We are told by our mothers that eating too many cookies is bad for you and that eating nasty-tasting cooked spinach is good for you.
And we make the connection: “Everything that tastes good is bad for you and everything that tastes bad is good for you.” Is this true? Must we choose between health and happiness? Medical research tells us that we do not have to choose between these two options. Can you learn to like that which is good for you and dislike that which is bad for you? The answer is “Yes”!
How do we come to enjoy certain things and dislike other things? Is it because we have intellectually determined that they are good for us or bad for us? No, we generally have learned to enjoy certain foods, activities, books, or clothes styles because in our family or culture or peer group, we were taught that these are the things one should enjoy. Likes and dislikes are learned choices. The truth is that as mature adults, we can learn to enjoy that which we habitually choose to do.
If a man who has enjoyed salty soup all his life now starts a low-salt diet for his high blood pressure, he will dislike the low-salt soup initially, but over 3 months time he will develop a taste for the low-salt soup and extremely dislike the salty soup that he once loved. Taste is a choice. Likes and dislikes are trainable. We can intellectually choose that which we know is good for us, and choose to leave off that which is bad for us. And when we choose to do it repeatedly, we will begin to enjoy it and dislike the bad that we chose to discontinue. Our brain has the remarkable ability to develop new enjoyments.
However, there are three ways to sabotage this wonderful choosing function of our brain.
If this good choice is emotionally connected to a powerful, negative experience in our past, our emotions may not allow us to make the good choice. When we recognize this “good-bad connection,” we can purposefully combine a positive activity with the good choice which will allow the emotions now to accept this good choice and lead to enjoyment of this activity.
If we constantly harbor negative feelings for the good choice every time it is chosen and carried out, we will never develop enjoyment of that activity. Enjoyment requires a “positive attitude” toward that good choice. Enjoyment requires that we “visualize” what we are gaining and not what we are losing.
If we reward ourselves for giving up the bad habit by occasionally indulging in that habit, we will always be looking forward to the next reward instead of focusing on the wonderful results of the good choice being made. No rewarding! We must make a “clean break” in order to actualize the good choice we have made.
Have an attitude of gratitude to God for the fact that you have the ability to choose. Make a “clean break” with the old bad choice; practice a “positive attitude” toward your good choice; “visualize” the wonderful benefits that you will receive – and enjoyment will follow – every time.
(A condensation of a two hour lecture series by Dr. David DeRose)