How to Change a Conditioned Behavior | Q&A Eckhart Tolle

Thank you. Hello. I want to ask. I work with people and I notice, I work with people and talk about lifestyle change quite a lot and how it will relate to health. And I notice in myself as well as in those people that I work with that sometimes in the face of really clear experience that making a certain health choice will make them better. And in sometimes serious situations like say they've got diabetes or something. And I just want to make this distinct from things that we know that are addictions, like smoking. So I'm not talking about that because that's an addiction and that's got a different force. But sometimes people, you know, for example, they'll go on a gluten free diet, so and they'll be much better for three months and then they'll come back and they've started to lose that momentum, lose motivation and they're drifting back into the diet that doesn't suit so well. What is that force? What is that in us? In me too, where I know that for example, if I go to bed earlier, I'll feel better in the next day, but something in me sort of says, no, I don't want to go to bed early. What is that?

Yes. So there is a. That's the. These are forms of conditioning that has inertia and a certain momentum in certain ways in which people live that have been there for many, many years. They could also almost be seen as energy streams inside you and they have a certain momentum. And some of these are sluggish energies, inertia, the pull of gravity, gravitational force of deep seated habits that are associated with the person. It's part of conditioning, mental emotional conditioning. So then the motivation goes away again. And sometimes it's only in a crisis situation that people are able to break out of it. And sometimes not even then. If they really realize it's a crisis situation, then sometimes that can be the trigger that pushes people out of that, the gravitational pull of deep seated, conditioned habits. So there's also a reluctance because these things are associated with the egoic sense of identity. There's also reluctance sometimes to abandon these habits because it's almost as if you were abandoning a part of yourself. And people don't want to die, the ego doesn't want to die. So often the ego is stuck in unhealthy habits, but it's become so much of their sense of self that they can't do anything about it and they don't want to. So all you can do is explain what it is that they are doing and what there's only that much that you can do for somebody else. You cannot force them to evolve. You can only provide the triggers for their evolution. So, and there are humans who don't want to evolve. They're not ready yet. It's like an apple that's on the tree and it might be close to getting ripe, but it doesn't, or it might be, it doesn't want to fall, it was just cling. Or let's say another example, the caterpillar says, no, I don't want to become a butterfly. I know who I am and I'm comfortable with who I am. Why do you want me to become a butterfly? I don't fly around in the air. I belong here. And then it munches. This is where I belong. And no matter how much you talk to the caterpillar, you have to wait until finally the caterpillar, when it gets close to the transformation or metamorphosis, then the caterpillar experiences life becoming quite unpleasant. He cannot be a caterpillar anymore and he can't even crawl anymore. And something is very wrong suddenly and it's only when life becomes totally unbearable for the caterpillar, then the finally he gives in and says, okay, I can't stand this anymore, I'd rather be a butterfly. And so humans are a bit like that. And some are ready. Some need more suffering before they are ready. That's the unfortunate truth. And not on not necessarily physical suffering. It can also be self generated mental and emotional suffering. Some people are not ready to give up their self generated mental, emotional, suffering. They just not ready. They may come to you and say help me, help me. But when it comes to the moment where they could be free, as happened to me years ago when I was still working with individual people, I was pointing out to a, a lady who came who had a terrible irritation with her husband. For years the very presence of her husband caused intense irritation. And everything, everything her husband said and did, everything, the way he moved, the way he sat, the way he ate his food, I can't stand him. And so I explained or attempted to explain these in the early stages of, before any books were written, the early stages of the teachings, when I sometimes surprised myself when I gave answers, things I didn't know beforehand, they just came. So I explained to her the mechanism behind the suffering and the possibility of of course she could leave him or she could discover that this is self generated suffering and she could be free of that. And then suddenly she began to see it and she began to see the possibility of Letting go of all that self generated suffering. And then she suddenly said, if I let go of it, what have I got left? So she was so identified with her suffering. It was like not only a close friend, suffering was an essential part of had become over the years an essential part of her sense of identity, of her sense of self. She did not want to let go. And soon after she didn't want to come and see me anymore. But I do know that some of the things I said to her later I put in the power of now. So she's in there somewhere. And hopefully she lived long enough so that she could read the book and perhaps saw herself in there. And then perhaps at that stage, perhaps she was ready. We don't know. We just have to accept. Some people are not yet ready, but do all you can. Not to force them to change, but to provide that to them. That triggers has to come from within them. The readiness to let go or to change has to come from within them. So how you do it will vary from person to person. Use your intuition, go to the place of not knowing so that the intuitive you can say helpful things that come for that deeper level that might make a difference to them. What that is, I cannot tell you because you can only know that you in that situation with that person. So go to the place of not knowing when you are with people, not continuously, but be there sometimes and then it's possible that's what they need. That can trigger an awakening. You might say to them or do to them, well, do. What would you do? Like be the Zen master and hit them sometimes. But you don't want to do that. But life does that if they don't change. Thanks. This mind made sense of self is also much more focused on the negative than the positive. To be free, you awaken to who you are beyond your history and your life situation. It.