While riding in the car...

I am listening to a book on cd.  The book is called Us by Lisa Oz, the wife of Dr.Oz.  I'm only on the second cd, but I liked an exercise she offered to the reader.  She writes about how our thoughts take on habits, and how these habits create familiar grooves into our thinking patterns, and how these thinking patterns can be, at most times, unhelpful.  She suggests, to break up some of our habits in action or in thought, that we perform something outside of our physical daily routine...even if it's a small gesture.  For instance, if you typically brush your teeth before you take a shower, try brushing afterwards.  Or if we always take the same way home from work, try a different route.  She also suggests to go out and do something we thought we would never do.  Not at the expense of ourselves in a harmful way, but in a good, courageous, fun way.  She is asking the reader to break out from the automatic pilot we lend our lives to so we can begin to learn a better way of living...like being in the present.  I borrowed this book on cd from the library.  It's kicking my butt.  Most likely, I'm going to have to give it another listen, but I like where it's taking me.