Habit: a usual way of behaving: something that a person does often in a regular and repeated way. (Merriam-Webster)

The word has some other definitions such as: clothing worn by a member of a religious order or a substance abuse, such as drug abuse. All definitions, including words like “habitat,” suggest something outside of us. A nun is inside the habit that she wears and we all live in one habitat or another. It struck me that this is true of our habits as well. “We” live within an organism that exhibits our habits. At least that seems like the healthiest perspective to have. I certainly do not want to think of myself as my habits. How defeating a feeling that would be.

The more I thought of (and experimented with) the word, the more I came to visualize habit as something cauterized on my flesh and my surface… and my interior as empty… except for “spirit.” The “I” or “me” is that spirit within. It floats about, propagates, expands, and is extremely valuable as long as I can successfully see myself as distinct from the habits on the outside, which are presented to the world. The purpose is not to avoid responsibility for habits that may be have bad effects on you or others, but rather to visually and sensually experience them as distinct from yourself… long enough for them to melt and disappear for at least a moment so that you might experience a new you.

For someone with the ability to imagine, this is not a difficult image to conceptualize… briefly. The problem comes when trying to maintain and increase the image for longer periods. To do so appears to improve body conditions by melting some habits away and increasing a sense of completeness, peace, and worth. This sort of thought, however, like other useful thoughts, does not easily become a habit itself. Increasingly, I see that spiritual and religious thoughts and images have great potential as body habit and posture altering tools, if only they were recognized as such.