Hello, and welcome to the Borealis experience, I'm

very happy to be spending some time with you today. The

COVID-19 confinement is not too hard on you, I know, the

struggle is real. A lot of people are suffering from

loneliness, anxiety. Uncertainty is really tearing people apart,

because they don't know how long this is going to take. And yeah,

it's very, very tough times that we can use to be more resilient

in the future. And just work on ourselves and reflect and see

what we can do differently. Once everything is more easy, let's

just say easy, because it's not going to go back to how it was,

there's going to be a new normal, and that's totally okay.

And you can use this time now to be functioning well, in the new

normal, we all don't know how it's gonna look like. But the

stronger the connection you have with yourself, the better you

know, who you are, what you need, the stress you can take.

And the stress you can take the things you want to allow in your

life or the things you want to discard, like not have a new

life anymore, you can make those decisions with this podcast

here. I want to help people to be at peace with their past, and

maybe even teach a radical acceptance. Because if you want

to go out there and be a functioning member of society,

you need to know what you have to forgive yourself what you

finally have to let go in order to focus on the present and the

future. I talked about undivided, unconditional

attention presence the other day. And that is in my mind, the

number one tool you need to to connect with people, but also to

connect with yourself. So in the meditation sia that I post, you

can put your phone aside and just listen to my voice guiding

you through that meditation, and helping you to spend some

quality time with yourself. And today I want to talk about why I

believe it is so so hard to change habits that don't serve

us anymore. It is habits or behaviors that annoy us that

don't lead us anywhere that I want to address today. So let's

start with habits. And I think habits and behaviors just go

very, very closely. But hand in hand, let's say habits are

things that you could see, from an outsider's perspective. It is

things that you do, be it smoking, be it consuming drugs,

be it like little tics, OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder,

people that want to control all the time, or more behaviors. But

let's start with the habits. Let's go into smoking and maybe

binge eating, emotional eating. The thing you have to know

there, if it's about you, or if it's about another person. It is

a very deep rooted need that makes us do those things. And

that's why when we decide to not do those things anymore, just

from a mental level. It is very, very hard to do. Of course you

can muscle through and you can force yourself to give up that

habit. But a more sustainable way to approach this would be

to go back in time and really find out what the need is that

those habits are fulfilling. So when it comes to food, I gave

you an example a couple episodes ago, your relationship to food

is highly influenced by your family and the way you grew up.

And the relationship you have now is also influenced by how

you view your body. A lot of people who binge eat feel shame

and don't like their body at all. And that shame that

sadness, that depressive heavy feeling, makes them eat food,

because it gives them a sense of happiness and joy. Temporarily,

of course, it's a cycle because they feel good while they eat.

And then afterwards, you feel shame and guilt, and it starts

all over again. When it comes to emotional eating, it's pretty

similar to you experience an emotion that you don't want to

experience, be it loneliness, or anxiety. And in the past, as a

child, your parents or your caregivers sooth you with food,

then nowadays, of course, too, you will help yourself out with

food, and it will give you a good feeling temporarily. And if

you know that it is that deep loneliness that makes you engage

in those happiness, then you can try and fill that void or fill

that, like exchange that habit, if he would take it away from

someone, there's a void, and some people rather keep that

habit that behavior in their life instead of being in that

void. So what I like to say there is that you have to find

something to substitute the behavior that you want to

change. And for a lot of people, it is sports, and then they

exaggerate with sports and get addictive that way. I always

like to guide people into the creative direction, like start a

new hobby, create something that gives other people joy and

support them. Because a sense of belonging and supporting others

can be so much stronger than your feeling of loneliness then.

And if you learn to I don't want to say escape loneliness,

because feeling lonely at times is okay too. But if you know

that, you can create something while you are alone in order to

serve others. It can be a way bigger, can have a way heavier

impact on your well being then engaging in binge eating or

going back to your cigarette. I'm sure you understand where

I'm trying to go with us monologue here. Another thing is

behavior. So if we have people in angry states or depressed

states, we can also go back in time and find out what made that

person so angry. What what makes that person so depressed

nowadays. And I know it's very simple to say and there's not

only one cause there's so many causes that lead to depression

and anger, difficulties with angry feelings. But it is a

start to go back and to see what happened for me to feel that

way. And how can I help myself out there

again? And how can I learn to express myself in different ways

in ways that people want to listen to me? People want to

help me and when it comes to depression, it is so critical to

not isolate and to talk to someone professionally and to be

really honest with how you feel and when it comes to anger

management and you're not happy with how you react in certain

situations you can also go back and see that anger is kind of

second level emotion and underneath there's always

something else going on it can be guilt it can be shame it can

be sadness but you learn to react angry because it gives you

some sense of power you feel people are listening to you you

feel you're not a whiny little bitch but you are angry powerful

person but anger only goes so far and pushes people away and

raw honesty being honest with your people that are around you

and vulnerable can bring you so much more in life so in this

episode i just started talking about change and why it is so

hard to change i think i want to make it very clear that it is

extreme hard work to change habits and behavior and to

wanting to grow out from a box that makes you feel bad about

yourself or doesn't fit you anymore a lifestyle that is not

good for you anymore know that your previous lifestyle served

you up until now and now you want to create space and kind of

paint a frame on the wall and picture where you want to go so

if you are struggling with binge eating then see you said see

yourself not being binge eating anymore and being at a very

peaceful stayed with yourself when you're alone and creating

something for other people or just being good with who you are

and when it comes to habits like smoking picture yourself not

smoking picture your nails beautiful and shiny your teeth

nice and wide your lungs beautiful and fresh so really

have that picture in front of you of where you want to go

after letting go of your old habits and the same goes for

behavior be it anger or having a tendency to isolate and avoid

people when you don't feel good picture yourself how you would

interact in the future how you wouldn't be able to express

yourself clearly and people would understand you and he

would have deeper and more meaningful relationships because

you are facing your shit and you want to get rid of old stuff

that is not good for you anymore so it is very important to see

what led you to have that habit that behavior go deep look at it

and then let go of it and at the same time picture yourself with

new habits the new you the new person you want to be and then

we can be all more successful in changing and growing and growing

is such a hard work and very challenging at times but i'm

sure if you followed me for a little bit now it is so worth it

because it brings you back to yourself and it opens up a

totally new world thank you for listening to the borealis

experience i love it so much to have someone of you on my

instagram now i just started it a couple of days ago and it just

fills me with joy that people enjoy my content and really

yeah

are there and spend time with me and don't want to fall into

depression and don't want to fall into like get sucked into

those tough times that COVID is offering us right now so from

the bottom of my heart thank you so much for listening and for

being curious about my work here take good care of yourself and

we'll talk very soon again by your host aurora