One of the great benefits of meditation is to be able to see the reactions that we have in our lives for the difficulties that come up.
The patterns that show themselves in difficult relationships or tumultuous interactions with people.
Meditation can help us claim a little bit of distance from those reactive patterns.
And it's so wonderful to be able to then practice,
And sometimes it takes diligent practice for quite a while,
But to be able to practice responding rather than reacting.
It's such a powerful place to come to,
To be able to respond.
Reacting simply causes more trouble usually.
But if we can slow things down enough,
If we can be mindful about our own inner emotional states,
Our own defensiveness,
Our own sense that we have to fight in a relationship situation,
Rather than finding a peaceful solution,
If we can start to become aware of these inner reactions through meditation and mindfulness practice,
One of the wonderful benefits of that is that then we get to be able to choose.
And we get to be able to choose not just how we're going to react and instead how we're going to respond,
But also we get to choose who we're going to be as a person.
One of the horrible parts of my life was when I was in a relationship where there was a lot of yelling and raging and fighting.
And I really hated it.
It's just not my style.
But I felt more and more pulled into it,
And it became a very destructive pattern between me and my partner.
But the worst thing about it was that I had become the kind of person that I never wanted to be.
Argumentative,
Defensive,
Even hateful at times.
And I felt justified in all those positions and stances during that period of my life and hated it at the same time.
Maybe you can relate to that.
Maybe there are patterns in your life,
In your relationships,
Maybe patterns within your own self that trigger defensive,
Angry,
Fight or flight reactions within you.
What this does,
These patterns,
They create self-induced stress.
And self-induced stress is in my mind and from what I've seen with my thousands of clients that I've worked with over the years.
Self-induced stress is one of the most destructive forms of human experience.
Because it not only creates stress for us,
It not only feels so upsetting and difficult,
But we also know in our heart of hearts,
If you can relate to this,
We also know that we are sliding down a slippery slope in terms of who we most prefer to be in our lives.
And that feels horrible.
That feels so destructive and often times shameful.
And so then we're adding even more trouble onto not only the reaction that's going outward,
But also how we're feeling about ourselves for acting in that way in the first place.
So it's a double whammy of incredibly difficult inner turmoil.
So what to do?
This is where I think meditation and mindfulness can come into play in such a wonderful way.
It can help us to slow down,
To reduce our reactions,
To increase the time between something that occurs,
Whether it's external or internal,
And when we respond.
And begin to think about all the different choices that we have and how we're going to respond.
All the different choices of what we can say,
Of our emotional states,
Of the thoughts even that we're having about this pattern or the other person.
If we can increase the time through meditation and mindfulness,
We can slow ourselves down enough to be able to make conscious choice or at least a more conscious choice.
And we can begin to put these kinds of patterns behind us.
And we can begin to reduce and eventually eliminate self-induced stress.
We have this kind of power no matter what has happened in your life.
Truly no matter what.
And no matter what the ripple effects have been from what's happened in your life,
You like every one of us,
Like me,
Like anybody else,
Has a choice in the moment of how we most wish to be as a person,
How we're going to respond,
What it is we're going to base our actions on in terms of our thoughts and in terms of our emotional states.
We have the choice,
We have the power.
It's very possible to make these kinds of changes.
It does take practice,
It does take work.
They're not just going to happen overnight by snapping your fingers.
But what's so wonderful,
And I can attest to this in my own life,
Once we start down this road and start saying,
No,
I really don't like being that kind of person,
I don't like reacting in such an angry,
Destructive way,
Once we start down that road,
It builds on itself and that becomes a virtuous cycle rather than that destructive cycle that takes us further and further down a path that we don't want to go down.
You have that power in your hands.
You have that power over your life.
And the beauty and the challenge is that nobody else can do this for us.
We have to do it ourselves.
We have to claim back our own emotional control.
We have to claim back the kinds of thoughts that we're going to focus on and let go of the kinds of thoughts that are hurtful to us and to other people.
We have to reclaim our lives.
And in that process,
Free ourselves from all of these old patterns,
All of this self-induced stress.
Can you do this?
Yes.
I know you can.
And I know you can because I've been able to do it more and more in my own life.
And hundreds and hundreds of my clients have been able to do it in their lives.
So you're not alone and to begin to shape our lives the way we actually want them to be.
So let's take a few moments and we'll do a brief meditation and see if we can feel that level of calmness coming over us to make us more responsive rather than reactive.
So just find your way into a comfortable position and then into your center,
That place within that feels calm and serene.
Just relax your body.
Relax your thoughts and your emotions.
And take a nice easy breath.
As you release that breath,
Feel that relaxation all the way through your whole body and all the way through your whole being.
And as you feel it,
Hold in your mind the idea of the kind of person you truly prefer to be in your life.
The kind of person who responds rather than reacts.
Who waits rather than jumps to conclusions.
Who seeks to understand another person rather than debates them.
A person who is kind and thoughtful,
Curious,
Caring and compassionate.
Hold these feelings in your heart for just a moment longer and feel this kind of person,
The kind of person that you most prefer to be.
Settling into your body,
Into your mind and into your consciousness.
So that your preference becomes clear,
Conscious and you're aware of it within yourself.
We all have the power within us to make these kinds of choices.
To choose our preferences.
Feel that power within you now for just one more moment.
What it could mean to your life to begin to choose to respond rather than react.
Allow yourself one more moment in your center.
And then begin to come back,
Holding your sense of your preferences for responding,
For being who you most truly prefer to be.
Hold those in your heart and choose.
Begin to come out of the meditation now.
Come back into the room that you're in.
Back into your body.
Back into this time.
And when you're ready,
Open your eyes.
