Falling Leaves

I can hardly believe this is the first day of May!  In my part of the country, the month of April took us from the last of wintery weather to spring with trees, shrubs and tulips all beginning to bloom.  It's funny, but in the midst of all of the new growth I'm seeing all around me, here and there I'm seeing dead leaves on the ground.

Most of the leaves dropped last fall and were raked up and disposed of long ago.  However, a few leaves clung tenaciously to the trees all winter, despite cold winds and lots of snow.  A hard winter could not dislodge the leaves, so they stayed put until a week or so ago when new leaves began to emerge, finally pushing those dead leaves off the tree.  

Those dead leaves are like some of our most deeply-ingrained bad habits.  There are some habits that we can shake off fairly easily, but then there are those OTHER habits . . . habits that can't just be shaken off.  For many of us here, we've tried to drop some bad eating habits, only to find them clinging fiercely to us until we think we're stuck with them forever.

The good news is that we CAN get rid of the bad habits - AS we replace them with healthy new habits.  Replacing an old, unhealthy habit with a new, healthy one is the only way to make a permanent change.  And how do we develop new, healthy habits?  Practice :-)

Each day that we make a healthy choice instead of our former unhealthy choice, we are doing two important things at the same time:  we are strengthening the new habit and weakening the old habit.  Making this change takes time - a minimum of three weeks is needed before new habits begin to take hold (and old ones begin to loosen their grip).  Solidifying those new habits will take more time yet, and maintaining them will require ongoing diligence - but it's worth it!!

We can't just eliminate a bad habit - we need to replace it with a new, healthy habit. When we eliminate a bad habit, the void will quickly be filled by something else (often another bad habit!) unless we are very intentional about filling the void with something positive, something that will keep us moving in the direction we want to go.

Eliminating bad habits and incorporating healthy habits are reflected in the choices we make today.  Choose wisely :-)