Why do we FEEL/ReAct the way we do?We have these immediate, intense, automatic, visceral, sometimes deeply wrenching feelings... and then we have these physical reactions... and then we have our actions/reactions...
We know better, we've felt it before, we know that it has lead to BAD things... BUT we STILL do them.
WHY?
Because NOT responding in step, the way we've reacted before ISN'T AUTOMATIC, it IS EFFORT-FUL!!! No matter how much effort we expend repeating the action that we KNOW in our head, heart and bones is a BAD IDEA...
We LIKE a PLAN,
even a BAD plan is better than no plan at all (we feel). And without a replacement plan in place... We take the path we know, EVEN when we KNOW (intellectually) it's a bad idea.
Also... without another plan... if we DON'T initiate the OLD PLAN... we will sit in this limbo state, wondering what to do AND keep reconsidering the OLD PLAN.
The DOG DOESN'T CHOOSE TO SALIVATE... and We don't choose to feel and react...
So guess what, the bell rings and WE SALIVATE!!!
Someone does something that triggers/stimulates a mental and emotional response which manifests physically...
Now...
there are issues massaging out the kinks, the automatic reactions, that you want changed...
The issues are, we have to:
1) be aware that this response is NOT YOU, but an automatic reaction... the fact that the dog SALIVATES is not the DOG.... But the dog doesn't know that... BUT WE DO... or at least we CAN know it. We can check in and see if we are having an authentic -or- an automatic reaction... and decide to look into making another PLAN... Because we need to follow something, some plan, some program. So trying to ignore a bad, obsolete, ineffective, program/reaction/habit/plan does NOT reprogram it... and in that case, it will always be there, available to be activated.
2) have people around you that don't destroy you for SALIVATING... upset that you get emotional, react automatically, NOT react the way they'd like you to... that's like being angry at the dog for SALIVATING... They don't have to like it but they also don't have to HATE/JUDGE the you for it.
WE need to understand that we are all DRUG/CHEMICAL/STIMULUS beings... open, waiting and typically WANTING/LONGING to be effected.
We are constantly in a state of RECEIVING the NEXT input to move us from the current state to the next.
Whether you TAKE a drug or have the body produce a chemical, we are ALWAYS in ONE STATE of mind, OPEN TO ANOTHER STATE of mind, from some external stimuli.
SO!!!
How much of this stimuli can we self generate?
How much input can we filter, so as to NOT react the way we learned as a child to react because WE ARE NOT at that state of being anymore.
I have a very good friend who told me a few years back:
"I was noticing my automatic response to fear, and it seems I want to run "FROM" things that I fear... and I thought... how interesting it was... My physical reaction to choose "THAT" particular "DIRECTION"... What would happen, if I, as an intellectual exercise, chose to run "TOWARD" what I fear. NOT to be brave or have any other reason, but just to change the direction."
THAT, TO ME, IS BRILLIANT!!! So simple, and yet so amazingly transformational!!!
Something SIMPLE like this, in a really short period of time, can completely alter your experience of life and transform your world.
I was talking to another friend about making simple but DRAMATIC shifts in processing your world... and told him the concept of "It's MY Movie"... Not only am I the Writer, Producer and Director (of my life), I cast the darn thing. So besides being able to take more charge of the STORY (and the cast), I get to notice how I CAST myself. Am I the side kick, the next door neighbor, the dark knight, the misunderstood brooding poet... THE VICTIM... or am I the HERO!!! and If I have NOT cast myself as the HERO in MY MOVIE... WHY NOT???
I spoke with this friend a few months after this conversation, he said he had shared this with a friend of his... SHE was DRAMATICALLY effected by the concept... "Oh SHIT, I've been the Damsel in Distress... My whole LIFE!!!" He said, the conversation had a profound impact on her, shifting her reaction to the world, the stimuli, as if she were the HERO in her LIFE (HER MOVIE).
So,
I guess you can CHANGE your REACTION to the STIMULI
and
You can change WHO YOU ARE that is receiving the STIMULI.
AND EVEN WITH ALL THIS...
NO MATTER HOW MUCH WORK YOU DO...
You never know when you are going to SALIVATE???
