A short dialogue from a Pure Desire Ministries video exploring how to prevent isolation from reverting into a habitual pattern. Speakers emphasize replacing isolation with concrete, repeatable healthy activities (the "outer circle" in the three-circles tool), setting guardrails to avoid relapse (middle circle), and keeping the outer-circle practices realistic and routine (daily/weekly habits). They also highlight the importance of asking others for help—giving trusted people permission to notice and speak up when isolation returns—and using reciprocal accountability in community or family to catch backsliding early.
Let's say we've identified that. We found ways that we've identified isolation, where it's showing up in our life. We've taken steps to maybe break free. What does it look like to keep isolation from becoming a habit again? And I even think about this too. Like, there are seasons, and I've learned this in recovery. There are seasons where isolation isn't happening. I've addressed it. But then maybe this new wrinkle or this new experience happened, and then I feel myself pulling back into isolation in ways that, you know, maybe resembled my addiction. So how. How do we make sure it doesn't become a habit again?
Yeah, I think, like so many things, the. The answer is really rooted in what are we choosing instead? What are we replacing it with in healthy ways? I mean, if we're like, you know, someone who's committed to. I'm. I'm no longer eating donuts, but we don't ever eat healthy food, and we walk by the donut shop every day and we're really hungry, like, we're probably gonna feel really drawn to donuts because we haven't filled our stomachs with something to make it like, well, I don't need that anymore. And so if our goal is just don't isolate, don't isolate, but we're not moving towards, hey, here are ways that I do enjoy engaging with my kids. Here's something that my spouse and I could make a regular part of our rhythm. And that's where I think, for us, that tool, the three circles, is so crucial. We've talked about it on a lot of podcasts. I'm sure we can put it in the show notes, but, you know, that middle circle is how I define a relapse. That inner. The middle circle, then, is how I define my guardrails or the things I'm choosing to avoid. And it's really that third circle, the outer circle of what is health for me, what am I choosing to do instead? And really looking at that routinely to see, do I have activities in here that aren't just, like, big range, long term, like, you know, be a better dad or get my master's degree, but are week in and week out things of go for a walk with my spouse, to take my kids on a bike ride, read my Bible and pray every morning, read a biography that I enjoy. You know, just those things that we know, we could do them alone, but they're healthy for us, they're good for us, they're renewing. And I think if we can look at an outer circle that we've identified, hopefully as part of a group process. And we see, yeah, I'm engaging in a lot of those activities. That's what's going to help us getting back into bad habits, that we've really created some healthy ones. And if at the same time we look at that outer circle like, gosh, I'm not really doing any of these, I've seen that in groups. Sometimes we can write them so idealistically, like, my, here's my ideal life. And we read them a year later and realize I haven't really gotten around to any of them because they're all so big picture. That can be a good moment of paring back and just saying, okay, tomorrow. What would help me tomorrow move towards healthy relationships and a healthier version of me? And how could that become a weekly pattern or daily and. And then just engaging in those kind of activities.
I think something you mentioned earlier too, is another thing you can do is asking for other people's help. Like, if it's your spouse or coworkers or, you know, community or maybe your roommate, if you have identified your patterns of isolation, you can say like, hey, if you notice me going, you know, spending more time in my room and not coming out and engaging with you, or I come home and I'm immediately on my phone, or I'm sleeping in and not getting up and doing the things I normally do, again, that giving permission to those people to then ask or say, hey, like, I've noticed, you know, where are you at? And I've had times where friends have done that. And even when I've given them permission, it's not like, when they come to me, it's like super fun to hear, you know, like, hey, I've noticed you're really pulling away like this. Last year at our growth group at church, I sensed that pull away from community. And there's some other things kind of going on outside of our church environment that I just felt really tired and exhausted and the energy of pouring into relationship was just felt like too much. But I gave my friend Jeremy, I gave him permission to do that and to speak into it. And he helped my eyes open up and saw that I was isolating. And so I think that giving other people permission to do that and having that kind of reciprocal relationship with other people is another way to make sure we don't backslide into it.
