“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”
~William James
All your personal troubles are due to one simple fact: you engage with your conditioned habits.
Do you seek approval or limit yourself? Are you stuck in doubt or self-critical thoughts? Do you overeat, over-buy, overthink, overdo it in any area of your life? Then you are interested in automatic, familiar ways of thinking and behaving.
And have you noticed? What you are interested in is what is expressed in your life.
If given the fuel to run, habits will take over, and you will end up feeling like a victim of your own life. Stuck like a hamster on a wheel and wondering why you’re not happy.
Touching vs. Not Touching
But here’s the good news: you are not your habits. You can identify with your habits and turn them into your reality – if you want to. But you have another option because they are not the truth of who you are.
Who you are is free of fear, unlimited, magnificent, pregnant with possibility, infinitely full and alive.
So how to know this directly in your own experience? What to do with habits that consume your interest and attention so you can uncover the splendor of you?
Don’t touch them.
When you touch something, you reach out toward it, you interact with it and become one with it. It is your reality in that moment.
When you touch your habits, you give them your attention. You think habitual thoughts and feel familiar feelings. You experience an urge or tendency and you act on it. This is the definition of suffering.
The Fog of Habits
If you aren’t happy, you are touching your habits – a lot.
- You get lost in a story of why you aren’t getting what you want.
- You convince yourself that you are lacking.
- You live in fear, guilt, sadness, or regret.
- You behave in ways that you know don’t serve you.
Habits are flat, automatic, lifeless, repetitive, compulsive, agitating. They stir up the moments of your life into swirls of stress and unhappiness. Are you touching these tendencies with your attention?
The Art of Not Touching Habits
If you realize that you are touching habits – the ones that make you suffer – then here is your invitation:
- A familiar thought beckons your attention. Don’t touch it.
- A feeling or desire comes over you. Don’t touch it.
- Your mind tries to justify the need to engage with the habit. Don’t touch it.
- A fascinating urge entices you. Don’t touch it.
Not touching habits means that your attention rests in presence where you stay peaceful and unengaged, but totally alive. You are open and receptive, uninvolved with the arising and passing of thoughts and feelings. You know that place in you that is not in resistance to anything.
Your reality is all about where your attention goes, and, amazingly, you get to decide. You don’t need to get rid of or change one single thing.
When repetitive thoughts and feelings appear, let attention melt back into this now moment. Do it a thousand or a million times. Who cares? You will always arrive in the same place. This now moment that is so fresh, so effortlessly new.
And don’t worry. You will function just fine without habits. What you need will appear; this can be trusted.
Try it out – don’t touch your habits. It might be hard at first, scary even. But eventually you will notice that suffering diminishes and life becomes much less complicated. And here you are: peaceful, smiling, happy.
Are your habits drawing you in? What happens when you don’t touch them? I’d love to hear…
Susan says
Hello Gail,
I certainly agree that where we put our attention determines what we experience, therefore choosing what to pay attention to is necessary for creating a fulfilling life.
My question is how does the ‘not touching’ thoughts or feelings we deem to be negative or undesirable fit with Rumi’s beautiful quote about welcoming all guests into the house, even if they stir things up and throw the furniture around?
I find that acceptance and compassion for all fears or negative thinking allows a shift to happen. Sometimes fear has a useful message to be heeded before you move forward. As long as you are conscious of what you are choosing to create in your experience, touching thoughts or urges doesn’t need to be avoided. Letting go of something means neither clinging nor pushing away.
Gail Brenner says
Hi Susan,
To answer your question, I’ll tell you about my experience last night. I felt the welling up of a familiar pattern – going over my to-do list in my mind and wondering how I’m going to get it all done. I saw it right away and didn’t touch it. I didn’t put one more millisecond of energy into thinking the thoughts, which only make me more anxious. By not being distracted by the mind, I could be here, present, with things just as they are. This is the accepting of fear and negative thinking you are speaking about.
“Don’t touch it” means don’t buy into it or believe it or make it your reality. But if there are sensations or thoughts that happen to be appearing, not resisting those is definitely the thing to “do,” with great acceptance and compassion.
Thanks for giving me the chance to clarify. Hope it helps.
Susan says
Thanks Gail. Your example and clarification does help. “Don’t touch” is the step that comes immediately after noticing what has come to your attention. It doesn’t mean try to avoid noticing, as noticing is essential to making conscious choices.
