Tap Into Conscious Response Vs Reaction

James and Lisa look at responding with consciousness vs reacting unconsciously. What is the difference? How to know what you're doing and build the skill of response. James and Lisa discuss ways to build the awareness and practice in your everyday experience.

Transcript

Welcome to the Practical Consciousness Podcast with James and Lisa,

Where we help you tap into your highest selves in everyday life.

Hi,

Welcome to Practical Consciousness,

The podcast with James and Lisa.

I'm James.

And I'm Lisa.

The always lovely Lisa.

One of these days I'm going to say the always lovely James.

Yeah,

That's.

.

.

It's a lie and you won't lie.

We're honest people.

So,

Okay.

So today,

Our topic is reaction versus response and when to notice it basically,

Because we're always about mindfulness,

But when to notice it,

Why does it happen,

Quite frankly,

What the heck's the difference,

Right,

Between what is the response versus the reaction?

Isn't it the same thing?

Well,

I'm going to ask you,

Is it the same thing?

No,

It's not.

A loaded question.

Okay,

What's the difference?

Well,

A reaction is when you don't think about it.

Like somebody says something rude to me and I just immediately like snap at them.

I never really liked the way your hair looked either.

And sometimes a reaction is not even outward.

It's inward.

Yeah.

Could be inward.

Yeah.

Just like,

Ooh.

Or you tell your story.

Yes,

I do have really terrible looking hair that desperately needs a haircut.

Yeah.

In the middle of COVID-19,

Everyone's saying that right now.

Yes.

So then the response would be more along the lines of somebody commented on my hair,

I guess,

That we've gotten on this hair thing.

And I just take a deep breath and not,

You know,

Like my,

Instead of having that sort of reaction,

I just kind of take a breath and think of how do I want to respond to that?

Oh,

That kind of hurt my feelings a little bit that she said she didn't like my hair,

That my fangs are always hanging in my eyes.

How do I want to,

How do I want to respond?

And it might be that I just make a choice not to say anything at all.

Yeah.

Well,

I think what's really important,

What you just said,

That's the real key is you start to check in with what is going on with you.

You take the focus away from whatever the stimulus was,

You know,

The comment or whatever,

And then you turn it back in and go,

Well,

How,

How,

How,

How am I feeling?

What am I thinking about what that person just said?

Yeah.

And you know,

You're using your breath as an anchor to pause,

Which is perfect because you're giving that space to go into curiosity more than,

And so you're basically breaking the pattern,

Right?

You're breaking the cycle.

Well,

And we've talked about awareness so much,

So many different times,

And I think that's the beginning stage of this is to have the awareness that,

Oh,

Maybe it's like for me,

Maybe I get that tight feeling in my chest when someone,

I feel like someone has insulted me.

Oh,

There's that feeling again.

So just having that awareness that,

You know,

Oh,

That normally when I have that feeling,

Then I have my reaction where I say something really rude to the person and then regret it later.

Yes.

So,

Which that's another really good point is like everything we always talk about,

There's no good or bad here.

There's no bad reaction.

There's no good reaction.

There's just,

Because sometimes it's just efficiency,

You know,

It's more efficient to just react in a certain way to a specific situation or stimulus or whatever that than it is to sit and ponder and wonder about it.

You know what I mean?

So,

You know,

Like brushing your teeth or some,

You know,

Motor function that we always do based on,

You know,

Somebody goes,

Boom,

We go,

Ah.

So we don't want to stop.

We go,

Should I be afraid?

This fear makes sense right now.

In the meantime,

You know,

You're,

The lion's like eating your insides.

So.

Okay.

So it serves us sometimes.

Yeah.

In other words,

Yeah.

We don't want to paint a picture where our listeners that we're saying,

You know,

Never react because we would never say never do anything or always do something anyway.

Right.

When you were sharing just a minute ago,

I thought of a question I wanted to ask you.

Who's reacting when,

When a person makes a comment,

Whatever it is about your hair,

Like,

Oh,

I can know maybe somebody makes a comment like,

Oh,

I could tell,

I could tell you've been staying at home for eight weeks looking at your hair.

By your hair.

I could tell.

Yeah.

By your hair.

And then you have a reaction.

