are all habits of equal value to our lives? NO! Everyone has habits that are more helpful or less helpful. So…………….

Are you ready to evaluate your habits? Not: criticize, judge, condemn – just assess, examine, evaluate which habits are helpful and which ones might be problematic, unhelpful? Draw conclusions, not condemnations. Then you can make helpful informed choices, decisions.

Let’s start small.

Snacks. Assess.  

Are you a snacker? [If not, what about TV, social media time? Replace for snack.] Do you know how much, how often and under what circumstances, you snack? If can’t fully answer the above question, Examine your snacking behaviors. When do you snack? What do you snack on? Why are you snacking? Do you know why or is it a habit? Maybe you don’t always realize you are snacking, while you are snacking? Maybe you don’t realize how much?

Examine. Look more closely at your snacking. Pay attention for a few days or a week so you can answer the What, When, Where, Why, How Much questions about your snacking.

Evaluate. How often is your snacking a helpful choice? When is not helpful? Why? What makes it helpful or unhelpful? What snack foods are most helpful, which are least helpful?

Conclusions. What decisions will you now make? What choices will you make about snacking?
That wasn’t too painful, was it?

We just need to bring our habits, which are subconscious patterns of behavior, to our conscious awareness. When I say subconscious, I don’t mean we are totally unaware. You know if you are a snacker. But how aware were you of the answers to all the questions above before I asked them? Awareness allows us to assess, evaluate, draw conclusions, and make decisions about behaviors that have become so routine that they are largely subconscious when we engage in them. We think we know whether they are helpful or not. However, we can’t truly know without examining them. Awareness can give us control over behaviors that have become primarily subconscious. We can decide which habits are helping and which are hurting. We can choose to how to continue or modify our habits. Some we may choose to stop. Conscious awareness gives us the power we need.

Are you ready for a difficult Assessment? If so, read on.

I have a brief one-page intake form I use for couples coming for premarital counseling. It has general questions: name, address, job, and what they hope to gain by participating in premarital counseling. I also ask about alcohol use:

• How often do you drink alcohol? Daily ____ Weekly ____ Occasionally ____ Never ____.
• When you drink, how many drinks/beers do you usually have? ____
• Have you ever felt the need to cut down? ____

I usually ask others who come to see me the same questions.

Let me be very clear: I do not judge or criticize any answer. The reason for the questions is to provide the individual the opportunity to use the above process to see if their drinking is a habit, perhaps even a problem for them. Is their use of alcohol helpful, “wine to make the heart glad,” as scripture puts it? Or is their drinking becoming an unhelpful habit? The assess, examine, evaluate process allows an opening for a question that is often ignored because people are afraid of the judgment, criticism or condemnation of their behaviors by others. Or perhaps they judge and condemn themselves. Some people even think drinking is a moral issue when in fact, it’s a behavior like any other. It, like any behavior, can be helpful or hurtful. If someone cuts another person with a very sharp implement, is it surgery, assault, or self-defense?

When people answer that they have thought about cutting down on their drinking, I ask them more specifics about what, where, when, why, and how much they drink. I ask what they think is helpful for them. It’s their decision, not mine. What is helpful for one person may be very different for another.

Once they have assessed, examined and evaluated their pattern of drinking, I ask them to decide when and how much they believe is best. [Remember this is someone who told me they thought they should cut down.] And then I ask them to try out the new pattern they are choosing. If the person says they are drinking 3 or 4 beers, drinks, or glasses of wine after work each night, they may decide that every day may be too often. Or they may decide, 1 or 2 every day would be better.

The goal is for them to find out if they are able to control the amount and frequency they drink or find out if they have developed a habit that puts the alcohol in control. Remember, our conscious awareness of our behavior patterns helps us choose what is helpful or unhelpful.

I ask them to choose the amount THEY think is best and commit to it before they have the first beer or drink. If they choose 2 and are able to only drink 2 each night, they are controlling what they drink. They continue to see if this works.