Gail Brenner says
Yes, exactly, Susan. Glad to have that clear.
Charme says
Gail, thanks for the clarification, and could you comment a little more about grieving as pertains to this post. I lead grief support groups and we urge people to drive into the pain for a while –an unspecified amount of time but, I always say we aren’t parking there–that is, we can’t run from pain. Sometimes I wonder about the difference between what you have said and stuffing or avoiding the pain. I love your blog, and this one in particular is timely for me.
Gail Brenner says
Thank you for your question, Charme.
There is an art to dealing with difficult feelings. This post is about habitual patterns and offers the suggestion to not touch them. But grieving is different. If there are feelings, then of course they need to be allowed to be and welcomed in a loving space. Welcoming allows them to be experienced and gives them the freedom to move on and resolve. When the story about them is added in, feelings are more sticky, but especially in the beginning of the grieving process, it helps to tell these stories. So it’s a process and an art to be with feelings intelligently as they arise. There is no one answer that fits all situations.
I wrote a whole series on emotions that you might find helpful. As you know well, dealing with a loss of a loved one is a tender time, and it’s wonderful to have groups available like yours to offer support.
Sandra Pawula says
This is a HUGE challenge! Lovely, but huge.
Gail Brenner says
Hi Sandra,
Huge, lovely, and in my experience, anyway, shows me the way to peace.
Mj says
Ah. Another reminder for me about how reality is perception and how I get to choose. In essence, I want my life to change and recognize that I must change. Lately I have been aware of those habits that have been anchoring me to a life I no longer want to lead. Taking action, or more often not taking action (not touching it) is making the difference. Thanks for such a timely post!
Gail Brenner says
Good for you, Mj, for seeing the habits that lead you to a life you sound like you are finished with. Yes, the non-action of not touching them leaves you steady, undisturbed, peaceful…
Chris Wheaton says
Love your website and am so enjoying your insight. The articles on addictive behavior are some of the most helpful I’ve read. Learning to “see” with different eyes has been a very long and rewarding journey. I am grateful that each moment is a choice for a new beginning!
Gail Brenner says
Seeing with different eyes, Chris. Great! If we buy into the mind and its negative and confusing patterns, our seeing will be muddled and limited. Clearing the smudges from the window of the mind offers clear seeing and great relief. Wonderful to hear about your journey…
Clare says
There is a situation that popped up that is poking at me, prompting my triggers, but I decided instead to step back, look at how I was feeling (physically) and how I was reacting or thinking. I learned a lot. I learned that ego clinging was rearing its ugly head, but I didn’t take the bait. Yes, the situation is still present, but I am practicing letting it go and am committed to practice letting it go. It is something that definitely doesn’t serve me. As they say, “death is certain but the time of death is uncertain” and I certainly don’t want to waste any precious moment of this life caught up in my self-imposed suffering. Thanks for the timely post!
Gail Brenner says
Wonderful, Clare! You can see that taking the bait = suffering, and not taking the bait is a move toward freedom.
I appreciate that you realize you need to stick with it. You are practicing letting go over and over, not expecting that somehow you haven’t done it right if patterns return. This is the kind of perseverance that yields results. What a beautiful example of the possibility…. Free of self-imposed suffering, yay!
Chris Akins says
Wow Gail! What a great post. I often tell my clients and groups I facilitate that we are where we are at because of the decisions we make, and the thought patterns that inform those decisions. I think our habits are a fundamental part of that equation as well.
If you don’t object Id like to print this post off for my next group.
Thanks for the insights as usual.
Gail Brenner says
Hi Chris,
I’m so glad to hear that you are letting others know about how thought patterns work and how they affect our lives. What a beautiful service. You are most welcome to use this article for your group.
Galen Pearl says
Don’t touch it–I love that! About habits, though, can we really not touch any of them? So much of our thinking process is unconscious habitual thinking. And as you say, many of those habits keep us in victim mode. Can we do away with habits altogether? Or can we replace them with habits that serve our highest good? Can we build a habit of awareness, for example? Or gratitude? Hmm, you’ve got me thinking here, because until I read your article, I thought in terms of substituting habits rather than abolishing them (or not touching them). As for my victim habits, though, I’m not touching those!
Gail Brenner says
These are great questions, Galen, and the best way to find the answers is to inquire into your own direct experience to discover the answer.
