Habits can be Haphazard!

Habits can be Haphazard!

I had some new shoes that were chafing me. To avoid blisters, I changed my gait, without much thought. As I walked, I noticed that my shuffle was straining my hip joint.

So I stopped. And I thought about it. And I treated this problem like a Feldenkrais ATM—was there a variation in walking that would not raise blisters AND that would be comfortable for my joints? And, yes, indeed there was a quite interesting gait that satisfied those conditions.

My first impulse was not the best impulse.

In my second analysis, I embraced my objective and said 'ok, but is there a better way to do this?' And there was.

A lot of our habits are developed in crisis, and the perhaps-traumatic context can nail them in especially deeply. So it isn't just that the crisis-bred-habit gets outdated. It may not have been particularly well-designed in that hurried moment.