Social habits are behaviour patterns in our immediate environment.
Like a cultural pattern, every social habit has a life cycle. We could say it is born from necessity, then maintained for some decades or centuries, sometimes longer than necessary because it has become automatic, and finally it dies because another habit has been born and taken its place.
Instead of "being born" and "having died", we better use the more technical terms of "phasing in" and "phasing out".
Eating at a table, sitting on chairs
Sleeping in houses
Travelling in cars and aeroplanes
Spending evenings in front of the TV
Eating outside around a camp-fire
Sleeping in tents or in blankets around the camp-fire
Travelling in horse wagons or praerie schooners
Spending evenings at the spinning wheel, telling stories and singing songs
Using mobile phones
Kids playing on gameboys and other mobile computer games
Communicating via SMS (short text messages)
Internet and e-mail
Going to the fitness studio
Of course there is nothing wrong with the social habits we just looked at, except maybe that they could still get a little more optimized technically (solar cars instead of burning precious oil etc.).
Beating kids with a leather belt as a method of education
Screaming as a method of exerting authority in the family
Soothing stress with hard drinks
Smoking in the apartment or the house in the presence of children and other non-smokers
Although these things are often so widespread that they could be counted as a cultural pattern, there is not really the cultural pressure behind them which makes it hard to train them out of. Our culture has tolerated them for a long time, but now there is an increasing tendency to educate people into a more constructive behaviour. Some new social habits that were just about to phase in - like marihuana smoking - were not even allowed to take hold, which is a good indicator for an improving level of awareness and responsibility.
In some families though, screaming and even violence are still very present. Here it could make a big difference if family members who don't agree actively with such behaviour, withdraw their support. Visibly and unmistakably withdraw it!
Violence cannot be fought with violence. That only makes it worse. But pull out the support from it, and sooner or later it falls apart.
The drills on our website teach you the mental skills you need to really do this - not only think about it, which you probably have done for a longe time. Go to the drill section if you want to learn more.
This page last updated on 01.04.2007