If you react to everything, you respond to nothing

 As I write this, today I am just going to write for a period of 45 minutes. I just don't know what to write, but let's see what we can write and what we really need to focus on. The important thing to write today is that we need to spend more time doing the work rather than talking about the work. However, we should also collaborate. But for these 45 minutes, let's be comfortable with the silence and work. I am going to talk about a personal formula today about being unreactionary in every situation. There is stimulus and then there's response and in between there's something called as choice which is what we choose. Stimulus is not something that we choose. It's the choice. And then give a response. For example, we can get extremely angry and tell folks that this how things are done. We can become reactionary. However, the goal is not to become reactionary, it is to become more understanding. 

Stimulus

Stimulus is anything people or the world does. For an example, someone in the world will say something. We can rush our response under pressure or we can deal with the pressure more effectively. If we deal with the pressure more effectively, that would be a better place to be in. But the question is how can we deal with the pressure more effectively. That's what we are going to discuss. How can we deal with the pressure in a way that's non-chaotic and more structured. How can we deal with the pressure without any rush but with thoughtfulness and process. How can we deal with the pressure in a format that's more likeable to folks. I am sure there are going to be ways out here. But the most important thing I would say is breathing. If we breathe too shallow, we won't have enough breathe to speak, if we breathe too deep, we might be too slow to speak. But the reality is we need to control our breathe. That's what we are going to talk about when it comes to space in between. Imagine, someone really insulted you badly. Now you got some space to respond. 

Space in between:

This space in between that we have that is called the choice. Either you can be emotionally reactive and say something that you would regret. Or you can take some time and then respond accordingly. I believe taking some time and responding would be a better way to go about here. No one is a friend at work. They are all your colleagues. If we treat colleagues as friends, we won't be able to gather the respect that we deserve. In the space in between, the first thing we should be doing is focus on our breathing. If we are breathing properly we will be able to respond well. For example, if someone says something, take a breathe that's good for you. 

The other idea is that we need to have our feet on the ground. That is the grounded energy that I am talking about. The more grounded our energy the better. If we increase our grounded energy, we will be able to achieve a lot more in life in general. Grounded energy is what makes people around you feel safe. It's this safety that you generate that's the value you have as a man. It's not the words but the energy that is carried through those words. How well you speak, the tone in which you speak, that's what is considered having your feet on the ground. 

Personal Story

Early on when I was just growing up, I would react to everything that was being thrown at me. I would react to people, I would react to circumstances, I would react to everything with either anger. The mindset was that it was my ego that had gotten heavier than me. However, one has to recognize that there's something that's always greater than the sum of its parts. For example, the universe and earth is formed of plants, animals, people, so many other people other than you, so many other organisms other than you, let's call it God, but one needs to understand that there's some higher power that's greater than all of us. That's what binds us. We need to slow down in order to speed up. That's the way to go ahead and live a good life. 

So having someone greater than all of us is very important. You might believe in God, Bhagawan, Allah, or Spirits, or anyone for that matter. It teaches that God is always watching. God is everywhere was a moral science line that most likely all of us remember. The idea is that let God take care of things that you cannot. Don't have this idea that you have to be in control of everything. Let God be.

I have also experienced the pain of being emotionally reactive to everything. If you are emotionally reactive to everything, you won't be able to produce the highest quality of work. You are here to develop, your purpose is to serve the world. Not to take from the world. Keep the purpose at the top. What's good for the purpose? What serves the purpose? That's what we need to be doing. 

It's normal to be reactive in early stages

I would say that it's quite normal to be reactive in early stages of life. In fact, it's a part of growing up. When we are in the initial stages of life, we don't have habits or things that ground us. However, as we grow up, we develop rituals like prayers, breathing, meditation, gym, that enhance our method of going from reactive to proactive. There might be days where you will lose a bit of control. There might be days where things might not go as expected. But those are the days that's most important that you anchor yourself with the ground through breathing. It's about cultivating this habit of breathing right all the time. 

Sometimes you would be silent and not speak too much. But your breathing will do the talking. Your work will do the talking. That's where we want to be in. Let breathing and work do the talking. Nothing else.

Giving nature

Men are not here to keep everything for themselves. We are here to give and give until we die. There will never be enough of giving. I will now speak from my personal experience. When I am in my giving, I am not afraid of anything. When I know that I have given enough, I have found the right space to work on the efforts. I have found the right space to develop my personality. Moreover, giving somehow just releases a lot of pressure from me. 

This might not be a planned speech. But during giving, I release all the pressure that's inside of me. Because when I give, I am not expecting anything in return. I am rather happy and more relaxed than ever. Finding other sources of relaxation like Tv, or reels, just puts me in a backward fashion. I can't give if I am constantly watching Tv, or reels or some easier form of relaxation. To me relaxation truly means that we give. We give till the point of death. We give because we have.

Nervous System

Now another thing is training your nervous system. As we grow in life, we need to train our nervous system as well. Sometimes, our nervous system is too fast and wants an escape. Sometimes our nervous system wants a break from everything. Sometimes our nervous system allows us to worry when we should focus on work. The point is that our nervous system can really trick us to believing that we are unsafe. So, in order to get better of our nervous system, we need to train our nervous system to be breathing well all the time. In order to train our nervous system, you need to do a 4-7-8 breathing as I have mentioned in some of my earlier blogs. 

Doing things alone

For everyone, it's quite important to protect some of your personal time. That's why one should be doing certain things alone. Write alone. Read alone. Go on walks alone. Go to the gym alone. You need to be alone for some period of time atleast in a day to have direction and thoughts. You don't need to be sorry for responding late on teams. You don't need to worry about who thinks what of you. After all, when you do certain things alone, that's where you will know yourself. If you are not alone all the time, you will never find the opportunity to know yourself. 

Action Steps: 

- The goal of these action steps is to be become emotionally non-reactive in all circumstances: 

1. Deep breathing: You can do this anytime of the day that you feel pressure or stress. Take a moment out of your work days, even if that's for 2 minutes. Make sure you spend time in this state where you do deep breathing and exhale from your mouth.

2. Giving: Give food or give knowledge or give happiness and humor to one person each day. Whatever it is that you can from your side. 

3. Nervous system: Train your nervous system to be comfortable with silence and doing things alone. That way you will be able to achieve a great nervous sytem

That's all I have for today's blog. Will let you folks be now ! Have a wonderful day ahead !