How to Develop Response over Reaction

Description

Being reactionary is a habit, and we can overcome it by becoming conscious of the "launch pad" that reaction requires. This video shares how to cultivate response over reaction.

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Video Transcription

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hello my friends before I begin this video I'm going to address this because I know some of you are probably going to ask so my friend Dustin we went elk tracking yesterday my friend Dustin told a wonderful story about how this huge bull elk charged our party and I ran out in front of it and wrestled it down and I was an incredible hero but that's not actually how it happened the truth is I walked into a tree so there you have it this is an important video because it has a lot of power transformative power to change our lives and on many levels so this is going to be a little bit deeper of a video and let's plunge right in the idea here is that most of us know very very well how to react to things and we also know and we've heard that if we can learn to respond instead of react that this is a very very different way of encountering life when I react the externals rule me they dictate whether I am happy whether I'm sad whether I'm frustrated when I respond then I recognize this this universal truth that the exterior circumstances could almost be seen as as neutral in flavor but they come in I get to respond to them I get to put an interpretation on them and of course there are probably limits to this we know we've seen buddhist monks that can meditate through being burned alive probably none of us are gonna fit that level so there are places where we're gonna have our limitations as far as not reacting to those externals but we can begin the process of shifting that so that more and more of life becomes response based and less and less becomes a reaction based we have a new puppy as you probably know so I'm going to be using the example of a puppy because a puppy gives ample opportunities to experience frustration we're trying to train this animal not to for instance chew on things not to nip at people not to go to the bathroom inside and to really train a dog well you must have immense patience and you must be responsible if you're not you get a dog that is maybe fearful of you but not excited to please you so using the example of the puppy let's imagine I have a coat it's really nice coat and I left it sitting over there and and look over and the puppy is just going to town on that coat tearing open the sleeve straight into reaction so that urge to go into reaction it's so strong so strong

now that might create an effect it might scare the dog from you know create an aversion from chewing that sleeve of that jacket but it may not translate into the other sleeve or chew in the middle of the jacket or chewing on a shoe or a mitten or a hat so that reaction does not work nearly as well as a response base where I would look over I'd see that happening and I know okay here's an opportunity for training and I'm going to start slow because we're always starting with that kind of a softer one and then escalating in our nose this and as soon as the puppy drops it

I'm replacing it with a positive chew toy something that is okay to chew and saying good dog now I'm starting to teach the dog there are proper things and not proper things and eventually using that method the dog is going to look to us to see is something okay to chew or not figure it out having trained a lot of the animals before worked with dogs had different dogs and know how this goes and I know that you can easily have an adult dog that is gonna chew things apart it's still gonna go to the bathroom inside that can have all kinds of behavioral problems and the reason that happens is because the humans that are doing the training or in reaction rather than in response but how in the world do I bring myself into response mode because we can probably all a test reaction happens very very quickly I look over I see that thing happening there's an instant spike we get very up very excited angry in a negative way and we react

when things are that quick it can seem to us like it just happens we have no control over it but what we might be missing is that there has to be an underlying foundation there has to be a foundation a basis upon which that reaction can launch itself so you can imagine if I am invested in I believe that my jacket is something that should not be true to part by a dog then that's the basis that the reaction can jump off of of course if I thought that my jacket was a chew toy and I given it to the dog as a chew toy I would have removed that foundation when I look over I'm not going to have that reaction so it could be the exact same external stimuli stimulus right the dog chewing on my jacket but because I've changed my mind about the jacket I remove myself from reaction mode

