Of pandemics, riots, racism, unemployment…

Rarely is the forum used to specifically address current events as the very empowerment impacts the very currency of our living. However, in this pandemic-focused series of newsletter post, current events are reflecting what the pandemic is amplifying, hence today’s post on the apparent state of things. Read with openness and a charge to respond to Life rather than react to it.

Of pandemics, riots, racism, unemployment and the like…

We hear a lot these days about “first responders” – those on what is considered, “the front lines of essential services” that enable a society to function. I encourage you to expand your prism of thought on this matter and view everyone – including yourself – as being either a ‘first responder’ or a ‘first reactor.’

The difference between the two determines the world you experience, participant in, and witness. Most, unconsciously, fall into the latter camp of being a first reactor to life. We react to the pain of a world in apparent chaos, its unfairness, inequities and the imbalances threading through all manner of human expression.

Some react with apathy and indifference, or judgment, anger and violence. Others react with sorrow, fear, pity, indignation or righteous activism. Some ‘reactions’ are deemed laudable others deplorable – largely based on what reaction one feels employs effect.

I encourage you to consciously and increasingly become a ‘first responder’ rather than a first reactor. It is disarmingly simple: reaction causes reaction; responding causes responding. A world in constant reaction to its reactions creates little more than other ways to react or worse, heighten similar reaction.

On the other hand, a world increasingly responding to its matters creates solution. The root meaning of solution is to solve – become a solvent in your matters and world. A solvent is a ‘substance in which other materials dissolve to form a solution.’ This reference is typically used in the context of chemical application but imagine applying this principle psychologically to the human condition! Man! Instead of incrementally plodding along, we’d make a quantum leap in our evolution as a humane race!

To respond to matters is to become a solvent; respond to violence rather than judge it by asking, ‘where is my shortsightedness inuring me to the pain of others and causing it to erupt violently?’ Respond to disease by asking, ‘what ideas about health am I unconsciously aligning with that create mechanisms that deliver pain and compromise?’ Respond to relationship difficulty by asking yourself, ‘What judgments about myself are creating projections of toxic incompatibility? (The release of self-judgments may empower the release of an incompatible relationship)

To respond accesses power, to react constricts it. Personal case in point: For over a dozen years the grounds manager of the studio office of my hypnotherapy practice delivers his interactions with others with a caustic, abrasive, curt attitude. And the easy tendency would be to ‘react’ by giving as good as one gets in returning the attitude whether it is a part of one’s personality profile or not. (And trust me, I have witnessed many a tenant in the building clash with him). I have been no exception in becoming the ‘beneficiary’ of his frequent abrasive defensiveness.

I have chosen to insist on responding to his abrasiveness with equanimity and generosity in all interactions with him. I do not suppress what could be a knee-jerk reaction to his ‘jerk-ness’ but rather choose that he will not be the arbitrator of my expressions or reaction. It is a stance of power when another does not determine your behavior by theirs. That is accessing your power; to be who you are amid another’s conditioning. It is not about being passive or, ‘the bigger person’ as it were (those are judgments), it is about response rather than reaction – power, indeed. (Incidentally – or maybe not – in a fleeting recent encounter he genuinely, uncharacteristically, ask about my well-being considering the present pandemic conditions. Miracles do occur! [smile])

Reaction stems from judgment; response emanates from love. Love is not a sentiment; it is simply an unconditioned vantage point. Become a first responder in your world and the world at large and you become the solution – the solvent – that heals.