Farrah Saville explains why healing is not linear and accepts that slipping into our old ways is just our brain’s way of trying to protect itself.
Recently, I found myself spiralling. Something that I did innocently lead to an uncomfortable conversation with people in my life. I was upset by the interaction and responded accordingly. Despite all of the parties involved coming from a good place, I found myself reverting to old habits: catastrophising, getting upset, and working myself up and most importantly not giving myself my dues. All the things I have been working hard at to rectify and change.
It got me thinking about progress versus perfection. In our healing journeys we often find that we may get triggered or worked up and revert to the same old habits that exhausted us, that send us spiralling away from the good habits we’ve tried to form.
Also, when we are trying to work on our best selves mentally and emotionally, we end up creating such high expectations of ourselves that when we revert and slip into old habits, we can be so hard on ourselves but also feel like going back to the old way of doing things is the right way. Going back to old habits is normal, human behaviour is moulded on safety and as I recently discovered in an article by Psychology Today, we easily slip back into our old habits when we’re tired and stressed because old habits provide a sense of comfort! The article further states: “Since safety is the mammal brain’s main goal, it constantly tracks potential dangers and prefers us to stick to our current habits because they have resulted in our survival up to this point.” So literally, our brains are helping us to stay “safe”.
When we are in the midst of doing what comes naturally to us, we also forget about the small steps we take in these moments to do better. I totally overlooked that my choice of words had changed when expressing myself. I didn’t realise I waited to respond to the situation. I totally missed that I reflected on what I wanted to say before it came flying out of my mouth. I didn’t realise that I didn’t dwell on what had just transpired but moved on quickly and let it go, except only to draw on the experience for this column of course!
My old habit is to be so hard on myself that I immediately forgot all the steps I had taken to better myself. I forget that healing is a continuous journey and very importantly it is not happening in a straight line. It happens in stages, sometimes we go backward, sometimes we go forwards and hey, sometimes we even stand still in our journey.
So, being triggered and reverting to what feels natural to us is fine. But chances are you’ve reverted with a few changes that you’ve not noticed. To that I say progress and not perfection.
