Grief and Loss
But then one regrets the loss even of one’s worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them the most. They are such an essential part of one’s personality.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray[4]
People who study the art of change say that within us lies a lot of ambivalence, even about things we desperately desire to change. This ambivalence is housed in our brain and it makes total sense that our brain would hate change.
The human brain is an amazingly complex organ, but it has one thing in common with my grandfather Bill Murdock. It loves to sit on the porch and smoke a good cigar. The brain loves patterns. It does not much care if its understanding of patterns is actually accurate. It loves to find patterns so that it can take more smoke breaks.
Patterns give the brain the opportunity to go on auto-pilot and catch its breath. My husband, who works from home, sometimes ends up at the gym instead of a scheduled afternoon meeting because he is in the habit of going to the gym in the afternoon as a work break.
If I come home late after a rough day, my brain wants a spoon and a jar of peanut butter because my brain believes that eating peanut butter out of a jar is a wonderful way to deal with stress. It’s paired stress and eating peanut butter and believes it is a pattern my whole being should embrace. But my healthy eating intentions do NOT embrace eating a jar of peanut butter as an after dinner snack. Who wins?
If it is easy and convenient and within reach, the peanut butter wins. My brain is ambivalent about making changes. It liked the old way of dealing with stress it does NOT want to learn new things.
But my brain does not get the final say! Understanding that change is hard and my brain will fight my good intentions at every turn, the peanut butter had to go. Peanut butter is not a bad thing. In fact, it is quite yummy. But I am having to break a bad habit for a good reason.
My brain and I regret the banishment of my little friend peanut butter, but he had to go for a higher purpose.
What do you need to let go of in order to set yourself for transformation? Although we humbly ask God to remove our shortcomings and all that heavy lifting is on him, we still have a part to play in the work of change! What’s yours?
