How to shift habits with Focusing: from possibility, to practice, to praxis

Felt sense body card of my Twitter scroller part, that tries to soothe me when I’m stressed.

Earlier this year, I completed the The Power of Embodied Transformation, an 18-week online coach training with Coaches Rising. During this training, I learned some distinctions that have really resonated. The first two are from Amanda Blake and the last one is from Staci Haines:

Awareness creates choice.
Practice builds capacity.
Embodied transformation is foundational change.

I’ll unpack each one with some Focusing, with an example of a fixate part of me I call the Twitter scroller.

Possibility: your body knows another way

Focusing is one way for us to build our awareness of how we are being, including what state of our autonomic nervous system (ANS) we are in, or what part of us is active, or what habit we have used. With my Focusing practice, I gained awareness of the part of me that takes me to Twitter to scroll for over an hour. I called it the Twitter scroller. This part shows up when there is stress in my life. I really used this part during the pandemic.

My felt sense body card of this part says things like “I am looking for good news, something to soothe my stress about Covid/Ukraine war, etc.”, and the sensations include a feeling of tension in my chest, a tired blanket feeling in the upper part of my body, and a small knot in my belly. With this part mapped, I realized how I was looking for safety, and avoiding feeling issues happening in the world. This fixate part, as named by Jan Winhall, would shift me from a fight-flight response in my nervous system (stress!) over to a fold-collapse numb place. See Jan's Felt Sense Polyvagal Model™ to learn more about how our habits (and addictions) act as state regulation strategies.

Focusing also helps us see a different way or ways we could be, providing us with choice. My body card says to limit time on social media and make phone calls to friends. My body suggested alternative ways to spend time when I’m not feeling safe. The awareness of these choices brings possibility. Once our body shows us a different way of being, we can work on being that other way.

Practice: embodying a new way of being

Work on being that way, because for most of us, creating a new habit requires practice to get there most of the time (though we can certainly have a felt shift that comes with an insight and a new way of being that doesn’t take practice, like when we suddenly are ready to do something). To build the capacity to be or respond in a different way, we need to practice bringing ourselves to another ANS state, to practice our new habit. In doing so, we integrate the new way of being in our mind-body. With practice, we move to being the new way for a few minutes, then a few hours, and eventually most of the time (more on that in the next section).

One of the first things I did was to begin using the app limits to monitor my screen time. This was likely helpful as it made the monitoring fun, and research has shown that this increases persistence in long-term goals.

I also practiced noticing when I wanted to go on Twitter, so that I could practice choosing something else. Bringing a Focusing attitude to these times really helped me self-soothe so that I could build capacity to be able to do something else. I practiced going to bed earlier. I would read a book in bed rather than reading on my screen, and the earlier bed time helped me to get up early and go out for a walk, which in turn helped my whole system be less stressed in the first place.

This isn’t always successful! Just yesterday I was on Twitter related to self-soothing a stressful situation: and while I was aware that I was on Twitter, I was not aware at the time that I was using it to avoid dealing with this said situation! Seeing this now, brings me to praxis.

Praxis: action aligned with purpose

According to Bob Proctor, praxis is “the integration of belief with behaviour”. In other words, when we walk our talk, and our habits are aligned with our intention or values. Staci Haines calls this embodied transformation and says this has happened when “our ways of being, acting and relating are aligned with what [we] most care about —even under the same old pressures.” She goes on to specify that this is when our actions are aligned with our purpose at least 85% of the time, as “we make mistakes, we are taking new risks, and we have bigger visions—we need some learning room”.

When I acknowledge that change will continue to take practice and that embodied transformation isn’t 100% permanent, I notice that my body relaxes. My perfectionist part can step back as it’s ok if I fluctuate sometimes. And that’s a relief, because as I’ve said, I’m not always steady. Using Twitter with my curious part, that likes to learn things and be informed, is very different to using it with the Twitter scroller. It’s not that using Twitter is bad, but rather that when I am using it to avoid being connected to people, then I am not aligned with the person I want to be. I am not aligned to my belief in who I can be, in who I am.

In short, we can transform into butterflies, but sometimes our caterpillar selves just have to come out. We have to live with that.