Do you find yourself replaying what has happened during the day? I said this and he said that and I should have said this or that? Well, there is a way to stop before you react.
Megan Ward, who has studied science and naturopathy and is the Author of: ‘A State of Mind – Happiness Beyond all Anxiety’, states that in order to be able to see the thoughts, hear the words or read the words, we must: stop; pause, breathe, create the space and silence around the information that has just been revealed to us and look at it in the light of an inquiring, questioning mind. She said, we need to ask ourselves:
1. What is being said?
2. What do I think?
3. What feels right?
“We run on preconditioned patterns of behaviour – we are not using our intelligence we have been gifted. If you can’t catch your thoughts at the level of your speech, then catch them at the level of your action,” Megan said.
Most of all, Megan said for people to be patient with themselves while they are trying to catch those thoughts: “Your mind has controlled you for a long time; be gentle with yourself.”
She said it takes time and perseverance to break the chain reaction of reaction.
When Megan started trying her non-reacting on her kids, she said they became very frustrated with her: “Rather than reacting to them each time they spoke or asked me a question, I would be silent in order to verify my response, to question my knowledge.”
She said it was a revelation that she didn’t have to just repeat what came into her head and in fact someone else’s words that she had once heard, but she could research the best response herself.
“It was frustrating for my children. How could they argue with me if I didn’t react?” Megan said.
I think we can all benefit from Megan’s revelation and use it as much as we can, and the more we use it, the better we will become and we will free ourselves from our pre-conditioned thoughts.
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