Slipping Back: avoiding the old bad habits

Slipping Back, we hear about it all of the time with addictions, relationships, work, parenting school … literally everywhere. I found myself slipping back during my trip to Russia this summer.   It’s so interesting. On my trip back to Russia this summer, I felt myself reverting back to the way I was prior to moving to Canada.  I used to be a less positive person. 

Smolensk

Slipping Back

I was trying to hold it back, but I could feel myself slipping back.I found myself slipping back to the way that I was when I was living in Russia. Even while I was there, I was working on changing into a more positive person. My motto was “every day is a holiday”. By the time I moved to Canada I had transformed myself into a much more positive person, which is one of the reasons I believe that the unique circumstances that presented themselves for my immigration existed. 

Smolensk, Russia

For this to make sense to you you should know that I went back to the city of Smolensk, in Russia. Smolensk is the place that I grew up and lived until the last 10 years I was in Russia. I didn’t start to make changes to myself until I was living in Moscow. So I was truly my old self when I was living in Smolensk. This is where my family and many friends still live so this is where I visit when I go back. I was only there for 2 weeks, I can’t imagine how much I would have changed if I was there for 3 months. 

Change

This experience made me think about change and slipping back into old habits. I can see the importance in making changes to change your environment to develop new habits and staying away from the old environments so not to slip back into old habits. The stimuli in our environments are so much more powerful than we give them credit. 

Making Sense

I believe that this all makes sense if we apply it to our daily lives. If we want to avoid slipping back into old habits, part of the prescription is to avoid the stimuli that were associated with the bad habits. Robert Taibbi talks about these stimuli as “triggers” in his article in Psychology Today.  If the bad habit was sitting on our couch rather than exercise, get rid of the living room tv. If the bad habit was drinking too much, then  stay away from the places that we consumed alcohol and keep alcohol out of the house. I know that if I could feel myself slipping back after more than 15 years of being a very positive person just by visiting my home town, we might not consider how powerful those stimuli are that keep us slipping back into old habits.

Train with Irina