Why are self-destructive tendencies so hard to kick?

First, let me preface this by stating that I'm not remotely qualified to suggest that these thoughts might help anyone, but I find the topic intriging, valuable to me personally and worth learning more about. Maybe something in here might be useful to others who are struggling with making positive changes in their lives.

This is probably just the tip of the psycological iceberg, so if any of you out there have a better understanding than me, please chime in.

Through reading, personal introspection, and relating experiences with others, I've come to believe that a person's ego can literally sabatoge postive changes a person is trying to make.

The ego is not a person’s actual current physical self or even an accurate mental image of ourselves in the real sense. Our ego can often be based on an old dated mental self-image as I understand it.

The ego has its version of our self-image stored in memory whether it is accurate or more often inaccurate, formed years ago around old painful memories.

Our self-image may have been created and strongly reinforced at an early age. This self-image might be of a victim of some awful circumstances at the time. Its beliefs and image may be so deeply rooted that the mere thought of lasting change would bring up horrible feelings.

Most people have great intentions to pursue new levels of health and happiness; however, whenever they get close, it seems common that so many people sabotage the process as if failure was pre-determined by an uncontrollable force.

Simply knowing why we experience this might be part of the solution.

Quick fix programs, forced changes, new realizations, fear, pain, new motivations and/or new healing concepts might create some brief changes in a person, but more often than not, the ego does whatever it must to preserve its last known self-image. It sabotages us with constant thoughts to reinforce the old self image. Thoughts can turn into actions and we fail once again.

Why? The reason I've read is that if a new healthy behavior were allowed to go on very long, the ego (old self image) would literally be at risk of extinction.

The ego seems to do anything to preserve the old devil it knows vs. the new devil it doesn't know.

Our unconscious ego can fight our conscious efforts to change just like any animal would fight who's life was being threatened. Our ego (our mind) can fight beneficial changes unconsciously despite our commitment level and can even take extreme measures if necessary.

Think this is too far-out to be true? Do you think you and your ego couldn't possibly have separate agendas for your life? They might. You can find this our for yourself with some quiet introspection and observations.

There is actually a quick way to experience for yourself that your ego might not actually be following the plan of the conscious "you", but it might be following its own old plan despite any damage or pain this might cause you.

Part of the mind I understand is an unconscious tool the body uses to control bodily functions and help us make decisions. It is a tool we can use, but we can also be used by it. If left unmanaged, it can use us to follow its old plan over and over again. For many people, this occurs until death as they never realize it is happening. Too many people never experience a fraction of their potential or experience true peace-of-mind become of this old self image. The mind (the ego) only has power over us until we learn to use it properly.

Our human flaw is that through our busy, noisy, stressful lives, we don't realize (without a little help) that most of us are still following this old plan. We've victims of our own dated self-image, maintained and protected fiercly by our mind (our ego) and will not allow us to change easily--sometimes without a fight to the death.

Unless we have effective tools to change our own thoughts and literally design a new self-image from the ground up, there might be little hope for future changes.

What's worked for me and many others to get control over these thoughts is a technique taught in many meditation books and courses. It isn't necessarily easy for everyone to experience, but it is simple and painless to try. You can do it in a couple minutes by yourself. If you fail, you can try again and again until you get it. You can do this. I'll walk you through it:

-- Get in a quiet place by yourself.

-- Listen to your own breathing for a minute and pay special attention to physical sensations such as air temperature, sounds, smells, or what is touching your skin.

-- Now, observe your own thoughts and your mind's tendency to think incessantly like a bad TV show that won't shut off. Get completely present and just watch your mind think. Watch your mind think about all kinds of old things and new fears. Listen to it. Don't respond to the thoughts, don't filter or judge them, just observe them. You are the watcher, not the thinker. Try it. Try it again until you are clearly able to observe your thoughts.

In the beginning you'll be able to observe your own thoughts for just seconds at a time before being pulled back into your mind's noisy rhetoric and the temptation to judge your own thoughts. After a while, you'll get better at watching and observing these tendencies. You'll learn to catch yourself and increase your ability to stay present for longer periods of time.

One thing you'll notice is that the ego only has future fears and old re-run thoughts played over and over to scare you with. Your ego lacks any awareness of the here and now. Awareness of "the now" is the tool for shutting off the mental noise and actually enjoying life with a new plan of conscious action.

You'll actually have more power over this bad TV show (your ego's unconscious thoughts) with every moment of conscious presence you experience. The phenomenon is that the more we observe our own thoughts, the less we think uncontrollably. It can be like getting your life, your sanity and your self control back all at once. It was for me.

The more you practice this, it is possible you'll be able to use your mind for more constructive activities instead of being a victim of so many thought battles.

Many people around the world refer to this practice as meditation. You can read more about it online or at the bookstore. With a little practice, you can experience complete presence (the "here and now") for several minutes at a time and not think about much at all. Many people consider this true peace-of-mind and a beautiful thing to experience. It is one of the promoted benefits of meditation.

First, the concept that you can even observe your own mind thinking is pretty strange, isn't it? If you (the watcher) are observing your own mind think, then which one is you? Who's in charge? You or your mind (your ego)? How can there even be separation of you and your mind?

Ask yourself that question. Which one is the true you? Is the watcher (you) or the thinker (you)?

You'll see that the thinker is really just the mind running old tapes (old memories) over and over. It doesn't even have an original idea to take credit for. You (the watcher) are now getting a glimpse of the madness we are all drawn into when we get caught up in our thoughts. When we give our uncontrollable thoughts too much energy and we don't have a new conscious plan for ourselves and the tools to implement it, you can see the challenges many people are faced with.

The good news is that meditation has worked for millions of people to get some degree of control over their thoughts and self-destructive tendencies.

Hopefully some experts out there will shed more light this topic for us soon. I'd like to learn more about it personally.

A book that covers a lot of material on the topic is; "The Power of Now" by Eckart Tolle.

Be well,

John Valenty