If they find that once they have the 2nd drink, they have a 3rd this indicates there may be a problem. They made a commitment to only have 2 drinks, but after the 2nd were unable to keep the commitment to themselves. If they are uncomfortable with not being able to choose 2 and make that happen, the next step choosing to have only 1 drink. If after having 1 drink they are able to keep that commitment, they are gaining more control over their after work drinking. Then they reassess, reevaluate, draw conclusions, and make decisions about how they want to proceed. We go through the whole what, where, when and how much process regarding their drinking at other times so they can decide what is most helpful. In other words, this process gives them the ability to be aware of how much they can drink with control and how much will cause a loss of control. Then they decide what they will choose each time. What drinking pattern is helpful and what isn’t.

Any habit can become a problem, become excessive—screen time: phone, tablet, laptop or TV; spending; eating; drinking; exercise; gambling, and on and on. How do we know what excessive is? Awareness of our behaviors. What are the consequences? How does it impact other areas of our lives, our relationships with others? If we assess, examine, evaluate what we are doing and really become aware, we gain the power to choose what we do. We can choose what is helpful for our lives and avoid what is hurtful. It starts with being aware.

However, never try to assess or examine or think you can become adequately aware WHILE you are engaged in the habit. That’s when we lie to ourselves. We say it’s all fine, or we condemn ourselves, judge so harshly we shame ourselves for something we just need to examine fully at another time. Only assess while engaged in the behavior if you have already completed the process and are checking in on yourself to see if your behavior is what you committed to in advance. Check-ins are helpful.
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I’m here to listen. And if you want, I’m here to talk about habits.

Blessings,
Dr. Jeanne
 

Part I of this two-part article is based on the paragraph quoted below, found on page 39 of the Gottman’s book, Fight Right. [I recommend Part I found on our Website blog, before continuing.]
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A relationship is a constant negotiation of individual versus collective. Each person has their own individual awareness and preferences, interests, emotions, intellect, and even spirituality – all these things that compose, fundamentally, who they are. And all these parts of the individual are calling out for expression. Humans have this individual need to express and embody who they are. But the collective – whether it’s a tribe, a city, a country, [family, church, organization], or a couple – demands something very different. It demands cooperation. Collaboration. Cohesion. Compromise. And kindness, compassion, and sensitivity to each other’s individual preferences and needs. And it will always be there, this tension: between trying to be true to who you are in your own soul, in your own core, versus being true to the collective. This becomes the long-term work of love, of being partners for the long haul.

Part I ends with this question: How does this description of what relationships are all about and what is needed to make them successful help us improve our own relationships? I hinted at the answer by saying “kindness, compassion, and sensitivity to each other’s individual preferences and needs” is the key.
There are two very important concepts in the quoted paragraph: the individual and the collective. What are those and what do they mean?

We are each an individual, created by God, in the image of God and incredibly unique. However, on another level we are all the same, inasmuch as we all have “individual awareness and preferences, interests, emotions, intellect, and even spirituality. And all these parts of the individual are calling out for expression. Humans have this individual need to express and embody who they are.” We are so alike and yet, so different. We tend to focus on what’s different when our interests, preferences, emotions, etc. don’t align with another’s. We focus on their difference from us. This, of course, makes them wrong, and us right in our own eyes. A foundation of conflict has been laid. It is now Me versus Them. That stance pushes us out of relationships. We often fail to realize that all collectives are comprised of individuals. Me vs Them simply builds greater tension.

The second important concept is the collective. The paragraph on page 39 uses it to describe a city or couple, etc. A collective is a living system comprised of individual parts working together for specific goals. Families are systems. Couples are systems. Churches are systems. Schools, cities are all systems. Systems are individual parts, people in relationship working together toward the goals of the system, the collective. You cannot separate the collective, which is a system, from relationship. The system, collective, is the relationship. I will use collective and relationship interchangeably at times.

