Understanding Emotional Habits That Keep You Stuck

We all have them, those little personality habits that keep us from moving forward. We set up a way of being that allows us to be safe and secure emotionally within our little bubble. This can show up in many ways: procrastination, perfectionism, working too hard, detachment, addiction to anxiety, etc.

These are all forms of self-care that have gone to the extreme. It starts when you’re young and you are trying to stay emotionally safe in your environment. Even if you had the best family and friends who were supportive and nurturing, there are always situations that create ways of being that provide safety for you. And that turns into an emotional habit.

As you go through this week, notice what emotional habits are showing up. Ask yourself:

• Is this habit serving me?
• What is this protecting me from?
• Is this holding me back from what I really want?

How Emotional Habits Keep You Feeling Safe 

Some emotional habits do serve you very well, and some do not. For the ones that do not serve, ask yourself, ‘What is it that they have been doing for you over the years?’

You might find there is a level of protection it provides that you no longer require…BUT it feels a little scary to not have it in place. This is where a little attention and nurturing to the part of you that required it comes into play.

Taking some time out to sit with yourself and just notice what feelings show up and know that this emotional habit kept you safe. Send yourself some compassion and understanding that, at the time, this was the best you could do, and it was totally the right move. That younger you didn’t have the experience or knowledge to do it any other way.

Hold that space for yourself and really allow yourself to feel the depth of the emotion. Cry if you need to. Scream if you want to. Allow yourself to feel as much as you can. If that is just to notice and acknowledge, it is enough.

Recognizing Emotional Habits Without Judgment 

Now that you know a little more and have a little more experience, you can reassess and try something different. Little by little, not big steps, see what you can do to push the boundary. You will inevitably fall back into the habit, and that’s all part of learning and resilience. What will be new is that you NOTICE that it’s happening.

When you start to notice that it happened, you can see what your environment, the emotions around it, in order to see how it was triggered into being. The more you notice, the faster you’ll see that it’s about to happen. The faster you see it coming, the faster you’ll be at being able to shift the habit.

It might even become a fun little game you play with yourself. “Oh! There it is! I see myself reaching for the habit button! DANG! It got pushed. Ugh!” Doing this enough times there will be that one time where, instead of ‘DANG! It got pushed.”, it will become, “WOOHOO!! I didn’t push the habit button!”

Changing Emotional Habits Through Compassionate Self-Care 

Fun things start to happen after this. Movement forward becomes easier and more inspired. You feel better within your own skin. You become more aligned with your Divine Spark and life becomes a little more fun.

This is a gentle form of self-care that nurtures exactly what you need, where and when you need it. It’s not something you can buy, so you don’t hear about it often. It’s a moment in time that you gift to yourself. A support that only you can provide to your being. It is a love of self that you deserve to move into your BIG Dream and live your best, most authentic life.

As you begin noticing your emotional habits with more compassion and less judgment, you may discover something interesting beneath them, a quieter voice that's been waiting patiently for your attention.

Often, these habits developed to protect us from disappointment, failure, rejection, or uncertainty. But when we create enough safety within ourselves, we can begin listening to what we truly want instead of simply reacting to what we fear.

If you're ready to reconnect with that deeper part of yourself, I invite you to download my free BIG Dream Visualization. This guided experience will help you quiet the noise, reconnect with your Divine Spark, and begin uncovering the dream that may have been buried beneath years of responsibilities, expectations, and protective patterns.