Healing Yourself With Little Renunciation Experiments
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The art of letting go of one's own undesirable behavior can be practiced through little renunciation experiments. Image: Geralt
What is our own undesirable behaviour? Often we recognize it when we do it, while preferring not to. Or we’ve fooled ourselves so thoroughly that we believe we want to do it, despite the fact that we know it’s not exactly going to bring us health and happiness in the long run. So what sustains it? And what do we miss because of it? In this blogpost we dive into the phenomenon of undesirable behaviour. We investigate what it is, how we can recognize it and provide a method to curb it.
When looking at our own undesirable behaviour, we can discern at least four types: habitual, distracting, procrastinating, and addictive behaviour. All arise as a protection mechanism against an often deep-seated and unconscious anxiety. As soon as that anxiety threatens to come to the surface into our consciousness, we dive into our chosen undesirable behaviour. Because as long as we can flee from it, we have the illusory idea that we are in fact controlling that particular anxiety. This is precisely the reason why it is so difficult to stop our own undesirable behaviour.
But what makes certain behaviours undesirable? My own procrastinating behaviour for example, shows that that particular undesirable behaviour keeps me from doing the things I want to do (like writing articles). Fear of making mistakes and of not being good enough is then so enormous that my buttons are pushed hard. That causes a physical stress response (fight or flight) which ignites a fabulous uncomfortable feeling in the body. The usually automatic and, oddly enough, socially accepted response, is to repress that uncomfortable feeling as quickly and hard as possible. In my case, this often leads to mind-numbing consumption of news, music news or YouTube videos. That was found out recently by doing a little renunciation experiment, which Erich Fromm describes meticulously in his book ‘The Art of Listening’. The experiment consisted of not consuming mind-numbing online content in the first two weeks of July 2024.
The more we allow ourselves to be distracted by external stimuli, the more we become trapped in them. Illustration: clker-free-vector-images
That is in itself a good resolution. However, if no further action is taken, the experiment is virtually worthless and often results in resorting back to the undesirable behaviour even quicker. Frustration will inevitably arise as soon as the undesirable behaviour is stopped, because the anxiety against which such behaviour ‘protects’ us becomes visible and tangible as a result of our buttons being pushed hard. When frustration is the only result of stopping such behaviour, then the argument for maintaining it only becomes stronger (no matter how tempting the familiar ‘I will honestly, really, truly, never ever, ever do it again, promise!’ sounds).
An example. Iris is a middle-aged divorced lady. From the age of fifteen, she’d had a few boyfriends before getting to know her ex-husband. Consequently she has been continuously in relationships until her divorce. After the divorce, she felt that it was ‘her’ time. She took a year off to come to her senses and figure out what she wanted to do next. But already within a month of her sabbatical she fell madly in love with an old acquaintance. Within a few months she was back to her familiar relationship behaviour, which expressed itself among other things in the daily sending of ’good morning‘ and ’sleep well’ messages.
In the beginning, Iris fully enjoys the infatuation and everything that comes with it. But over time, she begins to wonder aloud what actually happened to ‘her’ year off; particularly since a big chunk of that time hasn’t so much been spent on herself, but on her new lover. What happened to the things she wanted to do for herself? Unintentionally she blames herself, but she’s too deep in the new relationship now to break it off just like that. How can Iris discover which of her behaviours have become undesirable, without having to immediately resort to drastic measures like ending the relationship right then and there? Well, she can opt for a little renunciation experiment.
Through little renunciation experiments, we can compassionately investigate our own undesirable behaviors without having to immediately resort to drastic measures. Image: Zorro4
Such an experiment consists of temporarily ceasing a certain behaviour, with the explicit goal of then being able to investigate what is happening in the person in question. In my case, I choose to stop mind-numbing news consumption etc. for a period of two weeks, and Iris may choose not to send the morning and evening messages for one or two weeks. In both cases the rule applies that if the chosen behaviour to investigate does not involve undesirable behaviour, no buttons will be pushed either and there will not be much to investigate.
If, on the other hand, there is a very negative judgement about any particular undesirable behaviour, many try to get rid of it by means of a ‘good’ resolution. However, the decision to forcibly stop unwanted behaviour without investigating it often backfires. If I try to stop my time-consuming and mind-numbing news consumption without investigating and analysing it, and I get more and more frustrated as a result, the chance of falling back into that behaviour rises dramatically over time. The same goes for Iris; if she stops sending the messages and her new boyfriend reacts negatively for example, then fear of exclusion can cause her to quickly start sending the messages again and remain entangled in that way (or if he reacts positively and also stops sending the messages, the fear may arise that ‘he doesn't want her anymore’). Hence, investigating and analysing frustration or anxiety that arises from stopping certain behaviour is vital.[1]
Simply trying to stop one's own undesirable behavior without investigating it often backfires. Image: Geralt
So how can we do that? Well, every time the tendency to mind-numbing news consumption arose, I said out loud, “I'm not going to do that now.” As soon as I said that, my buttons were pushed and a violent frustration took hold of me, so I knew that I was dealing with undesirable behaviour: it was identified.
Instead of considering the frustration and uncomfortable feeling in my body as undesirable, I then made a note of the circumstances as part of the study. Subsequently I answered the Five Questions for Self-Inuiry©, which are specially designed for recognizing where, when, how, and by whom/what our buttons are pushed. Within a week it became clear that the good old fear of failure was exactly the anxiety that my procrastinating behaviour tried to mask. Once that was known, the tendency to procrastinate could be accepted more and more easily, without having to go along with it. After the two-week study period, the behaviour has not yet returned.
The method as described here is just one of many that exist to identify and investigate one’s own undesirable behaviours; for Iris, an entirely different method may prove more valuable. What matters though is that the undesirable behaviour is identified so that it can be temporarily ceased in order to be able to investigate what happens next.
Now there are also trends indicating that unwanted behaviour can be stopped by immersing in it completely. According to Fromm, however, that is a dead end because one already knows the undesirable behaviour. Whether one is going to do it more or less, it will not be experienced in a deeper layer or any other way. As a result, the anxiety from which the behaviour ‘protects’ us probably never comes to the surface, and the behaviour will be maintained because of the protective function against that unconscious, underlying anxiety. In other words, as long as we don’t have an idea about the anxiety, the undesirable behaviour won’t stop.
According to Erich Fromm, immersing oneself in a certain undesirable behaviour is a dead-end street. Image: Alexas_Fotos
Temporarily ceasing the undesirable behaviour yields much more in research and analysis. If for example an anxiety so immense emerges that I want nothing more than to return to the ‘familiar’ mind-numbing news consumption, or Iris would like nothing better than to return to sending the familiar morning and evening messages; that’s super valuable because then we see that that behaviour is a protection against a certain anxiety. Subsequently that anxiety can be examined and analysed, and this will ultimately make us wiser – and happier. The discovery that fear of failure sustained my procrastinating behaviour opened the door to recognition and acceptance of that anxiety, and drastically decreasing its strength. This frees up time that I can spend on things that are valuable to me and that has a wonderfully jolly effect.
So by considering undesirable behaviour as something valuable that can provide useful and practical information, and ceasing the behaviour only for a period that can be overseen, it is no longer a brutal action but a cultivation of and compassion for yourself. Through your consciousness you will seek contact with your unconsciousness and since those two together make you whole, you are therefore healing yourself.
Jolly greetings and enjoy your investigations,
Erik Stout
[1] People without much experience in self-examination and/or self-analysis can benefit from doing this first with a professional before starting to work by themselves.
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