I’ve had (and continue to have!) plenty of bad habits and I know that giving them up can be very difficult. I used to smoke in my young and reckless days. I had started working in a call centre fixing people’s printers over the phone and the only way you could get out for a break was if you smoked. So being the sensible, rational person that I was in my early twenties, I became a smoker. Very good for making friends, because everyone smoked back then, less good for my lungs.
In many ways what we’re trying to do by changing our habits is to address the decisions we made in our youth when we struggled to accept our feelings - so we dealt with them in less constructive ways. Its easy to beat yourself up for the habit you’ve developed - I certainly did over smoking, thinking “why on earth did I start this?” but you don’t have to. Be kind to yourself - like everyone else you were doing the best you could given the circumstances of your life.
So what can we do to address our craving with kindness? One of the key concepts is the idea of impermanence, nothing stays as it is and everything is in a constant state of transformation, including our mental state. How we feel right now in this moment always passes, even though when we’re experiencing something powerful we might believe we’ll feel this way forever.
When we desire a cigarette, or food or alcohol it can feel all consuming, but remembering that our feelings are impermanent will help us to ride the storm and focus on our breath. You don’t need to hold on for all that long for cravings to pass - a few minutes is usually enough, so if you commit to waiting for ten minutes when desire arises, you’ll probably give yourself enough time for the feeling to pass. Try to smile to your craving, see it for what it is - a tool that we use to avoid being in touch with how we’re feeling.
And we can also notice what feelings we have connected to our craving and gain insight how they feed into our everyday life and conversations. What was arising for me was anger when I was giving up smoking, I was incredibly irritable. Other people are understanding of what you’re going through of course but we have to be careful and take an extra breath before we speak and react when we’re getting used to living without our vice. I didn’t do this enough and my poor brother who I was sharing a flat with had to put up with me. Sorry bro… but I am grateful for all the support you provided.
And its critical to surround yourself with people that are supportive of the choices you’re making. If you want to quit drinking and all of your friends are drinking buddies who want to continue as they are then its probably time to expand out your social network. Join groups around new wholesome activities you want to try, for example hiking, creative activities or why not join your local sangha. Plum village sanghas are located in most cities and towns and are available online too - search for plum village find a group.
Another key idea within mindfulness that can help is acceptance. Accept your habits and the energy that they have. You’ve been living with them for a long time, its not easy to forge a new path so don’t expect things to change immediately. I needed several attempts to quit cigarettes and its important not to let perfect get in the way of progress - by which I mean don’t throw in the towel when you lapse back into old ways. Accept that its not easy and changing your habits may need several attempts. When you lapse and consume again, do it with your full awareness - this means seeing the impact it has on you as you’re consuming it. Don’t go back to having a mindless smoke in front of the TV, pay attention and see the interconnections. It’ll make picking up the baton again all the easier.
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