The Little Book of Big Change by Amy Johnson

Author:Amy Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SEL021000 Self-help / Motivational & Inspirational
Publisher: New Harbinger Publications

Any Voice That Encourages Your Habit Is Not You

The Addictive Voice can be thought of as the voice in your head that represents your habit. In the case of behavioral habits, it is any line of thinking that tells you that following through on your habitual behavior or obeying your urge is a good idea. In the case of habits of thought, it is any habitual, painful thought pattern that, from a clearer state of mind, looks overblown or untrue. For Jeremy, his habit was the voice that convinced him that his financial security was in danger. That voice was the Addictive Voice.

Our natural state is that of pure well-being and peace of mind. The only thing that can obscure that wellness is the thought patterns (often subjective and habitual) that we find ourselves regularly lost in. Considering this spiritual principle makes it much easier to distinguish the Addictive Voice from truth. Simply put, when a thought creates pain, it is not objective reality. A thought or inner voice that produces suffering is biased and untrue personal thinking.

The Addictive Voice is the voice that tells you you’ll never be free of your habit, so why try? It loves to say things like This one time doesn’t count or You can start over tomorrow or If it hasn’t worked before, why would it work now?

In Jeremy’s case, it was the voice that warned, Don’t relax; you’re not safe. It could all end in a moment, and you could be out on the streets. Jeremy’s Addictive Voice urged him to squirrel away as much money as possible, and chastised him for spending money. It also warned him to take its warnings seriously. You might think you can dismiss me as irrational fear, but you’ll be sorry.

It’s easy to see how one could become as confused as Jeremy was. Each time he began to see clearly and realize that his fears were unlikely to materialize, the voice would try to convince him that he was putting himself at risk when he was not worried. Jeremy was living with a steady stream of conflicting messages.

One of the most important things you can come to see about your Addictive Voice—about any thought that encourages your habit or derails your efforts to change—is that this voice is only fleeting thought; it is not “you.”

In chapter 3 we talked about feeling hijacked, as if you are of two minds. It’s as if “you” are momentarily flooded by a steady stream of temporary, changeable thinking.

“You” are always there. You can’t and don’t go anywhere. But your basic, healthy nature is sometimes obscured by loads of personal thought. The Addictive Voice is part of that thought. To revisit the weather analogy I described in the introduction, the Addictive Voice and all of that personal thought is what darkens the sky—clouds and storms—and your healthy, habit-free nature is the clear sky. Weather comes through and sometimes causes a disturbance, but it is always self-correcting. It comes and goes on its own, and no matter how severe it is, it never affects the sky in any lasting way.

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