To let something new into your life, it is worth abandoning something old. Good comes only when there is free place for him.
Rejection of the most “comfortable” product
My love for the sneakers was formed exclusively thanks to the difficult years of students-time and money was catastrophically lacking, and on three chocolates, grabbed somewhere between the audience and the hospital (I studied in the medical), it was possible to last forbly all day.
I never had problems with excess weight, I did not feel the harm from the bars, and therefore even many years after studying my relations with the sneakers were maintained almost at the same level as in the “hungry” times – there was no day to make it a day toI did not eat chocolate with tea.
My yoga teacher drew attention to such a strange habit. Accustoming us to love the most uncomfortable asanas, Swami advised me to refuse the most “comfortable” product. “There are no problems – no more apples!” – I immediately agreed. “Apples?! – Swami was surprised. – What about the bars?!”
Like any dependent, the first thing I did was to deny everything. Not so much I eat them, and indeed – there are nuts, but this is very useful. The teacher rested on the fact that any habit is a dependence, and addictions deprive us of freedom.
I did not want to be not free, and, not fully understanding what they want from me, I promised not to eat sneakers for six months
You can fully realize dependence by only starting to fight it, plus – I really think that in our oversaturated world restrictions are beneficial. At first I tried to cunning – I bought similar bars in stores (we only agreed on the sneakers!), but soon I realized how funny and even stupid looks like it.
On the way between the works, I began to eat a small box of nuts that I took from the house in the morning, and I drank tea with dates. Gradually and in this disappeared the need. Six months later, I bought a cherished chocolate, cut off a small piece, ate and forgot about it. And I can do it perfectly without harmful bars to this day. At the same time, it is important – I do not buy them, because I do not want, and not because “you can’t”.
A sense of freedom
The experience itself was the most useful in this story – getting rid of even a slight dependence, I felt more freer.
There was a case when I left for two weeks to aunt in the village and did not know whether my chocolate would be there – the road bag was clogged by the bars, who, of course, melted in the hot compartment of the train and destroyed half of my things. The whole vacation I was angry and annoyed by trifles, of course, without connecting it with chocolate.
Remembering this case, I realized that my husband is observed exactly the same behavior when we are going to travel and it turns out that the Internet is not everywhere or some social networks in this country are blocked. We discussed this for a long time, found other confirmations for our dependencies and came to the conclusion that the rejection of some things for a while could make us better.
Experiment length per year
We decided to conduct such an experiment long a year – everyone had to abandon one bad habit, from one social network, from one favorite product and one thing/subject. My choice fell on sleep until dinner, a popular social network, ice cream and TV.
There is a common misconception that 21 days are enough to develop a habit. Practice shows that this is not so. For example, in childhood, many of us went to the garden, then for 11 years to school and then for some years to university (in my case-seven). All this time we woke up and fled to classes at 8-9 in the morning, but as soon as the opportunity appeared-I chose work with a free schedule and began to sleep until 12 a.m.
No habit, despite the regular morning climbs with sunrise for almost a whole life, I did not work out. However, sleep until noon and then do not keep up with anything – there is also enough pleasant. I promised myself to get up no later than 9 in the morning, but since I lie about four, I allowed myself to sleep for 40 minutes in lunch.
TV
I just decided not to pay for the TV, and after a month we were turned off. He stopped showing, and we safely forgot about him (he sagged with us for several years, performing the function of a wall picture – “Black rectangle from Asia”).
Ice cream
We started the experiment on the eve of the New Year, so the first few months without ice cream was quite tolerable, but in the summer the temptation was great. When I really, I really wanted to, I went to the store and read the composition on the label-after five minutes the desire passed, because to use all this chemical composition is more expensive. By August, I mastered the preparation of homemade ice cream from yogurt – healthy, tasty and “do not eat much”. Can this be considered a failure? I think no, because after us the whole family and all friends switched exclusively to home “healthy” ice cream.
Social network
VKontakte was a storehouse of the necessary information, because I read there only publics related to work, as it seemed to me then. Spending at least 5 hours a day at the computer, more than half of my time I studied everything that the admins of the resource offered me. It was really difficult to refuse, and I reassured myself only by the fact that it was only a year. Needless to say, after a short time I did not remember about him?
The results of the experiment
After 12 months, summing up the results of our experiment, my husband and I decided to continue. December 31 will be the fifth time we tell each other, what we are going to abandon the new year. What will make us free, which means it is happier.
Over the past years, my life, in addition to the aforementioned, left: a mobile phone (returned after the end of the experiment), hair elastic band (the opportunity not to make styling), microwave, cookie, sugar, coffee (from January 1, we will be together, but I will be togetherI am sure that from eight cups I will go to one per day or even less often – a year has
been affected without my favorite drink), Pinterest, Instagram (an extremist organization banned in Russia) and Twitter (for so long I could not choose what to abandon, that I decided that I decided thatI can live without both social networks – perhaps Instagram (an extremist organization banned in Russia) will return, but I doubt it so far).
