.....when somebody does something that pushes my buttons and I react to it.
Now, I TRY to be zen and act with equanimity, I try to model Byron Katie's work and Love What Is, I try to go with the flow but.... nope, off I go, REACTING. And then aftewards, when the situation has eased, I might just reflect.
My job can be a pressure cooker sometimes, and traffic might give cause, there might be something I heard about, read on the news, or saw on TV, it might be a car issue, or something to do with the weather, it might be an issue with a coworker, it might be my schedule, there are lots of ways to get triggered is what I'm saying but after all these years and all this practice you would think I could maintain an even keel throughout the day and never have my boat rocked in the slightest.
kazuend- Unsplash.com
It seems so easy, in theory. I've read all the books, I'ver practiced and practiced and have gone through long periods where I have been merely observing and feeling great but then.... ...something comes up. This something shows me something about myself, in that I have a ways to go because until you stop reacting to things you're not THERE, is my understanding.
Percentage-wise, I'm doing great in the no-upset batting category, my stats are healthy, but I always think I can do better and guess what- circumstances arise that give me that opportunity! Thank you for showing me where work still needs to be done! Thank you, coworkers! Thank you, customers! Thank you, the guy that came up tight while I was peacefully cruising along, all zen like, on the two lane airport access road after work last night, for showing me that I still have to ask the question "What would Jesus do, if he was tailgated?". Thank you!
Yeah, I get upset at times, who doesn't? To totally drop my reactionary state all it takes is a little bit of focus, anybody can do it, and a good model for that is a spiritual teacher called Mooji, you can check him out here:
Just looking at his picture brings me to a state of inner peace that wasn't there just seconds ago. Amazing!
What Mooji has to say might be a little in the way of deep water for surface dwellers but I will say this. If you practice being non-reactive to events, what occurs (certainly what has occurred for me) is that your reaction time becomes less. For example, whereas I used to spend days in some sort of discombobulated (I like that long word, I think it means 'rocked') state, over time my reaction to things has steadily become much, much less. From days to less than a day, to a half a day, to an hour, less than ten minutes, and lately I usually drop issues in even less time than that.
Maybe I will never get to 100% non-reactivity, but spending less time affected by events feels great. A purposely-generated short attention span! All you have to do to regain inner peace is stop focusing on whatever is agitating you and focus on what is always there, has always been there, and, from all indications, will always be there. The unchangeable, pristine state of awareness. Oh, I'm getting wordy here. You'll figure it out. Not like this is hidden or anything, impossible to attain, or requires onerous study. It's simple. Practicing it is all it takes.