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this is very vital to understand because most of us have an underlying foundation that is a conviction that we know what is best so we look around and pretty much anything whether it's going to be political who's going to be elected whether it's the weather whether it's our state of health whether it's our emotions whether it's that dog chewing on something and we think we know what is best best for ourselves best for the world best for the nation dwelling in that sense of conviction I've given myself a basis now I can launch off of that I can be reactive and when I'm reactive oh it's bad for me physiologically because it's stressful right it's a disease of civilization here this chronic stress and this reaction based living it creates chronic stress because I'm always looking around to see if everything is lined up as it should be if it isn't I'm gonna stress about it I'm gonna react if we can shift our basis if we can remove ourselves from the conviction that we know what is best something almost miraculous happens and it happens on two levels first of all we're not reacting we've taken away that foundation upon which it can launch itself so I look out I do not know what is best I've removed that stress that reaction from my life now this is very good for me physiologically I'm not under stress anymore and paradoxically we find that we are better able to change the things that we would have been stressed about before that's where the surrendering of our conviction there's a part of us that says no we can't surrender our conviction because then we won't be trying to make positive change in our lives or we won't be trying to uphold our lives our lives will crumble and fall around us that's that little part of our brain that's fearful part of our brain that really is control based and it wants to say if I'm not here guiding things Oh life will be in shambles but it's not true it's not true because we still can have desire for things to look a certain way but if I hold to that desire without the conviction without really believing that I know that if that happens that's going to be the best possible outcome then this paradox gets invoked and I find that when I'm not reacting I can respond so I can look at that situation and I can say oh okay I would like the dog not to be chewing on my jacket and I'm gonna use some training to do that and what I'm doing is I'm creating a long-term benefit we're in a month or two months that dog is not going to be chewing anymore and I'm going to be saved a lot of misery that would have occurred if I had been reacting every time that dog destroyed the mittens in the Hat and the jacket to release this conviction I have to look at everything in my life and you don't have to do it one by one you can just step back and do this using that old Zen story I'll try to link to it here who knows what is good or bad because the dog might show up that jacket it's my favorite jacket I love it but that might mean that tomorrow I go to the thrift store and I find a jacket that is gonna serve me way way better than that one that I thought was the best miss Holt's for everything in life we might think that to have a certain person elected is going to destroy the country and be the absolute worst thing that could happen yet that person may be elected and it might start a movement or a a shift in consciousness that leads to exactly what we are hoping for exactly the good things that we're shooting for that we thought we had to control [Music]

in human relationships this is huge often because we have a very strong conviction that we know what is right for them and we want them to look more like us to strengthen our own ego if we can look at other people and we can realize all right he's my life a hundred percent perfect and I'm happy a hundred percent of the time and it's just totally completely awesome unless I can say that honestly then maybe I don't actually know what's best even for myself let alone for another person in the circumstances of life that they're facing so what if I can release that I can say okay I think this person's life might be better if they accepted my religion if they ate a better diet if they dress differently whatever it is but do I really know that and that that's where that conviction can be released and again we'll see it's gonna play out very differently from reacting to that person I'm saying your diet that's crap you are gonna be just diabetic within three months there's an ego defense that's gonna go up they're gonna be feeling angry with me because I'm attacking them very very different then if I can respond I can look and I can say okay I think their diet would be better if they ate more vegetables but I'm not a complete expert at this and I don't know their genetics and their bio floor and so I'm not a hundred percent sure on this then I can go in with a different attitude and I can say hey you know you've been saying that you aren't feeling really really well lately and I know for me there was a time when I wasn't feeling very well I shifted my diet and it made some huge changes would you be interested in hearing about what I did and there they might say yes if we can undo this conviction and I know it's scary I know that part of our your brain might be firing right now saying you cannot release convictions you must be strong in your convictions but if we can release those we open up our minds to new information we open up our minds to taking in for instance that person's the look on their face as I start talking with them about food right away I see even though I'm trying to be nice there's an ego defense going up it's not the time to talk about it it's powerful stuff but it takes a huge shift a paradigm we have to admit that we do not know best and for our ego themselves that is difficult that's really difficult what if we do it the world opens up we become ever students always learning more always taking in we become receptive to other people other ideas you become receptive if you're religious become receptive to the divine when we're open like that when we're locked into conviction we only see our convictions we only see this idea in our heads this has been a very very powerful one for me and I keep seeing different levels or layers of it the puppy as I have mentioned has been a great great teacher as I start to see where it is that I'm still holding on to that idea that I know what is best the more you play with that and undermine it the better and again at that little link at the end here if you want you can check out that other video on that Zen story because it really challenges our idea and gives a great little example of do we really know what's best

something can seem very negative but it may be very positive share any thoughts that you have on this have you tried releasing your conviction that you know what's best have you noticed the changes that it makes in your life how do you respond rather than react love to you all can't wait to see what you have to say [Music]