#nonreaction

Letting People Be I realized I was really maturing when I started to understand that not every situation needs my immediate reaction. There was a time when I felt compelled to respond to every issue or get involved in every conflict, but I’ve learned that sometimes, the best move is to step back and let things unfold on their own. I’ve come to accept that people will make their own choices,…

Happiness is a Decision

What? If happiness were a decision, then why would anyone decide to not be happy? It’s that we are so bogged down with the energies of our persona, we don’t realize what we are deciding. Our natural state is actually to be happy and enlivened but our automatic conclusions and decisions block this experience. We are creating our perspectives of the world all the time. We are infinitely powerful…

'When we observe feelings and sensations during meditation, there's no need, and usually no inclination, to react. So it is possible to abstain from reacting: we're actually doing just that! We can take our nonreaction into daily life with us. Whatever emotion turns up, we can see it as just a feeling that has arisen and that will pass away. If we learn this from our meditation practice, we're learning one of the most valuable lessons on how to handle ourselves.'

Responding to life and its oh-so-many-“good” and “bad” experiences- with an open and definitive “yes”, puts us in the position to be aware of every passing moment.

Living in a state of [non] can help us say the “yes” with more conviction. I read these words in a Eckhart Tolle book, I do not remember which, about how to live- truly : non-attachment | non-judgement| non-reaction| non-resistance|. And I’ve never forgotten them. 

The thing is, we all have an ego that actually lies to us on a day to day basis and yet we consider it our friend. It tells us to take things personally and to feel attacked at every chance we get which leads us to |react| over and over again to this person and that person. It’s never ending, this reacting nonsense, because if you think about it, other people will always [always] do something, or say something- sooner or later-  that will make your ego feel attacked. Not because they are necessarily trying to but because your choosing to interpret it that way. And even if they are trying to then..

Try not to [judge] their experience of life. If they are coming from a place of envy or toxicity - try not to judge their experience [hard as it may be- God knows I struggle with this] but just dont |attach| yourself to it. Their thoughts about you, their actions towards you, are also their choices, let it be [their] problem - not yours.  Every one person can only be responsible for their own behavior. Let it go. Be responsible for that.

And sometimes your ego wants to resist an experience. It doesn’t like change. It wants to control your experience, while your spirit wants you free. And the more we resist something [we know how this goes], the more that thing persists. Because when you fight against something, you don’t make it better. It’s not like it goes away- you only build an inner struggle within your own self. But if you try not fighting , if you try just [being] sometimes your emotional reaction to whatever’s happening, falls away. And that’s all that really matters~ what has the most power isn’t whats actually happening but our emotional response to it. 

Nonattachment. Nonresistance. NonJudgement. Nonreaction.

As for me, I’m just a work in progress. If I can reach any of the above in my lifetime, I’ll be lucky but for me the most important one to work on is nonresistance. What’s yours?