Response-ability

I have taken to allowing each moment on my bicycle to be a moment of awareness...or at least an attempt at it.  How does my body feel as I pedal up this hill?  How do my feet feel in this cold?  What is that smell?  What am I thinking about?  It is my practice on the power of this moment. 

I know that my biking time ranges from 25-40 minutes depending on weather conditions, traffic, random things about my own biking prowess.  I always prepare for the 40 minute ride, giving myself enough time to deal with unforeseen circumstances as well.

What I have discovered is that the practice of the power of now is really hard to maintain.  I find myself distracted with all kinds of things.  I will start thinking about what homework problems I haven't finished, how I am going to get to the boys to pick them up on time, what our plans are for the evening, fantasizing about what the world will be like when I finish school, trying to figure out if my spiritual practice is enough, how to work through a scheduling conflict I have, did I make the right choice in how I released my attachment to my ex-friend...I can come up with a million things to think about.  And I often have to bring myself back to what am I feeling (physically/emotionally/etc) in this moment.

As I was biking in this morning, I was listening to Ekhart Tolle and he said something I don't entirely remember, but had me thinking about the first practice my therapist gave me.  She asked me to set an alarm on a watch or phone or whatever to go off every 4 hours during the day to remind me to think about what I am feeling in this moment.  In addition I was to start thinking about from where is that feeling stemming.

This was an interesting practice because it often stopped me from getting seriously worked up into an anger fueled fight that had nothing whatsoever to do with the situation at hand.  What I mean is, that forcing myself to think on a regular basis about what I was feeling and why, didn't allow me to be unconscious of my emotional state.  And since I was aware of my feelings, I was no long prone to just reaction, I was able to respond.

I had never really given up on the practice, until I went back to graduate school.  But it had lost a lot of it's power because I was already aware of my feelings more often than not.  But the return to graduate school caused a lot of changes and the constant reminders have been lost.

I realized this morning that I am still not carrying the unspoken resentment and anger, at least not as much as I had been and I am more capable of response rather than reaction.  But there are moments where the reaction still prevails over the response.  So of course my brain decided to focus on that so I thought about it.

When do I react rather than respond?

Let me start by stating when I respond.  I will respond rather than react initially to almost everything.  I begin reacting when the situation has continued and responding has not made a change in the situation.

Let me offer an example, for days I listened to a friend of mine tell me that I was making a mistake.  Every time she said it, I responded with some version of, "I understand that you think that, but it is a mistake I am willing to make.  Please stop trying to change my mind."  Finally I told her I was tired of talking about it, I explained in detail why I had made the choice I had made and asked her to stop repeating that I had made a mistake.  She said she understood and wouldn't discuss it again and several hours later was back to talking about it.  I tried responding and when she repeated for the hundredth time why I was making a mistake, I snapped and told her that she could choose to stop talking about the situation or I could stop texting her.  She obviously got more irritated and began name calling.  I told her that she could think what she would, but that I was done talking with her about that particular situation.  I should have been more aware of the snap that was getting ready to happen, to prevent the negative outcome of the situation, but I got tired of being reasonable, rational and explaining myself over and over.

I react when people assert that they know me.  When I have said or done something that goes against the image they have of me and begin the, "I know this is not you."  Or "The Whitney I know would never say that kind of thing."  Or "Clearly you are unhappy with what you are doing or you would be acting like the Whitney I know."   And most especially, "I have seen you, I know you better than you do.  Stop fighting me and do what I want."  Those will bring out a reaction before a response every single time.

And what I have discovered in looking back on those moments of reaction, is I begin reacting every time I have self-doubt.  Not necessarily a feeling like I have done something wrong, or a feeling of guilt, but a moment where I worry about what others think about me.  In that moment where I begin to worry that embracing the real me, is a problem because it prevents me from finding comfort in my tribe.

This morning on my bike ride, what I realized was that I have the ability to respond even in those situations where I feel like I have no choice, where reaction is prevalent.  I can own my emotions and make the choice for response-ability.

A reaction in hurt my have every reason for it's existence.  I may be able to rationalize and justify it and perhaps I am right about all the reasons why my reaction is warranted.  But it doesn't change the fact that my reaction likely caused pain to another.  And once done cannot be undone.  A reaction is a choice...it is a choice to let my unconscious mind dictate my actions.  As a choice it means I am responsible for whatever damage it causes.  I am responsible for the negativity that arises from it.

I wonder, if everyone took a moment to realize that they are response-able, would we have more peace?

It is my goal to work toward being more response-able, I hope to build the positive voice in my head that says, "You know you and it is a fine person to be."  So that I can be comfortable with saying, "I have explained to you what happened.  There is nothing else to explain.  I am sorry that you find it unacceptable, but I have nothing more to say on the subject," rather than saying that unless you are done with the subject I am done with you.