Within a few days of my last cigarette 18 years ago, I felt horribly sick. Thick, disgusting stuff was being coughed out of my lungs, my sinuses were draining, and I was so mentally foggy I was hesitant to drive my car.
I remember thinking how unfair this was. This was my reward for trying to be healthy?
A similar thing happened a few years ago when I came home from a weeklong cruise and embarked on a clean eating cleanse for a week. Keto flu had me feeling a million times better on pizza and margaritas than on clean, healthy food. Why bother?
Of course, it wasn’t unfair. The intelligence behind life was working perfectly, as always, despite my ideas about how it was supposed to go.
A similar thing can happen when we find ourselves free of a habit or previous obsession. It doesn’t always go the way we think it should.
Doris, a woman I spoke with a couple of weeks ago, was finally free of her 30 year drinking habit. Amazing…so what’s with the anxiety that was showing up? And where were all these old memories coming from?
Habits are filled with intelligence too. We picked them up in order to feel better, and sometimes the things we were trying to not feel are revealed when our habits fall away.
But the good news is that we can handle it.
We’re designed for it.
By the time you’ve seen through your habit, you’re ready. You can handle some energy and old memories. I could handle some phlegm and keto flu.
