Catching Your Reactions
October 1, 2018
When your head is in the clouds and you find yourself worrying about the future or regretting something in the past, catching and observing those reactions gives you the power to respond in a new way in the present moment.
TRANSCRIPT
HDo you ever see yourself reacting? If you do, you probably have noticed that your reactions are based on something someone's doing or something someone has said. Something that you heard that you didn't like. James Doty says that 80% of the time we are either regretting something from the past or having anxiety about something in the future.
So if we think about how do we be present then we want to get out of this reaction con cycle that puts us into being concerned about something that might happen and acting in the present based on something we're imagining rather than being fully where we are. Observation is the first step in becoming more aware of yourself and more aware of how those reactions are affecting you. What is the thinking that's going on that would tend to be obsessive? It would tend to go on over and over again.
What's happening to your body? Are you having a physiological effect? Your heart is racing, your breathing's changing. You're feeling tension somewhere in your body and you can also observe your emotional state.
Have you gone from being hopeful to being sad or depressed or in despair and what is the story in your mind that's going over and over the things that you think happened. When you can observe these reactions you can begin to distance yourself from them so that you have more choice in shifting how you're gonna respond.
