The Element of Breaking the Cycle and Its Hope for Making Way for New Opportunities and Possibilities

We do a lot of things by reflex.  We say things by reflex.  We respond in reflexive ways.  One of the ways to stop doing things reflexively is to break the cycle.  When a cycle is broken, we immediately start thinking of new ideas and solutions. 

Here's an example: 

I have been renting a car on a monthly basis for several months in a row, while my daughter uses my car. She has gotten so used to using my car, she calls it her car.

My daughter went to England earlier this month, for my Uncle's Al’s funeral.  Perhaps you remember Uncle Al from the tribute I wrote for him after he died in February of this year. Anyway, since my daughter was going to be away for two weeks, I decided to rent a car only for the first week of June, and use the family car (her car, my car) until she returned.

After Tanita returned, I did not immediately rent a car.  By doing that, I broke the cycle of automatically renewing the rental on the 1st of every month.  This helped me think of other options.

Driving to work one day, an idea came to me.  What if I struck a deal with Tanita?  We could share one car and she could drive me to work on some days. In exchange, I could give her the money I was paying the rental car company.  She would be able to earn back the money she had spent on her trip to England.  I put this idea to her and she liked it. We are now sharing the car, and, on some days, she drives me to work, and I come back from work on the light rail.

This would never have happened, had Tanita not made the trip to England, causing me to stop renting.  By breaking the rental cycle for a month, a new option occurred to me.

Breaking the cycle is key to new habits and choices.

Recently, I was going to work on a Friday.  Instead of reaching out for my jeans, I decided to wear cargo pants to work.

I could feel a little extra tension as I badged into the office that day. I was extra self-conscious, because I had never worn cargo pants to work.  I shouldn't have stressed. Nobody picked up on the fact I was wearing anything unusual. I thought to myself – hmmm…the difference is all in my head.

I broke a cycle.

By breaking a cycle, I gave myself an increased number of choices for what to wear on Fridays.

Whenever we break a cycle, we give ourselves an increased number of choices.

If we don't, the cycle we are trapped in – which is often all in our heads - will keep us focused on the wrong things, and make us feel things and do things which are unnecessary. 

Women experience this all the time with clothes.

We think "Oh no, I have nothing to wear today". We tell ourselves, "This looks too casual, this looks too formal”.  We talk ourselves into making extra shopping trips.

We should test ourselves by breaking all automatic cycles. 

When we do that, we make room for new activities in our lives and fresh ways of thinking.

Currently, California is experiencing a severe drought.

California residents have been requested to stop watering their gardens and to cut back their usage by 20%.

Penalties will be applied to those who don't.

It is hard to do and people are upset.

But as soon as people break the cycle of what they are currently doing, they will find surprising ways to cut down their water usage, and to utilize water more effectively.

It all starts with breaking the cycle.

In 2010, I broke several automatic cycles.  It started with me walking out of a company, where I had been working a Commissions Analyst job, and doing the same thing day in and day out, for 5 years.

By breaking that cycle, I was forced to think creatively.

What would be my next step?

My next step was doing the Xactly Administrators course on my own dime. I told you how the idea came to me in my post Advice from People We Love to Hate.

Then a completely unexpected and unplanned, but delightful opportunity, came my way. It was an opportunity to contract with an Xactly Implementations team. I lost no time in reinventing myself.

I was ready to go with the flow, and to welcome the challenge, with open arms and an open mind.

An open mind is a great asset, and breaking the cycle had left me with that - a completely open mind.

I became open to new ways of spending my free time.

Before mid 2010, I spent a lot of time watching CNBC, and Jim Cramer in particular, on TV. In fact, whenever I worked from home, I worked in front of the TV, so I could check what my favorite stocks were doing, and what the financial pundits had to say.

One day I was at church. Going to church was also new for me in 2010. In one of the sermons, the pastor challenged everyone to give up an activity for 30 days - and to read a proverb from the Bible instead.

I chose to give up CNBC and Jim Cramer.

For 30 days, instead of watching CNBC and Jim Cramer, I read a proverb from the Bible.

I never went back to watching CNBC and Jim Cramer after those 30 days.

A 6 year habit was broken.

As time was released in my schedule, it made way for new activities.

I read a book, in which, the author said if you started something new, and did it for 20 minutes a day for 30 days, you could turn it into a habit.

Something I really wanted to do was to write again.

I started writing 20 minutes a day for 30 days.

Writing did not become a habit immediately.

It was 4 months later the effort paid off.

I started this blog and I have been writing since.

I try to write a post at least once a week if possible.

I am now on post 290.

2010 was a turning point year for me in so many ways.

