Of beads and bad habits

I went to the bead store a couple days ago and bought sterling silver beads to make the bracelet--the one that's supposed to help me resist temptation. The beads are very pretty and go with the silver ring I bought in Zihuatanejo. I have assigned each of seven large beads one yoga-like exercise in resisting harmful urges: stop, breathe, stretch, twist, bend forward, breathe again, and be silent. So far I am making some progress curbing urges to engage in the bad habit (and I don't want to name that habit here--it's not anything to be concerned about), but I have not gone long without a relapse here and there. Even though I chose silver because the coldness of the metal can be a constant reminder, and even though I chose some rather large beads to assert the bracelet's presence, I can at times find it easy to ignore.

It's as if I have to take on a different persona, a different way of being me, the me that I want to be, the Jeanne who deals with anxiety in a less self-destructive way. Thinking of it that way helps sometimes, but I suppose it may not be good to define myself as my problems, and it definitely doesn't help with having too high expectations of myself. It's probably better to think of it as trying out new strategies to manage stress.

People tell you that the first part of dealing with bad habits is noticing what triggers them. This is difficult if you tend to be oblivious to a lot of stuff in the first place. But if you resolve once and for all to be done with something, go cold turkey, and you find ways of being held accountable for it (telling other people, for example), then you kind of can't help but notice the triggers. In my case it's (1) boredom, (2) concentration (something to do with my hands), and (3) anxiety over a million little things. In the end, all of it is related to being directionless, not keeping in mind life goals, wandering mindlessly through time. My perception of myself is, by default at the moment, excruciatingly critical, and being mindless just perpetuates the self-criticism that has been my normal state of being for a long time now.

It isn't that I've only just realized all this. I've known it for a long time. But I wasn't able to talk about it in depth to someone until recently, and verbalizing a lot of the fear and anxiety has been rather surprising. Once I've divulged something big, some fear I've never been able to put out in the open, I often think, wow did I really think that? Because it's so ridiculous. Acknowledging that you did think that way and being compassionate with yourself about it have been the hardest parts so far.

So over the last few years I have, on and off, vowed to myself to learn to be mindful. Being mindful is a constant struggle, exhausting, an alien feeling, and definitely not instantly gratifying. Imagine being mindful while eating breakfast, washing the dishes, brushing your teeth--those few minutes of the morning devoted to noticing the sensations and the import of every action--thinking about all that noticing is enough to make me feel tired. But really, if I did it, I probably wouldn't feel tired doing it at all. Such is my life; thinking wastes more time than the actual doing, and then the doing becomes half-assed and shoddy.

But there I am again, beating myself up instead of actually doing something constructive. The real challenge for me is to stop making judgments about everything. "There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so," Hamlet says. Hey, high school English classes do teach you a thing or two about life.