Observe IT 3: What Is Your Response?

You've figured out where you are looking from and what you are looking at...your base of operations and your perspective of the world. So now when things are happening around you and with you, how are you going to react? or is it respond? Join Rev. Jay in discovering your best way to be when it's your turn in the conversation, situation, or experience.

Transcript

Three men are traveling on a ship when they're suddenly accosted by the devil.

And the devil proposes that if each man drops something into the sea and he cannot find it,

Then he will be that man's slave.

But if the devil does find it,

However,

Then he will eat that man up.

So the first man reacts very quickly and immediately slips off the Rolex watch he has on and drops it in the ocean,

Confident of his choice.

But poof,

He disappears,

Eaten by Satan.

Now the second man then quickly drops a pure and clear diamond in the ocean,

Assuming that it was going to be gone forever and that the devil would not be finding it,

But he did.

And poof,

He's gone,

Eaten up by that evil horned essence.

Third man,

Not one to react quickly,

Thinks a moment,

Contemplating the situation,

His life,

And then he fills a bottle with water and he calmly pours it into the sea.

And smiling,

He turns to the devil and says,

Try finding that.

Do you ever wish you would have responded versus reacted to a situation,

Common or condition?

Been able to take back the snark or the yell or the cursing or even worse that sometimes occurs when we react?

Some people think that the words react and respond are synonyms,

But to me,

They're pretty much antonyms.

They're opposite of each other.

When I react to something,

It's instantaneous,

Usually without thought.

It's driven by some lingering bias usually,

Fueled by some defense mechanism I have stored in me,

Projecting old stories or insecurities full of blame,

Taking it out on the other person usually,

Or there's some unconscious survival theme going on in my head.

And I use words and actions that I eventually,

If not quickly,

Well,

I wish I'd never said them.

Because reactions,

Well,

Reactions usually come from a short sighted,

Sometimes aggressive and out of control impulse.

We might freeze,

Flinch,

Feel like running away,

At least mentally,

And even want to physically fight someone.

That's a reaction.

And that's where that whole fight,

Flight reaction idea comes from,

That whole cortisol streaming through your body,

Making you react and not think.

Stress is usually high.

You might shake or sweat,

Your hackles are up.

And sometimes it's just in a little conversation.

Sometimes it's not even in a conversation that's a big deal.

But we get triggered sometimes by the conversation to expose things that we're in denial about or things we've repressed or regressed from,

Stuff that we've put away and maybe rationalized over our lives.

It's like when,

Does this ever happen to you when your boss maybe yells at you,

But you don't yell back,

You get a little victim-y,

You cower a little bit because it's your boss maybe.

But then you get home and your partner says hi and you take it out all on them,

Yelling at them,

Maybe saying something stupid from the stress of that day,

From the stress of holding on to that comment you didn't reply to that you just took.

You may blurt something out sometimes because you've intellectualized or compartmentalized a past hurt and it's just sitting there waiting,

Waiting to get triggered.

Reacting can be a dangerous answer to a situation.

Want to read you a quote by Viktor Frankl.

He said between stimulus and response there is a space and in that space is our power to choose our response.

In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Now responding,

Responding on the other hand,

That's a conscious,

Intentional,

Purposeful answer to what's going on,

To the question,

To the situation,

To the experience where we utilize our mindfulness skills before we speak,

Before we act.

Here we're able to get beyond the emotion and get into the information.

It's more like producing a calm,

Value centered and connected solution to the situation.

It's important to acknowledge that there is a skill to this that requires repeated practice so that we don't ever or we at least are least likely to react.

And it's okay that it requires practice.

So what?

Our journey in these bodies are an adventure and we should take it as an adventure and be okay in the journey knowing that we are working on it,

Knowing that we are bringing forth our authenticity as Perpetua was talking about,

Our authenticity into this moment,

Into this experience.

Now it's not always possible to respond,

Especially when it's a stressful situation and they're really popping your triggers.

It's hard.

It's hard to not react.

But that's when authenticity pops in really.

