How to be aware of unhealthy habits?
What are unhealthy habits?
Unhealthy habits are behaviors, thoughts, and words one uses on a daily consciously or not. Most of the time the person is not aware of those habits and doesn’t understand why their surroundings is such a mess. With time though they start to slowly recognize some patterns but they don’t necessarily act on them to change. In fact, some don’t want to change thinking that other people should just obey to them and/or they feel like their behavior is not a big deal. On the contrary, some other do want but they may or may not have the tool to change their circumstances. The thing is, we can’t become perfect for sure and their are some behavior that can’t be « fixed » for multiple reasons.
Why couldn’t I be able to stop those habits?
There are numerous reasons for a person to not be able to change that, or even to not want it to. Some people actually feel comfortable in a toxic environment because that’s how they learned to navigate through life’s circumstances. They adopted certain behaviors because of their parents, their friends, their larger family, at school, at work, a specific event, or even sometimes it depends on their biological development. It never is entirely the fault of an individual. It is possible to notice that some people actually enjoy having a rather… « difficult » life whether or not they noticed it ; they grew that way and they want it to be that way too, sometimes they can unconsciously chase toxic environments because they have been used to that.
Mentioning that because of some traumatic events, one can develop disorders that either were already genetically programmed but not expressed or developed because of that event.
Cultural environment and beliefs systems also play a huge role on what is considered toxic and normal and based on what is the norm, certain behaviors that are considered toxic somewhere are not in that specific location.
Those factors can stop one individual to change their toxic habits.
Then, how can I change that if I am not in control sometimes?
There are some toxic habits that you develop because of a specific event at a specific time because of some type of people. But with time, as you learn about yourself and your environment changes you gain more self awareness and will you actually do something. You would be able to differentiate what you can change and what you cannot that have become part of you but with which you have to navigate with in order to keep your life stable. You would have to be consistent, determined and accept that life has its ups and downs that are part of your journey and made to make you understand your limits and potential and on which aspects you have already done the work.
Being true to yourself but recognizing your wrongs and good doings, by accepting your flaws and qualities, following your own inner compass with your own beliefs and finding your community are what will help you. The more you try to fit somewhere you are not mean to fit, the more you reassure yourself that an environment that is affecting your mind and body is good, the less you disregard people’s best intentions when they actually care about your needs ; the more you’ll end up disappointing yourself, create toxic habits and make yourself and others suffer.
A small piece of advice I would give would be :
Listen to your body. Listen to your mental state and pay attention to how others treat you and you treat yourself honestly, affect you.