listen to your heart (attack).

I struggle with bad habits. Working with people who have all sorts of addictions has taught me that this is normal. I find it interesting that even when we know that something is bad for us, we do it anyway. There are days and even years where we hide in denial, but almost always, we figure it out. We get to the end of our rope and the beginning of our desperation and we say to ourselves--

I can't do this anymore.

And then we continue to do it anyway.

It's like our head knowledge and our heart knowledge don't link up. We are pulled in opposite directions, and the tension alone threatens to tear us apart. So what do we do when the habit is as painful as the abstinence, and the relapse is relieving?

We have to press on.

I think so often we believe the illusion that once we decide to stop doing something unhealthy, the gratification is instant. We see the people on TV or the social media account that gives us the blissful "after" picture--the one where the person is all smiles and better off and moving on and all the other independent stuff we associate with freedom.

But man oh man is the process excruciating.

Our heart feels like its being squeezed so hard it could burst.

Which is probably close to the truth.

I actually learned recently that a heart attack is caused by a lack of blood flow to the heart.

That in a healthy person, the blood headed to the heart has lots of oxygen, and essentially when an artery is full of gunk it prevents this oxygenated blood from getting into the heart.

And the heart freaks out.

It's in pain.

It needs that blood to survive.

For people with heart problems, they are warned of the issues associated with poor nutrition or lack of exercise.

But yet, so many ignore the signs and symptoms until it is much too late. Until their heart begins to literally die, muscle by muscle.

And I think, breaking bad habits is like that.

We know what is hurting us, but we continue in ignorance.

Because our heart knowledge can't catch up with our head knowledge.

And so we have a heart attack.

And it takes some time to heal.

And that healing does not come easily.

In fact, it may feel worse than before.

Change is like that sometimes. We want so badly to feel like we are doing the right thing, but sometimes it feels all wrong.

That's the trouble with bad habits.

We are so used to living a certain way that to change that way of living is unbearable.

Even if it's unhealthy.

Even if it's hurting us.

Even if we could be or could have or could gain so much more.

We settle in until our body can't take it anymore and our heart screams at us to STOP choosing that which is making us sick.

And finally, we listen. But though we make that initial step, the journey to recovery is long and not without many trials.

So we have to remember to be strong, to surround ourselves with hope and courage and memory.

We need to remind ourselves of where we came from and why we are doing this and how we are going to get there.

And we need to be able to withstand the pain of healing.

The digging the dirt out, pouring the peroxide in, searing kind of healing.

The kind that lets wounds heal without risk of infection or scarring.

Even when we want to stop the process.

Even when it seems that we cannot go a step further.

We must endure.

Because that healing will give us our life back.

It will leave us clean and whole and brand new.

It will lead us back to ourselves.

So in this time of healing, this time of all-consuming, everything-you-got breaking, continue to reach for heaven beyond the hell that is your habit.

While the gratification of relapsing may provide temporary relief--

it is terribly fleeting.

Your wound will heal.

And eventually, your heart will go back to it's normal beating.

It's normal breathing.

And all that fresh oxygen?

Well, there's nothing like the first breath of air after years of suffocating.

Or the beating of a heart after coming back from the dead.