That's when our true selves really pop in,

When we know that we are being mindful about our life,

When we are participating in our life,

Not just doing it.

If you feel threatened or hurt,

Your brain and body sometimes have what I call an unnatural natural reaction coming from your stories and your perspectives and your opinions.

Your beliefs really comes down to your beliefs,

Those triggers.

Those may be more deeper beliefs that you are unconscious about because they're hiding for all those reasons I talked about before,

But they are in your belief system.

They are part of your perspective and that's why they blurt out.

It is the goal of this philosophy,

Of this center of my ministry to inform us and inspire us to move towards interacting with ourselves,

Others,

The whole world,

The universe from a more centered and peaceful place.

That's part of the job of the guided meditations we do,

The affirmative incantations I write,

The spiritual mind treatments,

The affirmative prayers that we have to become grounded and centered and mindful through these spiritual practices,

Remembering who we truly are.

And in fact,

These reactive situations that show up,

They're the precursor to your answers and actions.

They're the precursor to you stepping into your authenticity,

To stepping into your mindfulness,

To be stepping into your intentional response to a situation.

Now before I give you some tools,

I want to say that we can use our reactions to observe what the heck has been in our way from manifesting what we want or how we want it,

Moving forward in different parts of our lives,

Getting healthy,

Anything that's showing up in our lives,

A partner showing up,

Any of those things.

When we observe our reactions,

We can see why those manifestations,

Whatever they are,

Are being filtered by that belief that you didn't even maybe consciously know was there.

They're an insight,

These reactions,

To the junk ideas and the old stories and the perspectives that are in our way.

So here's our tool.

I have a little mnemonic for it.

It's called PLACE,

P-L-A-C-E,

PLACE.

Pause,

Label,

Ask,

Choose,

Express.

PLACE.

Number one,

Pause.

You know the mad TV sketch with Bob Newhart is the psychiatrist who uses his fancy education to tell his patient after she reveals her story,

Et cetera,

Et cetera,

And she's very upset.

She goes into a vent and a rant and he just says,

Stop it.

Now it's funny.

It's very funny in this sketch,

Especially because it's Bob Newhart and the Bob Newhart show where he played a psychiatrist,

But it's so simple and it's such a seemingly reactive answer to her situation.

And yet at the end,

It's not a bad response,

That reactive answer.

Now of course,

The proper course as a professional therapist or psychiatrist or counselor would really be to take her through the stories,

Asking questions,

Having her come up with the realizations and answers to these questions herself or himself because we always have the answers.

The answers are always there.

And to reveal themselves through a spiritual inspiration of course,

But also because so many times we're just hiding the answers,

We're afraid of the answers,

We're embarrassed by the answers.

But in that case,

The Bob Newhart character probably needed to remember to pause at that moment and to notice how he's being triggered.

Maybe he needed a little vacation or something.

The moment you notice you are triggered,

It is time to take a moment to pause and breathe.

The moment you feel triggered and notice your energy changing,

Take a breath.

Take a pause.

It's okay to go,

Hold on just a second.

I'm feeling triggered a little bit here.

I don't know why,

But give me a second because I want to respond to you.

Pause.

Number two,

Label your emotions.

So name it.

What are you feeling?

What are you feeling?

Think about it.

What am I feeling right now?

Is it anger,

Frustration,

Sadness,

Grief?

Identifying how we feel helps us process our emotions.

It's our emotions,

Not our feelings,

Our emotions that are getting in the way.

These old stories are getting in the way.

Name it.

Name that story.

Oh,

This is why I'm getting triggered.

Which leads me directly to number three,

A.

Ask yourself why.

You've paused,

You've labeled,

Now ask yourself why.

Why was I triggered?

What was it that triggered me?

What did they say?

What word was it?

What facial expression was it that triggered me?

This can bring awareness to,

Or an awakening you might say,

To what's under the surface for you.

It might not be what the person said that upset you,

But that it was some sort of reminder,

Thus the trigger of a different memory that sparks an emotion in you.

I get them.

I get them.

I've had to apologize many times.

Durango,

Sorry,

I was triggered.

My stuff,

Not yours.

