What you do repeatedly turns into a habit: you can terminate the cycle by a number of hard stops before it destroys you!
A little bit of science: We have several neurons (brain cells) in our brains, these neurons have dendrites for picking stimuli, they pass these stimuli through their body to the axon end. Now between each neuron and another are neurotransmitters that help each neuron pass information from one neuron to another.
The interesting thing is, for every stimulus picked by a neuron, it will send it through thousands of other neurons thereby forming a neural pathway.
Imagine trying to create a path where’s there are thick and tall grasses, it’s at first very difficult but once the path is created and people walk regularly on it, it sometimes looks like there was never a single grass on that path.
Same applies to the neural pathway; the first time you do that thing, it doesn’t feel right, you felt guilty because your neurons were forming the neural pathway for the first time: it was difficult. However, the more you do it, the less you feel bad about doing it; it doesn’t feel so wrong anymore because the neural pathway was already formed and your brain doesn’t struggle anymore – it just goes through.
A hard stop can bring you to your senses. For instance, if you get caught. But why wait to be embarrassed and ridiculed before terminating a cycle of bad habit or evil?
You can actually introduce your own hard stops by deciding not to do it a number of times no matter how compelling it feels. Imagine if in raining season, everyone stops walking on that path you created in the thick and tall grasses, and choose another path newly created, you will see grasses sprouting up in the seemingly life-dead path. Give it some more time and it would feel like there’s never been anyone who walked through it.
Neural pathways in your mind can be stopped and those habits can be stopped if you choose to stop them. Bad habits destroy! Try to stop them or get help because you can get out of it before it destroys you.
Sometimes, getting caught before it destroys you is God’s way of helping you to practice a forced hard stop. Be resolute!