I started meditating in 2010.

By learning to meditate, I broke so many different cycles.  I became less tense, less anxious, less suspicious, less resentful; I became calmer, more accepting and more forgiving.

Breaking any cycle leads to breakthroughs.

One day, I went to the apartment office to pay my rent.

I was surprised to see one of the apartment residents seated behind one of the office desks.

"Do you work here now?" I asked.

"Yes, me and my husband have split, you know", she said.

"Really," I said, surprised. "I would never have guessed. You were so great together."

She told me her story...

Several years before, her husband's dad's physical and mental condition had deteriorated so much, it had become unsafe for him to keep living in their multi-level Santa Cruz home. The doctors advised he be moved to an assisted living facility, but she and her husband didn't have the heart to do that. So they locked up their home in the Santa Cruz Hills, and moved  - with the dad  -into our apartments, to take care of him. The doctors had told them it would be hard work, but they felt they owed it to him.  He was a great man – a retired Air Force captain, who had made some smart real estate and stock investments, and amassed a fortune.

But she had an agreement with her husband - and it was that, as soon as his dad passed away, they would go their separate ways. He wanted out of the marriage.

Now the dad had passed away, her husband had gone back to their Santa Cruz home, and she, newly divorced, had stayed on at the apartments and got a job in the apartment office.

"So sad," I said, "I thought you were a great couple".

"Me too," she said, "but he wanted out - unfortunately."

Then I said, "Well, you have to look on the bright side. Your life was filled only with probabilities until this happened. Now it will be filled with possibilities."

Indeed, though one cycle was broken, a new cycle had begun.  A new cycle filled with possibilities.

Ella now had a job in our apartments.  An extremely sociable person, she enjoyed interacting with all the residents.  She did so well, she was promoted, and went on to become Apartment Manager at one of the other properties in Concord.

Once you break a cycle, a new chapter of your life will start.

Your life, which would have been filled with probabilities before, will now become filled with possibilities.

Opportunities will arise, miracles will happen.

You will know you have broken a cycle, when there's no danger of slipping back to where you were before.

There is no danger of me getting crazily angry any more.  I broke through the cycle of being hot-tempered, years ago.

Whatever cycle you are trapped in - say the cycle of falling in love again and again with the wrong people - you can break through the cycle.

Many have done it.

Any small step towards breaking through a cycle, whether of fear, or negativity, or anger, or addiction, is better than no step at all.

"Change a little, Change a Lot", says Trevor Blake in his landmark book 3 Simple Steps.

Even a small change - in what you do and how you behave - can result in a big change in your life.

Just look at what happened to me, after I walked out of my job in mid 2010.

Each one of us will have our own strategies for breaking a cycle.

The strategies will be as unique as we are.

Here's Sandra Cisneros, the Latin American author - on how she broke the cycle of daydreaming, which was threatening her ability to succeed at college:

"I was a terrible student. Still, I managed to get into college, but my daydreaming threatened to sabotage me. I used behavior modification to break the cycle. I started by setting an arbitrary time limit on studying: for every 15 minutes of study, I'd allow myself an hour of daydreaming. I set the alarm."

We should think of our lives as a series of cycles.  We may break through several different cycles in our lives.

Here's Ben Okri, Booker prize-winning novelist, on the cycles in his life: “I'm conscious of a series of circles working its way through my life. And at this particular moment I have come round to the beginning of my writing cycle. It begins with poetry. There's hardly a day that goes past on which I don't write poetry."

If we are to get stuck in a cycle, we should make sure it is a virtuous cycle.

Writing this blog is a virtuous cycle.  I don’t mind getting stuck doing it.

Otherwise, if we are stuck in any negative cycle, we should try to break out of it.

If, for years, we have been on the wrong side of history, gender, race, or family, we can become trapped in a cycle of helplessness, reflexiveness and bad habits, leading to an impoverished life.We will need to break through that cycle to achieve a significantly different life.

We may even have to break through multiple cycles.

Women have broken through multiple cycles, to get to where they are today in America.  Women in many parts of the world still have to do this.

Breaking through is sometimes necessary just to get us back to "who we are".

To start blogging, I had to get back in tune with my creative side.  It had been unused and neglected for over 14 years. I had to break through to it.

I am so glad I succeeded.

Hope you are too.

Dear reader…..before I end this post, I would like to wish you the breakthrough you have been longing for. 

I have the utmost confidence you can - and will - do it.

As always, thanks for reading and have a great day and week…..M….a Pearl-Seeker like you.  Thanks to Ajay and David for their comments and compliments on my last post, and thanks to the rest of you for your likes, pins and votes…..much appreciated.