How to break your negative cycles...
- onestag
- Mar 15, 2018
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 16, 2018
Every single choice you make is influenced by what has come before. Every single one! It is for this reason that life can seem very cyclical and you often hear people say 'Why does this keep happening to me?'. Unfortunately, our future will be comprised of different renditions of the same events until we become aware of our negative cycles and actively make changes to ourselves to break them. Fortunately however, making these changes is very possible and we can start today.

But first, I'm sure you're asking, how do these cycles come to be and why do they even happen? This is a very good question with a few infinitely complex answers and one simple one. As we don't have forever, let's focus on the simple one.
These things keep happening because our mind, body and emotions cannot see what has not yet come, yet can see what has come before.
Why is this important? Because all that we've seen to date is what we use as information to analyse risk and reward when looking at our future.
And before we dive into why this is problematic, let's just celebrate how this can be useful. Let's say a rather nasty person has punched you in the face every single time you've seen them since you were a child. This very cyclical analysis is what is used to ensure you actively avoid seeing that person again. Rather useful right? Saves some jaw ache.

And if it was just self-preservation over things that would actively harm us that triggered this system, then we could all exist in peace knowing that we are living our life to the fullest. But here's the catch, the data we use to subconsciously manage our lives is not only imperfect but it also attempts, with great affect, to stop us from ever trying anything new or risky.
Why? Because self-preservation is the key goal for this system and crucially, it cannot deduce right from wrong. It can only process what has come before.
A fascinating example comes in the form of long-term smokers who are trying to quit smoking.

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