Our reactions have either a positive or negative ripple effect that inevitably affects the lives of everyone around us and everything we do. Just imagine if everyone’s ripple effect were a negative one?! Or adversely, a positive? Fortunately, you are the only one who can control your power, potential and reaction ripple effect. There is extreme power in how we react to everything, because what we put out, we get back. Drama attracts more drama, while gratitude attracts peace of mind and creates joy.
The brain responds to stimuli long before your conscious brain can choose to. Your instant reactions often produce negative results and then instead of trying to undo what happened, you may immediately find reasons to try rationalise and justify your behaviour.
There are some things we can all do to improve the consequences of any adverse reactions we may have to reduce the impact:
Accepting responsibility for your reactions matters
Because of your brain’s quick reaction time, it’s not how you react but how you act and respond once you have had a reaction that really matters and becoming aware of your emotions and rationalisations will help you to tell your brain what you would like to think and do differently in spite of your emotional triggers. It is a matter of brain training. If you don’t recognise your feelings, you can’t change them, negatively impacting your relationships, job performance, and overall well being and happiness.
Learn to determine what triggered the emotion
The quicker you notice an emotion is triggered, the sooner you can discover if the threat is real or not. Choose what you want to feel and what you want to do. Choose to ask for what you need, let it go if you honestly feel that asking for what you need will have no value, or do something else to get your need met.
You can actively shift your emotional state
Choose one word that represents how you want to feel in this moment, such as calm, confident, courageous, or caring. Breathe in the word and as you exhale allow yourself to experience the shift. Stop trying to managing your emotions. Instead, look to understand what triggered the emotion, and then choose to feel something different when an emotion arises. It’s a reaction by reaction practice and with this you gain emotional freedom from your triggers. You are capable of controlling the chain reaction not dealing with your reactions creates
© Debbie Huxton
