Are you going through your life on auto-pilot?
Are you going through your life on auto-pilot?ย Do you , for exampleย letย your reactions and responses to life’s circumstances and events be dictated by your previous values, attitudes, and beliefsโฆor are your responses a result of living in the present?
Most people tend to react (act again) as they go through life. We react to other people’s conscious, or unconscious desire, or ability to “push” their buttons, or to situations without operating in the now moments of their lives. Our reactions find their origin inย learned attitudes, beliefs, expectations, prejudices, values or historically directed emotions.ย This can lead us to some damaging outcomes, which are unwanted.
When we react from the history of our past, we take the risk of:
ยท over-reacting ยท under-reacting ยท inappropriate reactions ยท hasty reactions ยท being too slow to react
As a result people are doomed to cause continued stress, anxiety, and continued, un-resolved personal feelings, but you can control this.
When a person reacts without being totally conscious or thinking out of the now, they’ll often say or do things they’ll regret later.
Here are a few strategies to consider the next time you find yourself out of emotional control due to another person or an event.
1. Take a quality pause, a brief 2-3 second break where you say to yourself – I do have a choice. I can react the way I normally would have to this stimulus or I can react differently. With the quality pause you can get out of auto-pilot and into the present.ย As a result you will be more in control.
2. Develop the habit of counting to 5, slowly, before you speak or act as a result of a stimulus.ย Because this will help you to be more rational.
3. Give someone you are close to the permission to alert you (make you aware) each and every time you react without pausing or taking the time to think through your response. Because pausing allows you to regain control of your emotions.
4. Create personal anchors (a personal reminder) that automatically kick in every time you find yourself losing emotional control. Thought-stoppers work well here. (What’s a thought-stopper? An example might be to place an elastic band around your wristโฆone about a quarter of an inch wideโฆand each time you find yourself into negative thought, or losing emotional controlโฆjust pull the band back and let it go, for instance. Whatever you were thinking about will be gone in a flash.ย Leading to you being able to regain composure.
Another way is to simply shout “stop” loudly to yourselfโฆmaking sure you won’t embarrass yourself in public. Because, even though you do the shouting, and you knew you were going to, it still jars your thinking enough to let you move to the positive thought, behaviour, or response.
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