Who's having the reaction?

Well,

It's my,

It's my,

It's my subconscious,

Like my,

It's I'm not conscious.

I'm not like.

It's not the observer.

Let's put it that way.

Right.

It's not the observer in me.

So it's,

I guess it's my unconscious or subconscious mind.

My ego.

It's my ego.

Could be.

Again,

We like our egos,

So we're not going to badmouth the ego,

But well,

We need our ego.

We need intellect.

Yeah,

We do.

Yeah.

So it's the mind,

Basically what you're telling me is it's,

It's,

It's either the subconscious part of your mind or the conscious part of your mind,

But it's your thinking.

Your mind is reacting.

Yeah.

To a thought.

Yeah.

It's one of those programs that we talked about where it's just like,

That's how I always react.

So I'm just going to do it.

Yeah.

So it's almost like it's not even the mind.

It's almost like it's just,

It just happens.

Yeah.

But it's still,

It's still your mind in the sense that it's,

It's,

It's a part of your brain that's processing.

It's just so it's fast.

It's just automatic.

How do you.

There's no thought.

How do you help your clients like,

Um,

Start recognizing when they're reacting?

Well again,

Just talk,

We talk a lot about awareness and we have exercises that we do that help us to start cultivating awareness.

And a lot of that's mindful activities,

Mindful practices that help.

Is that what you meant by.

Well I was kind of thinking more like actually,

You know,

Like in a session or something where a client,

You,

A client is telling,

Sharing a story with you.

And what I've noticed with a lot of my clients and even myself,

Um,

It's usually,

It's,

It's harder to recognize a reaction in the moment.

Um,

It's easier to recognize a reaction as we're ruminating on a different outcome or,

You know,

Maybe replaying the conversation and thinking,

Oh gosh,

I reacted there with,

You know,

Whatever.

And so a lot of times with my clients,

It's,

It's,

It's during a session when they're sharing a story or,

You know,

Some,

Something's going on,

They had a reaction or,

Or like you said,

There's a pattern where my boss,

You know,

Classic example of my,

Of some relationship,

My boss,

My,

My spouse,

My kids,

Something,

They always do this.

And then I get frustrated and I don't,

I don't know how to stop it.

It's,

It's a,

It's a pattern,

It's a pattern that cycles over and over and over and over and over again.

And you know,

I,

I just don't know how to end it.

So what do you,

So as a,

As a,

As a coach,

You know,

How do you help them in like a moment like that?

Start to start to choose to respond versus react.

Right.

Am I putting you on the spot?

You are,

But I'm still coming back to the awareness thing.

Like how does that make you feel?

Like how do you,

How are you feeling when that happens?

So you're saying you,

Like physical,

You start asking questions to get them to start feeling what the pattern is.

To help grow the awareness,

You need to start,

Like you can't make any shifts or changes or even have it or even recognize that there's something going on unless you have an awareness.

So to cultivate awareness,

You talk about,

Well,

How,

How are you,

How's that feel,

Feel in you?

Like maybe there's some bodily,

Like I talked earlier about my chest getting tight.

That's something that I experienced with anxiety.

So,

You know,

Do you feel like,

Is there a physical feeling?

I love the idea of,

You know,

Helping them why they're in kind of a more,

A less charged situation.

Even why they're having the conversation with you,

If you just ask,

Where are you feeling that?

Where's that at?

What's it feel like?

They can start to identify,

Right?

It's like,

Oh,

Okay.

So when I react,

This is the feeling I'm getting.

Yeah.

I love it.

And then,

Um,

One of the things I do,

Especially lately,

A lot,

Um,

Is I,

What I try to do is I,

I try to almost like we're saying that,

You know,

In the moment that pause and anchoring to your breath,

Right?

You talked about what are you laughing at?

She's laughing at me.

People start thinking about the cat thing.

Okay.

Now we have to tell the story.

Okay.

So real quick anecdote.

Um,

It's so funny.

She was watching a,

I have to tell the story because she can't,

She was watching,

She was in a Toastmasters and a person was on screen sharing and this cat paw kept coming off screen and she just lost it.

And I could hear my cat.

I can hear her banging on the door.

I think about it.

And then I just,

I'm like,

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