Reacting - Personal Practice

I use to react mindlessly.

Sometimes I would burst with positive emotion and other times it would be negative.

The reactions were intense and could be overwhelming to me and to others.

Then I started upon the journey of learning about why I react the way I do to given situations.  I could look back on my life and see the experiences that led me to my reactions.  

I started to question if I was reacting for the sake of reacting or if I really truly felt the reaction.

It was both.  

It was as if I was in the moment of the past when faced with something similar in the present.  The emotions would be overwhelming and I would think “I’ve been here before, I know how to react”.  

Experience is a tricky thing.  It protects us and gives us a point of reference.  However, there may be times when we “over” react based on experience.

The situation and the people are sometimes not exactly the same.  There may be dynamics that make it completely different, but we try to make the experience the same.

At least that is what I found myself doing.

Then I started the practice of watching my reactions and found that I often reacted for the sake of reacting.  I was forcing the situation to be the same as a “similar” situation in the past.

I started holding the reaction in and giving myself time to think about it.  I allowed myself the reaction, but often in private.  Then I would gage whether it was fair to share that reaction with others or not.

I’ve made some mistakes in the process along the way.  I’ve not shared when I should have, or I’ve shared when I shouldn’t have.  Over analyzing can be a problem with this approach.

So, now I try to find a healthy outlet to talk about what I’m thinking about when I find myself over analyzing.  But, the awareness of me is worth any mistakes I may have made along the way.

I like to think before I react.