How to unlearn toxic behaviors from past?

It is said that, the way how an animal respond to an external or internal stimulus can be innate or learned from the exposed environment.When you’re brought up in a household where unhealthy behaviors, like intimidation, gender inequality, lack of love and respect, over strictness etc existed, there is a high probability of mirroring the same in your adulthood. When I say intimidation, it includes all the abuses like screaming at your face, verbal abuse, mocking and making you feel stupid, controlling the finances, isolating and controlling who you socialize with…

Many people around the world who experience verbal abuse, rationalize the abuse in their mind and don’t even realize it’s an unhealthy form of communication. However, that doesn’t make it any less distressing or mentally exhausting for people on the receiving end. In my opinion, all this kind of abuses is used for maintaining power and control over the other partner in a relationship. So, here arises the relevance of unlearning the toxic behaviors before it engulf your relations and put your kid’s future at a risk. Kids learn to mirror the behaviors that they experience initially from their parents as we all did.

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Here I am trying to help you out by looking at the issue from two different perspectives.

Case A: you are the person who need the change

1.Analyse and realize: Have a self evaluation on your self character and figure out the toxic behaviors that you have absorbed .

2.Change for yourself: Change should come from your own mind. Understanding that you are changing for your own betterment is really important.

3.Planning: Figure out the triggering points and plan accordingly.

4.One step at a time: trying to change as a whole will be overwhelming. So, try to make small changes at a time and try to focus on the positive outcomes and be optimistic.

5.Awareness and conscious effort is the key

Case B: You are helping a person who needs a change

1.Understanding the root cause

2. Discussing other preferred behaviors rather than pointing out the side effects. Because doing so may make the person more reluctant to change.

3.Try to avoid/change those triggering situations.

3.Encouraging and appreciating

4.Staying calm -don’t overreact- understand that changing a behavior from the past is not an easy task. It takes time and patience.

According to a famous book ‘Switch-how to change things when change is hard’ by Chip and Dan Heath they relates our rational and emotional mind to an elephant and the rider.I found this epitome really interesting.When the rider(rational mind) direct the elephant(irrational mind), it always shows some resistance for change. So for a change, direct the rider and motivate the elephant….!!

Don’t forget to share your thoughts on the same in the commenting section below…

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