Substituting good habits for “bad” ones, takes effort. Awareness and gratitude are great examples. I need to remember to be aware, to be grateful, etc.. I don’t know about you, but those are habits I can’t sustain. I simply forget, then remember again.
But there is a whole different perspective. There is a naturalness to life that is completely effortless. No matter how much we think, plan, change habits, worry, etc, life happens. Those are all mental functions, but actual life unfolding has very little or nothing to do with what we think, want, plan for, worry about. How many times have things happened that we don’t want to happen? But there they are. Life gives us what it gives us.
In the deep acceptance of and living of this, there is peace, ease, and well being. When the “bad” habits fall away due to inattention to them, what is revealed is not nothing that needs new habits to fill it up. What is revealed is this inherent peace that is and was always there. Then we might think we need new habits – because how would we live without them? I would suggest experimenting. Can you live with no habits, no effort? There is a natural awareness when we no longer feed the neurotic (and mostly useless) functions of the mind. You don’t need to try to be aware, rather awareness just is. And sometimes there is not being aware, and that is OK, too. It’s an acceptance of the unfolding of life as it occurs and going with that.
Take the habit of seeking approval and the need to be liked, which can occupy a huge amount of mental space. Now say you decide to not touch it – a million times if necessary, but you see that the habit doesn’t serve and you are finished with it. What is left? Simply being, responding to situations as appropriate, choosing situations and people that you feel drawn to, that are fulfilling and enjoyable. Will you be aware? Mostly. Will you be grateful? You will live in gratitude. If you aren’t bogged down by mental chatter, you can’t help but serve the highest good.
I spent so many years in drama, mental analysis, and effort. And I am so happy to have that be over.
Phew! A long answer that happened to appear in the moment. Just writing it has brought be so much joy. Thank you!
Galen Pearl says
Thank you for the time you took to answer so thoroughly. Your additional explanation made so much sense to me. Like the proverbial light bulb coming on! This seems like the true “11th Step” after the 10 Steps that I write about. This is what happens when we let all the steps go. I am very excited about this new understanding. I think this is what I was trying to say in my current post about dropping our questions. If you have a chance to read it, I would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you so much for the truly enlightening wisdom in this post.
Gail Brenner says
Hi Galen,
I took a look at your post, Galen, and enjoyed reading the comments.
Eventually all questions fall away. When all conditioning is seen through and the absolute truth is known, what is left to question? All that remains are the deepest peace and happiness.
It is beautiful when questions arise – letting the questions float in the space of not knowing and making space for the answer to come. These are not questions we answer with the mind, but rather the answers appear or are known.
The key to spiritual understanding is to realize who you are – that you are not a separate entity. What seems to be you as the separate entity or body-mind appears in awareness. It is awareness, the substance behind everything, that is your true identity. Once this is realized, there is no more buying into personal thoughts, feelings, and habits. It’s the end of drama, and the end of questions. We don’t drop questions – they fall away naturally. But until then, enjoy the questions, and the answers, and everything else!
Amanda Steadman says
I agree. It is in surrendering that many of these habits just disappear, especially when your focus is clear. I find meditation or guided visualisations help with this. Have you noticed any time scales on how long it takes you to do this Gail? There is always a mention of 21 days but Im interested in your experience : ) Happy Wednesday.
Gail Brenner says
Welcome to you, Amanda.
What is most importance is diligence and desire to know the truth. When that fire it lit, the path is clear. As the desire for happiness and peace takes the forefront, it is seen that every moment is an opportunity to surrender all habits and ideas, including the idea of ourselves as separate entities. And in this, there is no endpoint, only endless deepening and recognition of how every area of our lives is touched and transformed.
The goal is not to make habits disappear. It is about the surrender of all mental activity in the timeless now. Here is peace, always available.
Martin says
Firstly, I must thank you for posting such valuable and re-enforcing life tools. I look forward to reading them.
This one has resonated very much with me, as in the past year I have changed by whole perspectiove on life to what I can only describe as being fully in the present, not conforming or being driven by the inherent rules, expectations,perceptions, but by being fuly emersed and in the “flow” of all around you, opening up whole new perspectives. Its actually exciting, opening up new beauty and energitic experiences every day, and not following the well troden habitual paths.
