Your Reaction To Any Given Situation is Your Choice
Maybe not initially, but after that it is.
Like it or not, shit happens. And there isn’t a damned thing you can do about it.
When shit happens, you’ll react to it. This always comes in three stages.
The first stage is your visceral, immediate, automated reaction. What that will look like is situational, dependent on factors including what, where, how, why, and when, and often unpredictable. This can include immediate rage, anger, frustration, joy, surprise, excitement, or interesting combinations of multiple of these. The first reaction just is, simply happens, and that’s that.
The second stage is immediately after that reflexive reaction. The shit has gone done, you reacted to it, and now you decide if that reaction is how you proceed, or if you will shunt it away and choose something else, or some combination therein, and what that looks like for you. This is where instinctual negative reactions turn into anger, fear, sorrow, and the like, and continue to keep you on a negative approach (or possibly excitement, elation, surprise, and the like, and continue to keep you on a positive approach).
Whatever it is, following that first stage of the initial automated reaction, you choose the next. Continue in negativity or seek and/or create positivity.
The third stage comes later. This is when you’re well past the shit that happened, your initial reaction, and what you followed that up with. It is here that you look back and might find trauma, a place where you shifted your life perspective, regret, or other matter that impacted you long after the shit that happened. From here, however, you can learn lessons and apply them going forward.
After the initial instinctive reaction, your reaction to any given situation is your choice.
Real-life case studies
These things happened to me. One is quite a long way back. The other is all too recent. Both involve shit happening, although what that amounts to and the rest are subjective.
When I was 6 or so years old my parents divorced. I don’t know what my initial, visceral reaction was because I don’t remember how or when they told me what was going on. What I do know is what I did in the second stage, and how this would impact for a long time my interpersonal relationships, my irrational fears, and numerous other aspects of my life.
Fortunately, thanks to the third stage, I’ve been able to analyze this and learn from it all. I took what I learned, applied it to new situations and happenings, and used everything I gained mentally, emotionally, and spiritually to approach current things differently.
Which brings me to the recent shit. Buy a house, they said. It’s a great investment, they said. You’ll be glad you did. Okay, so we did. Despite various hurdles since we did this, I don’t regret that we chose to do this. Yet I often rue and lament aspects of it.
I had plans for our home, that my wife shared, that I very much looked forward to. We got the ball rolling to make them happen. Then, just the other day, we were told they can’t be done.
The reason is unimportant, but while my initial, visceral reaction was to go into a rage, I didn’t. I felt it, I wanted to give in to it but chose not to. Instead, I’m channeling that sensation to find alternatives and find an alternate way to get the thing we desire for our home done.
Hence, I chose my reaction.
Your reaction to any given situation is your choice
In the first stage, this is not the truth. But the first stage is instantaneous and outside of conscious control. After that, however, the choice is wholly yours.
I could have taken that rage and screamed at the person informing me that we couldn’t realize our plan, swept everything off my desks and flipped tables, or gone on a rampage of some kind. My initial, reflexive reaction was this.
Instead, I took a few deep breaths, refocused, and gave thought to alternatives. Okay, fine, another fuck you from the Universe. Shit happens. I can get all stressed out about this and lose my shit, or I can go on with my day and seek an alternative solution to this problem.
No, it is in no way, shape, or form resolved. Truth is, I haven’t anything beyond a vague idea of how to proceed from here. However, I feel fueled by that initial rage to take action and do something to get a resolution.
Hence, I can definitively state that your reaction to any given situation is a choice. Admittedly, what that is and how it will play out will vary. Yet it’s always the option and there’s always potential and possibility.
How do you find and/or create your choice? Via mindfulness.
Mindfulness that this is your choice
Because that initial, visceral, first-stage reaction is automated and subconscious, it’s easy to believe you have no control or choices at all. While that’s true of the initial instinct, after that you have choices.
Let that visceral reaction dictate what happens next? Or choose something else? I could have raged, but what would that have gained me? It would have led to making myself unhappy, telling off and/or insulting someone who was simply the messenger, and additional negative feelings.
After the subconscious automated reaction, you get to choose if you allow that to continue or work with conscious awareness. Conscious awareness is a product of the now that only works in the present. When you choose to employ that, however, you become mindful and gain control of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, approach, and actions.
Ergo, your choice for how to proceed when shit happens. Good or bad, desired or unwanted, your reaction to any given situation is your choice to make. Analyzing your conscious awareness and how your subconscious interacts with it is how you choose what stage two and stage three of your reaction looks like after shit happens.
It might seem easier to remain subconscious, but that’s not empowering or, frankly, worthy of you. You deserve to control what’s yours, and that includes your choice of reaction to any given situation.
Can you see how this works and why and how it empowers you?
This is the six-hundred-eighty-first (681) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out my author website for the rest of my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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