What if your "bad" parts were "good"?

Note: What if there are no "bad" habits? What if the behaviors that are holding you back developed to help you to get where you are today? Would you view them differently?

As I work with more and more people who are chasing personal growth rather than just weight loss, and as I work on my own personal & professional growth, I’m realizing the folly of pathologizing emotions & behaviors. While we rail against the stigma of calling exercise or foods “good” vs “bad” we have no quandary with labeling a behavior as such.

There’s a popular post that floated around among my contemporaries stating something to the effect “not all behavioral issues are caused by trauma”. I couldn’t disagree more. Where I think ppl get stuck is the word trauma. We always assign it the big T but there’s also little t trauma. Just replace the word trauma with stress.

While we are complex as humans there are some simple rules that have governed our existence for millennia. One of those is that we develop, grow or evolve for a reason. Growth will always be an adaptation to stressors.

Want to lose weight? Gonna have to stress the system to conserve energy and use existing fuel stores.

Want bigger stronger muscles? Stress them through resistance.

Want to develop a habit? Create a stressor that necessitates it to cope.

So our “bad” behaviors are inherently “good” in doing the only thing this meat bag was meant to do; stay alive long enough to procreate (dark I know). So when we experience pain, be it physical or emotional, the brain must create an adaptation. Acutely that will be a hormonal cascade of either soothing or reward. And as it works to quell the acute stressor (trauma) we repeat this behavior as it allows us to cope and get on with the business at hand; survival.

While it may seem like we are self-sabotaging or destined to fail, we are just stuck in a feedback loop that was once helpful and now redundant. Look to those parts as the good they are and it will be much easier to change. If we can rid ourselves of the inherent shame that comes with these “habits” maybe we can be less afraid of their control.