Gail Brenner says
Thank you so much for sharing your experience, Martin. I feel the resonance in your words, the freedom discovered and lived. What now? Only celebration. So much to enjoy…
Maria says
Hi gail,
Great post! What if habitual sensations with a particular emotion are bothersome? My attention keeps going back to those uncomfortable feelings. It becomes hard not to think of them. Could you please suggest how deal with this. Thanks
Gail Brenner says
Hi Maria,
It sounds like you are asking about physical sensations, then you say you are thinking about them. With pure physical sensation, you sense and experience, you don’t necessarily need to think about them. Physical sensations without thoughts aren’t a problem. They are simply sensation and you experience them. But when you add in thought – a story about why you are feeling them or judgment about what you should or shouldn’t be feeling, then the sensations will become sticky.
See in your own experience that there are sensations and thoughts. These are two distinct aspects of experience. Then see if you can allow sensations to be present without paying attention to the thoughts about them. Every time thoughts appear, simply bring your attention back to the sensations. As you do this, you begin to give your mind the message that thoughts aren’t needed. I imagine they are repetitive and not useful anyway.
See thoughts for what they are – mental chatter, noise. Notice that thoughts arise from nothing – they simply appear, and they have no inherent meaning. Then look to see what exists prior to thoughts. This is where you will find peace, silence, stillness. Don’t worry about getting rid of thoughts. Rather, feel physical sensations, and stay very interested in the space that sensations and thoughts arise from.
I appreciate your willingness to understand your experience so you can be free.
Maria says
Thanks Gail.!
Peris says
Hi Gail,
Again so timely. Can you suggest a way to deal with these thought bubbles?
For example the feeling of being “un-loved”, so this feeling comes up, I become aware of it, but then the “because” comes in. Are you saying not to engage in the “because”? How do you just not have the “un-loved” feelings? How can those original feelings just not arise? Are you saying if we do not feed the “because” the original feeling will eventually subside as well? Like a stray cat, that stops coming around because you don’t feed it anymore?
Thank you!
Gail Brenner says
Hi Peris,
This may seem like a fine distinction, but the goal is not to get rid of thoughts or feelings – because this is impossible to do by force or will. What can and does change is your relationship to them. In the moment when you don’t feed the story, the “because,” with your attention, you are free. Where does your attention go? It stays here as aware presence, the vast space in which everything arises. Presence has no problem with anything that arises in it. So when you stay as the space in which thoughts and feelings appear, they come and go, and you remain undisturbed. This is the radical and real solution – to be the peace that you already are. And you don’t have to deny or diminish any part of your experience.
Conditioned patterns (the unloved story is one of them) may hang around a long time, but when you see the pattern as thought (mental noise with no inherent meaning) and physical sensation, you can choose happiness, peace, and sanity, rather than suffering. Know that every time you feed the story you are reinforcing suffering.
As much as you might be drawn to feeding the stray cat, let it fend for itself. Maybe it’s one of those that has rabies and a gnarly personality, so it wouldn’t be enjoyable to play with. Let enjoyment be your barometer, and I’m guessing you will lose interest in the unloved story.
Peris says
Thank you, for your time in replying.
I get what you are saying. I am wondering if you have a concrete, meditation I might substitute for the story? Something I can actively work with?
Thank you
Peri
Gail Brenner says
Hi Peri,
I appreciate your sincerity in finding your way to freedom. There are several guided audios on this site which you can find by clicking here.
You might find these particularly helpful: emotions, truth of yourself, already whole.
Love to you…
Marie says
Hello Gail,
I am trying to get a feel for what are the limits to this philosophy.
For example, could a chronic alcoholic who has struggled all his life with alcoholism and comes from generations of alcoholism just simply decide tomorrow to “not touch that” and instantly never drink a drop again for the rest of his life?
Also, I struggle with your very first line, “All your personal troubles are due to one simple fact: you (choose to) engage with your conditioned habits.”
I have trouble with the simplification of “all”. To point to an extreme, a person with a serious chemical brain disorder can have serious personal troubles and it seems cruel to suggest that it is simply because they are not claiming their power to simply “not touch that”. There is a hazy line where we are unaware of how bigger forces are impacting us and making it tough (although usually not impossible) to simply change our thoughts.
Thanks for letting my play devil’s advocate. Generally I am a huge fan of your blog.
Marie
Gail Brenner says
Hi Marie,
All questions are welcome, and if you have them, someone else probably does as well. A couple thoughts come to mind.