The distinction I’m attempting to make is that individuals, you and me are flesh and blood humans with all the preferences, etc. above. But the collective, the relationship isn’t flesh and blood. It is a shared understanding about how we want and need things to be; it is conceptual. Marriage is a collective. The concept of marriage in The Episcopal Church is based on our Christian values. The government of the United States is based on the values found in the Constitution. The goals of each are different, but marriage and the US are both collectives. Both are made up of individuals trying to meet their own needs and the needs of the collective. A marriage is two individuals; this country is comprised of several hundred million individual people. As individuals, we are in relationship to the collective whether that is a marriage or a country or parent and child.

What makes marriage, democracy, parent-child, or any collective relationship successful? The key is “kindness, compassion, and sensitivity to each other’s individual preferences and needs.” The more of this, the more successful the relationship will be. There is no Me versus Them when kindness and compassion, sensitivity to the other’s needs enter our awareness. We realize that this awareness is how to lessen the tension of the negotiation of individual versus the collective. We must also think about our own needs, wants, interests WHILE also considering the same of the other, of the collective.

What might this look like if I become aware?

If I take this new job, I will advance in my career. I will make more money. I will have more opportunities for advancement in the future. I receive recognition and feel good about myself. I’ll have a better house and car. This is better for everybody!  Of course, I will accept the job. Wait, that is the individual. There were seven I statements. There was one Everybody statement, and it was an assumption.

What of the collective, the family? Am I assuming what they want? I have a spouse and 3 kids in school. They’ve lived here their whole life and this job is across the country from here. How do I know what they want?

“A relationship is a constant negotiation of individual versus collective.” I have to express my needs and also ask, discuss, work with the needs, interests, and preferences of the collective, the family. We have to come to an agreement that will best meet the needs of the whole. What compromises will we have to make? Will I be letting go of what I want this time because the needs of the others are greater? I can only know whether they are greater if I go into discussions with compassion and a sensitivity to what they need, not just my own needs and interests. And if the needs of the collective are greater, then they become my needs too because I want, need, prefer to be in a healthy relationship with the collective, my family.

This is what it looks like when we turn what could be serious conflict, into connection. Kindness, compassion, and sensitivity to the other enables us to have successful relationships. However, this is only truly possible if we have that same level of kindness, awareness, compassion and sensitivity to our own needs and interests, emotions and even spirituality.

Successful relationships thrive when we understand and love ourselves; when we are kind and compassionate to ourselves and do the same for the other.

There is one general question we truly need to ask ourselves, and we need to be brutally honest. I mean searchingly honest with ourselves.

Do I usually put myself, my needs and preferences first? Or do I tend to primarily put the needs of the other person or other people first? The answer is likely to be different in different relationships, so examine them all to help them be more successful.

If the answer to either question above is yes, you will need to bring more kindness, compassion, and sensitivity to needs and preferences wherever that is missing. This is how we meet the demand of the collective, the relationship and ourselves. We become able to develop Collaboration. Cohesion. Compromise.

Without kindness, compassion and sensitivity to our own needs, we will never be fulfilled. Without kindness, compassion and sensitivity to the needs of the collective, we have no healthy relationship. Could that be what is missing in every war? Could they end if we brought that in?

Jesus told us to: Love Your Neighbor as You Love Yourself. This is what that looks like. It’s really simple. It’s really what the Presiding Bishop says: “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.” It’s really simple. And, yes, it’s really hard work.
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All relationships require work. Relationship with ourselves, relationships with any collective – spouse, partner, parents, children, boss, coworkers, neighborhood, city or country require work, effort. One way to be in relationship with your city or country is to vote. That requires a certain amount of work. But we are all part of the human family and relationship is the core. It is actually the foundation upon which human life is built. If we are willing to do the work, we can have increasingly healthy and successful relationships. We will Grow in Relationships. And we will Grow in Service. And we will Grow in Christ.
 
Blessings,
Dr. Jeanne