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A Habit to Call my Own

by: PatrickGlancy
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When people are tired, sad, lonely or even happy, they turn to comfort food. Everyone has their own personal, favorite comfort food. For me, it is Jack in the Box tacos. If you actually ate this food as an adult, you would never eat it again! But for some strange reason, you are still drawn to the food, it seems completely illogical.

In reality the logic is simple, you have an emotional attachment to the food you are eating. I can justify eating my favorite tacos because I think it will make me feel happy, content or calm, I am guessing you feel the same way about your food. You know the food is not good for you, but subconsciously you think it will. After a while you begin to believe the food will make you feel better and because our mind believes this, you do feel better, but the effect is short lived.

As the taco is disappearing, a bite at a time, the guilt kicks in. You might have guessed this does not stop me from eating one taco, or even my second! I am sure you know this feeling, and it is very frustrating. I know I should not be eating the greasy and oddly textured taco, but I really feel like eating it. I have the same cravings, longing and urge to devour that taco, the same as you.

Annihilating the taco, is a habit and this habit was learned through different ways. For me, I remember being very young, seven or eight years old maybe. I was on the way to the beach in Southern California with my family. I remember my mom and aunt, talking about Jack in the Box tacos. They talked about how good and greasy they are. They would especially be perfect to buy and take to the beach to eat. We were all happy and having a good time. It was a warm, sunny day at the beach, and we were going to play and enjoy ourselves. We got the tacos and they were the most delicious tacos in the world. I remember some gritty sand getting onto some of my taco but it didn't matter, we were having a fantastic day. Important memories which are vivid typically are more influential than the everyday mundane memories.

Today, just the anticipation of getting the tacos triggers good feelings which are associated with this memory. Sometimes the memory comes with it and sometimes not. It is important to understand how we relate feelings to different things in our lives, things like food, music or a voice.

For example, I used to love Aerosmith. I would listen to their songs over and over again, but never get sick of them. All this changed in the early 90's when I took my then girlfriend to an Aerosmith concert. Things did not get well and since then I don't care for Aerosmith much, each song reminds me of her.

Growing up my parents had a van with pin stripes, and the interior was tangerine orange with matching carpet. Now try not to laugh too hard but it was SoCal in the 70's. I was about six years old and encountered a large black widow spider in this van. My parents freaked out and made me and my brothers' get out of the van quickly. For years I had an embarrassing fear of spiders. I was able to link it to this memory. I am now able to kill spiders, but if I see a big one I still get nervous, but nothing like it use to be.

I don't know about you, but whenever I hear a stern voice, like my wife saying, Patrick Michael Glancy, I know I have either done something wrong or need to find something to do like hide in the garage. Most people feel like a child when they hear this tone of voice. Especially when someone uses your first, middle and last name!

The point of all this is to show you common sense examples of learned behaviors. Emotions associated with memories trigger very powerful, behind the scenes reactions and decisions in our minds. Take a moment and think about some powerful memories you have had and think about how they might relate to other things in your life.