In any area of life, regardless if it is related to diet, sleep, food, relationships or career we all have lower impulses that cause us to make bad decisions. Learning to bring awareness to these impulses and control them is key to building discipline and stops the cycle of bad decisions.
Thoughts and emotions build up charge in the body. If you don’t pay attention, your mind and emotions charge you up so much you can be forced into making bad choices. If you don’t take responsibility for them, it becomes a repeating cycle of bad decisions until the consequences become unbearable. It all starts within you and that is where you go to get the answers.
Here is the mindful practice whenever you are about to make a bad decision.
1)Pause
2)Breathe – take a few deep slow breaths to center yourself
3)Observe – what are you feeling in your body? what is going on in your mind? Connect with your inner world. Pay attention, be specific and remember sensations and thoughts for future reference.
4)Wait – the harder you resist the impulse the stronger it gets. Just do nothing until the impulse goes away on its own. This is more effective than fighting against it.
5)Let Go
6)Move on to something else
Whatever impulse is arising that is causing the bad decision does not usually last any more than about 2 minutes. Through practice, you learn to recognize the bad decision coming on at early stages. This gives you the ability to deal with the impulse at a subtle level, before it gets out of control. When you move on to something else in spite of the impulse, you are taking conscious control back. Repetition of this process builds strength of will and inner resilience to the lower impulses that are causing bad choices. It seems simple but over time the results can be profound.
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