First, I have learned to take labels lightly. They can help sometimes, but can also be limiting. For example, there are many reports of someone getting a terminal diagnosis, then being cured or living well past what was expected. What is real is direct experience. And when we let go of these seeming facts, anything could be possible. The nature of the universe is that infinite possibilities are available. Why not be open to anything rather than contracted by a label or concept. As a side note, I do know someone with a severe alcoholism who quit in a moment when he realized that he had been playing out many conditioned habits. Dramatic, I know, but another example of staying with unlimited possibilities.
I hear your point about not all people having the power to not touch their habits. Yes, there are cases where this instruction wouldn’t be do-able or appropriate – I’m thinking of advanced Alzheimer’s Disease, for example. In my writing, I try to be as helpful as possible, and I imagine that anyone reading this blog will have at least some chance of implementing any useful suggestions into their lives. But there are other factors at play. In any moment, a fresh response emerges. Compassion, for example, and appropriateness would lead me to not offer “don’t touch it” to someone with Alzheimer’s. But it might be helpful for you and other readers.
The mind can be very sneaky. It will look for all kinds of ways to keep itself going rather than seeing through its habits and surrendering to eternal peace that is here and present always. I have compassion for unfortunate circumstances that befall people that truly give them no control. But much more often, people don’t claim their power when doing so would give them just what they are looking for. As I see it, this blog doesn’t proffer a philosophy. It is about direct experience and the felt nature of reality. It’s about this amazing, precious moment – this one right now – that is overflowing with possibility – and how not to spend it suffering. In every moment, what do we choose?
In the absolute truth, there is no separation, no separate or personal selves, only the totality. This is our true home. At one level, it’s the non-existent personal self that chooses to let go of habits and suffering. But from the absolute level, there are only impersonal happenings with nothing at odds with anything else. Our only job is to relish in things as they are. No problems here.
Marie says
Thanks for your reply
Andrea says
I have been recently working on a few of my bad habits. I have found that when I “slip” or “turn-back” from my new awareness of needing to change that its better to be understanding of myself vs beating myself up over the “slip”. When I let myself be OK with where I am in life, the quality of my day is so much better!
Gail Brenner says
This is pure intelligence, Andrea. You are on this beautiful path of becoming conscious of the choice you have over whether to feed habits, or not. When you “slip,” beating yourself up is resistance to that moment. Being OK with it is staying in the flow and not creating a frustrating story around it. This is choosing a moment of ease.
Ephraim says
Am a 3rd yr student taking an engineering course. For the last 2yrs I haven’t been in a financial crisis but as I take my 3rd yr, the heat is rising. How do I handle the situation to maintain my good form in studies?
Randy says
Gail,
I guess I have been a fan of your site mainly on the periphery. I have read many of your blogs and the comments of readers, but have never participated. This blog seemed to stimulate a lot of thought.
My thoughts centered around the word “fantasy.” It seems like many “bad” habits center around fantasy. The hard thing about fantasy is that it is so addicting- which seems to be why habits are SO hard to conquer! When we fantasize we picture and create such a delicious story about how the object of our desire (lust) is going to going to fulfill all of our wants. If I am confused then please correct me, I believe that fantasy is just a very seductive story that we tell ourselves and that has a tremendous appeal because as we think about or actually act on the habit, the pleasure that we will or do attain it is reinforced by pleasure hormones being released in our brain.
Your blog really helped me to understand that in order to conquer habits that we must not get involved in the fantasy or story. . .
Gail Brenner says
Hi Randy,
A warm welcome to you, especially since this is your first comment!
Your insights about fantasies are right on. Yes, a fantasy is a desire, and a desire can easily have addictive qualities. Don’t we all know the delicious story of how a desire will fulfill exactly what we want? And I emphasize “story,” as this is not the truth. It’s the “if only” trap that creates a future time when we think or hope that we will be happy and fulfilled. This is misunderstanding.
Conquering habits is usually harder than just turning away from the fantasy, although that is an essential part. Once you turn away from the story, you probably first notice difficult feelings – urges, lack, strong physical sensations, maybe fear or anger. These are what have been driving the habit. If you are able to allow these to be without doing anything with them, especially not returning to the story, they are seen as just your present moment experience appearing and disappearing.
This is the golden moment when you have the choice to no longer be a slave to the habit. You get to consciously see the seed of the habit begin to sprout, and you make a different choice. Do this with great consistency, and voila! the habit begins to untangle.
This is such an important point, and I’m glad you brought it to light.
With love….
Randy says
Wow! thanks Gail. Your reply answered so many questions and brought so much insight.
thanks, again