I was thinking about the acronym H.A.L.T. (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired) today.

This is an acronym that use used and cited frequently in contexts that are about life-improvement. Mentoring, coaching, supervision, and counselling. The idea seems to be that being unaware of how I’m feeling sets me up for various kinds of unhealthy life patterns. For example: if I find myself particularly triggered by something someone said to me, it may be related to me motoring on through the day not realising that I forgot to have lunch Or if I’m not particularly motivated around my work today, I may be lacking connection with other humans.

It should be obvious that it is a good thing to recognise and respond accordingly when I am any combination of Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired. There is everything right and nothing wrong with this acronym.

But I tend to use it in as a reactive diagnosis.

It’s all well and good to be able to reactively diagnose my behaviour in the past-tense by linking it to my unawareness in the past-tense of how I was feeling. What I really need are habits of being that keep me from getting into these states of unaware un-wellness. I want and need to be spiritually proactive rather than cleverly reactive.

How do I have a way of life (or a ‘rule of life’) that will guard against me being Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired?

I can practice the fulfilling opposites of those dysfunctional states. I can develop and maintain:
1) a regular pattern of eating,
2) an ongoing practice of processing and letting go of anger,
3) a frequent custom of social interaction,
and 4) a dogged commitment to times of rest.

I can learn, on a continual basis, to:
Refuel my tank (and not get Hungry),
Release others from my wrath (and not grow Angry),
Reconnect with humans (and not become Lonely),
and Relax my body (and not get Tired).

If this is sounding a bit like a cheesy book-turned-movie like Eat Pray Love, I think I’m OK with that, because those are, regardless of how they might be framed in that book or that movie, good things.

Living a lifestyle of this kind of discipline is not complicated, but various challenges can make it… well… challenging.

A wealthy, upwardly-mobile, business-type person could find that:
meetings crowd out lunch,
high pressure situations don’t allow for on-the-spot forgiveness,
endless emails and report-writing isolate me from colleagues
demands of family mean there is ‘just no time’ to rest

A less-wealthy, less-mobile person with less-choice could also be faced with realties like:
they cannot afford to eat properly
they live in a conflict-ridden, war-torn context, fearing for life, with a long-list of real enemies and justified resentments
they are forcibly isolated from human contact or loved ones
they have to work 80 hours to feed their family

I don’t have anything but empathy for the latter of those two.
But for those of us whose lives are more like the first, there is possibly more opportunity and choice than we admit.

If…
I want to avoid states of low-wellbeing where I set myself up to not flourish…
then…
I need to set myself up to live well.

I need to be spiritually proactive instead of cleverly reactive.

I need to refuel, release, reconnect and relax.