Weathering the storm.

Have you ever heard the saying “when you can’t control what’s happening, challenge yourself to control the way you respond to what’s happening. That’s where the power is.

Because the truth is it doesn’t matter what’s going on in the outside world – it is the effect on us that matters. It is how it makes us feel that is at the core of what’s happening to us. Have you ever had someone completely tick you off – you are wild right. And then you move into the next scene of your life – carrying this burden of disgust or anger, and it puts a kind of frame around what you experience next. We see the world through this kind of filter of how we’re feeling. And so, hopefully this occurs to us, and we don’t dwell on it too long, and we are reminded in the next moment by some friends that – “god – don’t let that ‘so and so’ bother you – nobody listens to him.”

And we recognise how foolish we were to have ever let it bother us. It begs to question however – that if it doesn’t bother us, did it really happen at all? Kind of a philosophical, tree falling in the woods type question I guess. But does it occur to us that what happens, or what is happening is relative to how we feel about it. What happens doesn’t matter – how it makes us feel does. And it certainly should occur to us to ‘not sweat the small stuff’. Because the quality of our lives is testament to how trivial the things are that steal our mood. Kind of like ‘how much shit can you take’ – is the determinant of how much great stuff we are willing to allow to enter into our experience.

The primary function of the most powerful part of our mind (the subconscious.) is to maintain our state of mind – to keep the world as we know it to seem normal. It re-creates the scenes of our lives in an instant, in order to sustain that normal reaction in us. In fact what we regard as our lives is really a series, or habitual pattern of reacting. The events themselves are built from, and precluded by, our normal pattern of reacting. It’s like – “Here we go again – I’m getting screwed over – or the world is full of stupid people.” These kind of reactions have the power to become our dominant experience. The subconscious mind always answers, ‘yes’ to these affirmations otherwise known as our reactions – or remarks – ‘As you wish’.

In fact the higher aspect of our mind uses all of our reactions to kind of seamlessly blend our experience together. And all of our reactions have the potential to become a permanent part of our experience, with us as the passenger.

But when we notice this pattern – when we stand back from the reaction as an observer, to the real play going on in this higher aspect of mind, we get in on the secret – peek behind the curtain at, the little game it has going to make everything seem ‘normal’. In the observer position we actually detach from what’s happening, and sit with this higher part of mind and ‘watch’ – without getting to muddled in the drama of it all, and thinking we only have one single and instant course of action (reaction). We have a choice in our reaction – or rather we, as they say in these circles, respond more consciously. We have acted from a higher point of consciousness every time we withdraw and consider that I have an option as to how this will affect me.

If the world according to us is a consequence of an inner condition (very old school of thought) – how important do these seemingly insignificant reactions then become to us – how important is how we feel. Which is obviously tied to these reactions.

I want to present another way of seeing our reactions that may not have occurred to you – that can ultimately transform our entire experience. You see our reactions are, as stated what the subconscious mind uses to normalise our experience – but it is more than that. Our reactions also represent what keeps our conditioning in place – hands what’s happening in our life over to the auto-pilot, and robotic part of our mind that we have no say in – we don’t even know it came from us. Our reactions are what keeps us from change, from dreaming, from realising our potential. And I’m not talking about those big ‘fly-off the handle’ big reactions. I’m talking about every single moment to moment way in which we subtly react to everything – all of the time.

Reactions are what the mind uses to keep us from our growth – to distract us and keep the autopilot running our life. Keep us doing things subconsciously – meaning we have no control over or choice in. But if we are subtly reacting (vibrating) in every moment – aren’t there many instances along the way where we have a reaction – that may seem minor and insignificant – but that we could definitely make a better feeling choice in. Where we could ‘respond more consciously’. And while these little choices may seem like they aren’t changing much at all – the trajectory of how we feel and the type of circumstances we attract as a consequence, over time will have a huge impact on our life.

When we know this of our reactions we start to see things differently, and we start to see different things. I challenge you to artificially (without any real reason.) put yourself in a really great mood, and just see if this has any effect over what’s happening in your world. If our state of mind has an effect on how the world seems. If there happens to be any notable difference, maybe that might put us in the picture of how crucial how we feel, and how we react, really is. Those tiny, seemingly insignificant reactions that we could easily and definitely make a better choice in, ultimately change a lot. And we don’t just feel better in that moment – we experience a momentum of better things happening. Things that match our feeling state. But more importantly, we send a message to that reality creating part of our mind that we are driving this ship – we are awake to this little game. And we start to use this skill on the bigger stuff, and really start to dig our heals in with how we want our experience to go.

And of course we did it by one small, easy to make, effortless choice to be more conscious of our reactions, and to live in our power to make a choice in how we feel, and what is happening.

Freedom is just a reaction away.