Perhaps it was just some,

Maybe you were just more sensitive that day.

I've had those days.

Maybe not feeling well,

Having a bad day from your boss yelling at you that morning or something.

There are reasons that these reactions pop up,

But when you identify them and when you ask what they are,

Ask yourself what they are,

Your authentic self comes through.

So how can,

What is the best way you can best communicate that will serve the best for all involved in this moment?

That's a question you can ask yourself.

I know you're saying,

Really?

In the middle of a conversation,

I'm going to stop and say,

Hmm,

What is the best way for me to communicate that will serve the best for all involved in this moment?

Well,

You know,

The first few times you may.

It may take you a few seconds.

It may look like how,

You know,

A lot of times President Obama was like that.

He's very thoughtful.

People think that is a,

That is more of a plan,

Like this is what I'll say because I know this will,

More like a lie in a way,

But it's not.

He's thinking carefully about the best way to put the answer into the equation.

Number four,

Choose a mindful response.

Now this is the big one.

Consider the labeled emotions and discover the trigger before you choose what's important to share about your experience.

You choose what to communicate that is connected to the situation at hand,

Not your old story stories,

The things you have been deflecting,

The stuff that's,

That's you've,

You've compartmentalized,

All that stuff,

All those,

All those,

You know,

That junk thinking from past old stories.

The response is not harmful or unproductive.

The response is thoughtful and authentic to the situation.

And number five is express E.

When we think big picture,

When we put the situation in context,

When we blend the logic with our emotions and balance those immediate emotional responses with thoughts and facts to fill in the blanks,

When we recognize our choices and then we create this kind of 20,

20 vision that's even better than hindsight because we don't want to get in hindsight.

That means we've already,

It's already happened and we're thinking about it later and now we're probably getting into shame,

Blame,

Guilt stuff.

We don't want to get there.

We want to have 20,

20 vision right now or an imagined 20,

20 vision if you want to determine our best response to the current situation.

What we're talking about now,

I don't need you to go fly off.

When we're talking about lettuce to some situation from your childhood or what happened at work today,

We answer with thought rather than emotion,

Care versus the haphazard thinking or respond,

A reaction.

Mindfulness instead of fear.

Fear is what usually is popping up.

And love,

We do it with love,

Not hate or anger.

Even that that hate or anger is still brewing because of that trigger.

What that trigger reminds you of.

Rajneesh wrote this.

He said the man who is asleep reacts.

He knows nothing of action and reaction is a binding.

It binds you into new prisons,

New chains.

Response is out of freedom.

Hence it brings more freedom.

Reaction is out of the past.

You act according to your memories built in by your experiences,

Conditionings.

You react not to the present,

Not in the present.

You don't reflect the real situation as it is.

You go in,

You go on interpreting it according to your past,

Your past experiences.

The man,

The person who is awake is like a mirror.

He reflects that which is the case.

He is awake.

She is awake.

They are awake.

Like a mirror,

Like a reflection.

Like how manifestation works.

It's a reflection of our beliefs.

Our best prayers,

Our most powerful meditations and our greatest manifestations come from an absence of fear,

An absence of chaos,

An absence of desperation and destructive emotions.

When we are in chaos,

That is not the way to start spiritual mind treatment.

That is not a way to start a meditation.

It may be the beginning of one,

But once you feel that chaos still going,

Then that's what you pray for.

Removing the chaos,

Being calm enough to step into your prayer,

Your meditation.

Let us take away our old stories from the conversations with ourselves,

With others,

And of course ultimately with spirit,

With the universe,

And replace them with thoughtful intentions,

Full of purpose and feeling and awakening and the energy of fulfillment.

So that when we are responding to a situation,

Responding to someone in a conversation,

We are vibrating at the speed of the divine.

When we vibrate at the speed of the divine,

That is what is informing us.

That is when our authentic self shows up in that situation.

We want to move the energy of our conversations with our love of life and the light of the divine that is within each and every one of us.

When we do that,

Then watch your experiences glow with peace and prosperity and ease.

Thank you so much.

Namaste.