Just like in the physical realm, habits create the structure of our spiritual behavior. I’m currently in the process of getting rid of unnecessary habits, both physical and spiritual. Just as I traded coffee for RedBull and weed for vapes, I traded anger for patience in my workplace and daily life. These are the baby steps towards my true goal: stillness. I cannot wait for the day when every emotional reaction I have to life is stillness first, then my inevitable truth. In order to achieve this, I embrace the steps in between, even as people poke fun at my vaping and RedBull drinking. But if habits replace habits, what was there before the initial one?

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When I first became aware of my poor habits, it seemed humorous to me. In my infinite wisdom, I felt as though it couldn’t really matter that much. For years I convinced myself that habits like smoking weed every single day was about the act of enlightening, rather than numbing. Staying up late and getting only a couple hours of sleep meant I had more time to be alive, even though it meant being unwell the next day. Every time I reacted to a situation with anger, I validated it by assuming that I was protecting my energy rather than destroying it.  When did these self-prescribed mistruths formulate my reality?

One of the hardest aspects of embracing the spiritual journey is trying to see it in the reality we’re so used to. Suddenly looking for magic in every tree, person, and crack in the concrete. The silence in waiting for a sign that you’re going the right direction can be eerily loud. Although personally, I find it much harder to weave reality back in once you’ve fully accepted the divine. Once you know there is so much more, why would you want to reenter the finite space of human existence? The answer is that there can’t be one without the other. As above, so below, or whatever. It sounds counterintuitive to open that door to see what’s inside and then close it in front of you, but that’s exactly the point.

What came first, the habit or the being? Just like the chicken and the egg, there is an infinite loop of beginning between you and what you do. What you do changes you and you can change what you do. The basic answer is that you were a clean, unfiltered being with a core sense of self & values, then society came along and implanted seeds in your subconscious. Seeds that grow into things like doubt, inflated-ego, stubbornness, fear, you know the type. They’re the vines that wrap around your heart and throat and feet; you can’t love or speak or move forward if they grip you too tight. The issue is that there’s more to the story than the jading of a baby.

Accountability is one of the most important steps in change. A year ago, the morning after an embarrassing drunk night was when I practiced self-forgiveness. I would comfort myself, breathing mindfully through the anxiety of whether or not I ruined the night or, even worse, a relationship. The self-love practice was valuable, sure, but it didn’t do any good without accountability. In fact, it was the self-soothing that would validate my drinking the next weekend. It’s okay if I fuck up, I’d think to myself, I’ll know how to make myself feel better tomorrow. A year later and I’m sober because I not only allowed myself to feel embarrassed, but I stood nose-to-nose with my embarrassment. I’d talk to the people impacted by my drunk choices the next day, instead of letting them wonder if I’m okay. I asked them how it made them feel and experienced the valuable cringe from listening to every word. At this point, I cringe from just imagining what would happen if I took even one sip. 

At some point, we made our own decision of how to respond to something. There was once a morning so exhausting that we drank our first cup of coffee. There was once a person so intriguing that all the reasons not to smoke cigarettes eluded our mind. There was once an experience that changed the way we reacted to a feeling, at a time when our decisions didn’t appear to carry any weight and our emotions seemed less than valid. Now, all this time later, we are the sum of our passive reactions in the form of shitty habits.

Don’t be inspired to ask yourself, where did it all go wrong? The point is to ask yourself, how can I make this right? Pinpointing the moment you collected a disappointing habit won’t help you change it, it might even create delusions that you still need it. Instead, imagine what the idealized version of your future self would do with their day. My idealized self cooks every meal and works out every day, for example. As someone who currently would rather eat nothing at all than put any effort into cooking, this visual seems daunting. As someone who can barely find the motivation for a hike, one of my favorite things to do, I often feel like I’ve gotten worse at life. Let’s circle back to the idea of taking baby steps. Like I said earlier, I’m trying to go from ten shots of espresso a day to waking up without the need for caffeine at all. In between the beginning and the goal, in this case, is a RedBull phase. So while the idealized version of myself is a chef with abs, I am finding satisfaction in cooking ten minute dinners and walking my dog around the neighborhood twice each day.

How did I get here? I wonder, despite my intentional increase in the time between a desire and a decision. A lot can happen in just a matter of seconds. Residual sleep beneath my eyes, I look at the espresso machine for only two beats before feeling the deeper, truer need of water. Some of the habits that we develop are like delusions in a desert, seeing water where there is nothing but more sun-baked heat. Is there a limbo between the life we want and the life we are given? I believe it’s now. Once upon a time, we heard a thought in our mind about another moment than the one we were in. For whatever reason, we let that thought and all the ones that would be born of it live with us. The silence we knew as children becoming a memory as we treat our heads like we treat our phones, never fully turning them off so they’re always running.

My cat reminded me of this last night. Before I moved to a more populated area, Peaches had acres to herself. Now when I let her outside, I’m brutally aware of how close she is to busy roads, strangers and their pets, hungry city foxes, and other unknowns. Trusting the world to take care of one of the truest loves of my life has been part of my journey. Sometimes I can let her out and forget that the world has access to her, sometimes the anxiety can get so bad I sit on the back deck and wait. Last night was one of those nights. Normally, she comes running to the sound of my voice shouting her name into the woods. After a few calls, the only thing I could hear was the wind through the trees. The trees were talking to me, reminding me that my anxiety isn’t a truth of my reality. I closed my eyes, visualized the forest floor as if I were two inches tall and walking through it. I walked until I saw Peaches, perched on a log, looking at me. I said, “Peaches, could you come home? I miss you.” Too focused on my worries, my eyes shot open and I was returned to my place on the deck. There was no point in staring into the woods, the trees made this clear, so I settled into the hammock instead. Closing my eyes, I focused on the sounds around me. The loudest of all was the air-conditioning unit, groaning as it pushed cold air into my home. Behind that sound was the wind, the children playing on the closest playground, and the late summer frogs. Focused only on the sounds, the thoughts lowered in frequency. They’d pop up, of course, thoughts of TV shows and internet posts and work. I refocused on the sounds until the last of the thoughts dissipated. It was peace unlike any man-made thing can replicate. After some time, I couldn’t say how long, the peace was so filling that I no longer needed to wait for Peaches to come home. She would come when she wanted, safe and sound. As I stood up from the hammock, I noticed a shadow on the steps. Peaches was sitting silently, staring out into the woods. She had never come home so quietly before, usually she meows the whole way back. This was how I knew Peaches was teaching me something, a therapy session with my cat. Together, we walked inside.