Choose A Response Over A Reaction

13 minutes ago

3 min read

One of the greatest changes we can make in life is learning the difference between reacting and responding.

How many times have you said or thought, “I’m trying so hard not to react”?

I’m led by emotion. I’m a water sign with rising fire. This has been one of my biggest lessons.

Let’s get straight into it.

Here you are in a heated conversation that is bubbling in all the wrong places. The pressure is building. One misunderstanding leads to another. One assumption fuels the next. The layers of 'wrongs' are piling up like a stack of New York pancakes, and before long, you're carrying a pile of thoughts, emotions and stories that all feel true.

Your mind wants to solve everything immediately. You are in defence mode. You want explanations, you want to explain, prove, WIN!

Still with me?

Here's the thing. Trying not to react is the wrong place to put your energy. You can't force yourself not to react any more than you can force yourself to fall asleep. The harder you grip, the further away it gets. Before long, the conversation has become far bigger than the thing that started it.

Reacting isn't actually the problem. The problem is that you've left the present moment.

A reaction happens when your mind has already left the room. It's disappeared into old wounds, familiar stories, imagined futures, fears, assumptions and expectations. Many of them are so familiar that we don't even realise they're running the show.

In that moment, it feels as though you're standing up for yourself. Protecting your boundaries. Helping the other person understand. But most of the time you're responding to your past, not the person standing in front of you.

The conversation is happening here. Your reaction is happening somewhere else.

Someone gives you the side eye - and we feel it as rejection. Someone ignores you, and it becomes abandonment. A small disagreement becomes proof to you - that you’re not valued.

None of these self-administered conclusions was born in this moment or OF this moment. It’s an old suitcase of baggage that hasn’t yet either come to our attention or been buried.

When we respond - it’s completely different. It can only come from the present moment. Your breath. Your current conversation. From the feeling that it is - actually. Rather than what your mind is telling you.

This is why Metox practices begin with awareness.

When we’re stuck on something, or can’t get past it, if we start to ask - “Where is my attention?"‘ over “What should I do?'“ - the game changes.

Is it in this moment? Or is it replaying yesterday, rehearsing tomorrow or defending a version of me that no longer exists?

Staying present doesn’t suddenly erase all your history. It just stops allowing that history to make every decision for you. It stops that history changing the course of your life!

Sometimes in the present moment, the most powerful response is silence. Sometimes it’s walking away or asking another question or saying “No!”

It’s taking a breath before sending the message you’ve already written three times in your head.

I was chatting to my husband about this recently. He said something that really resonated with me. He said that if he didn’t respond, he would feel out of control. I understood that. I too have felt - many times - that by not responding, I felt passive.

But actually - it makes us conscious.

Every month in the Metox practice we come back to that same place - the present moment. It promotes present moment awareness - and that is something I wholly believe in. If we all looked after our hearts as much as we did our bodies, and minds - the world would be a better place to live in.

Everything begins in the present moment. We notice more. We return and remember who we are. We consciously choose and make decisions aligned with who we are. The more you bring your attention back to now, the less your life is driven by habit and the more it is shaped by authentic intention.

Listen - You won’t stop reacting overnight, so don’t expect to. Instead, when we choose response over reaction, we notice each reaction without judging it. Each little reaction is like a little compass that you can use to understand where the reactions are coming from.

“What part of me reacted?”

“What belief did that touch?”

“What story did I instantly believe?”

Being curious about this stuff creates space for new choices - and that, dear ones, is where your freedom is.