TRANSCEND REACTIVITY AND FIND PEACE

Reactions are designed to help you on your journey toward love and peace. Your world is like a mirror. What you see in others is usually a reflection of yourself. If you judge, find fault, and criticise others it can be helpful to ask if you are judging, finding fault, or criticising yourself. Generally, with loving awareness you will find some correlation. When you see only love in others, it is usually a sign you have found that beautiful loving place within yourself.

If you do react to someone, try to observe your feelings without judgement. The reaction and the resulting feelings are trying to tell you something about yourself. A reaction can unlock the door to greater awareness if you are able to take responsibility for your own feelings and not fall into the trap of blame. If you blame someone else for your feelings, you will not learn and grow from your experiences. This may result in a self-perpetuating cycle of reaction to others. This cycle is often painful and creates emotional unrest.

The key is to observe, work with, and understand your reactions. Over time, with practice, this process will help you to feel peaceful in most situations. You will know when you have successfully worked through a reaction when you put yourself in the same situation that you would have found stressful in the past, and are able to maintain you sense of peace.

Working with your reactions ultimately allows you to develop the skill of emotional stability: of being able to respond rather than react to a situation. This skill allows you to be the person you want to be in relationships, rather than feeling confused and out of control.

When you experience a reaction, the person you are dealing may be reacting too. If so, it is often helpful to get away from the situation. This will give you both space to sort out your reactions. Stay in touch with how you are feeling. Give the feeling a name. Perhaps you feel rejected. Ask yourself if you have ever felt this way before? Look back paying particular attention to the events of your life, prior to the age of six. This is when you experienced the world more emotionally as the frontal reasoning centres of your brain are not yet developed. However, do not look at this timeframe exclusively, as patterns of reaction can develop at any age.

If you can identify feeling rejected in certain situations in the past, you may notice a particular reactive pattern. For example, “I feel rejected if I perceive people are ignoring me and I can see that this has been a recurring pattern throughout my life.” Awareness is often enough to release the old pattern. When new awareness is gained, there is often a physical sensation, or shift, in your body, signified by feeling better and a sense of expansion as you gain greater insight towards yourself.

As an adult, you can use your reasoning centres, which were not fully developed as a child, to help you respond to a situation. When you were growing up you may have been raised in a household where the parents were extremely busy and were unable to give you much attention. The reality was that you were ignored, which did result in you feeling rejected. As an adult, however, you have choices—you can choose love, rather than feeling rejected. You can use your reasoning centres to conclude that no one can make you feel rejected unless you let them. Adult reasoning can also help you to not make assumptions and give the other person the benefit of doubt. That is, by doubting your thoughts.

Perhaps the other person was not ignoring you? Perhaps they were lost in their own thoughts, worried about how busy they are and how they were going to get it all done. They may have just received some bad news. You can change your reaction from rejection, by assuming the best of yourself and others. Ask yourself why would anyone reject you? Do not let your mind create answers that are false and not supportive of the wonderful individual that you are. Learn to own and observe your feelings of rejection and nourish them with your love.

The reason to look at reactions is to understand what pain it is that you need to let go of. All pain is resistance to the natural flow of life. By looking at your reactions you are beginning to let go of pain and move to a place beyond suffering. Your mind is what created your reactional patterns in the first place. This process helps you to deconstruct those patterns allowing you to feel more in your natural state of peace and harmony.

To create a non-reactive or calm environment, it is helpful to stop thinking negative thoughts towards yourself. This process is to bring love to places where there has been no love. Start by observing any reactions within yourself lovingly. This love will then naturally flow on to your external environment. To prevent other people reacting to you, endeavour not to say negative things to them. Allow people to experience their lives in their way, without criticism. Validate their feelings as they are. Validating your own feelings is very affirming and when you turn this process outwards, it helps to create an environment of unconditional love.

Training the mind to observe and nourish your reactions with love helps you to create a peaceful and loving inner world. This in turn helps you to develop more loving, fulfilling relationships in the world around you.

Bring love to places where there has been no love