Intro: 00:00

Welcome to the infinitely precious podcast produced by infinitely precious LLC. Your host is James Henry. Remember, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.

James: 00:13

Hello, beloved. It's me, James. And I am coming to you, with a weekly thought. So if you're joining me, I just wanted to share some thoughts. I don't know about you, but in recent days, I have found myself struggling with something called reactivity.

James: 00:38

Reactivity, it's when something irritating or difficult comes across our path. It could be an email. It could be a conversation often about a topic that we are struggling with personally. And in the moment we just want to say whatever comes up inside of us. And what comes up inside of us sometimes is not really pretty.

James: 01:06

You see it a lot. It happens when people sort of get caught off guard. And what is said makes them very angry and they say something in response that oftentimes is inappropriate. And if you're anything like me and you've done that, and I've had plenty of years in my life to be reactive and say things I'm sorry I said, you regret those moments when you do it. You regret having just said whatever came to your mind.

James: 01:41

Well, m here to say that Jesus modeled a different kind of way. And that we can, as people of faith, find a way to step back from the fray. And instead of being reactive, let our buttons get pushed, so to speak, we can be responsive. How do we do it? How do we do it?

James: 02:11

When somebody says something to us about our political view from the complete opposite side or someone questions whether we are people of integrity or people question our value in an organization or a place. Maybe in our family there's great stress that we're facing. Maybe we're sitting in traffic yet again. And if you're watching this in Northern Virginia, sitting in traffic is just a reality that we live with every day. What can we do about it?

James: 02:47

And how do we respond? And for some of us, it is screaming at the person in the car in front of us or the person who cuts us off or the slow way people respond to traffic signals because they re busy looking at their phone or distracted by something else altogether. And in those reactive moments, we just say whatever s on our mind. A long time ago, the first thing that came to my mind is about and for me it s a story about when my children were small and they were sitting in the back seat and we were in the process of going somewhere. The funny thing is, as I remember it, we were in the car and we were getting ready to pass through Falls Church where I live now.

James: 03:38

And as we were entering town, somebody cut me off and it scared me. And in a moment of fear, now when my children were little, let's say that was more than twenty years ago, twenty three, twenty four years ago when they were little and I said something ugly. Let's imagine I said two of the bad words that my children weren't allowed to say. No one in our family was allowed to say, shut up stupid, both shut up, which is not one word, I realize that, and stupid were bad words to be said. And for my children to say those words was to put themselves into time out because shut up is taking away a person's right to express themselves in an ugly way and calling someone or labeling someone stupid is also dehumanizing.

James: 04:36

So that would get them in trouble. Let's imagine that I said something like that to someone who cut me off in a moment while we were driving. And a little voice from the back seat who had learned all the lessons said, daddy, you know, that hurts God s feelings and the person in front of us, their feelings too. Now, of course, the windows were closed and I don t think the people in front of me had heard a word I said. But that s what we always told our children about reactive moments when we say something ugly, maybe even worse than shut up or stupid to someone else that we encounter.

James: 05:28

And when we do, what we do is rob them of their dignity. We take away something from them and we demean ourselves by labeling someone else, being less than we could. And we've all had those reactive moments. You know, if you are following social media, it's so easy to read something that makes you angry. If you have any political leanings whatsoever and you live in The United States, you are regularly triggered, either by people on the left or people on the right, or people who are too centrist, by everything.

James: 06:14

You just react. And I'm here to say that it's possible to not be reactive. I find myself much less reactive now than I once was. I'm not saying that I am completely nonreactive, I am saying that I am less prone to reactivity than I once was. So, the reason it s possible to be that is because I have learned, first of all, to be self aware, to recognize the signs in myself that m feeling the pressure rise, I m feeling the desire to respond, m feeling my anger, and I can feel it in a tightness that sometimes happens in my gut, sometimes happens in my fists, and sometimes I can feel the signals.

James: 07:19

I know what the signs are in my own body when I am getting frustrated or angry. I can feel that rising. And because I have a daily meditation practice, mindfulness practice, sitting silently, where I keep practicing letting go of things that rise up, One of the things that life has taught me about when I see those things rising in me, when I feel them rising in me is I don't have to let them out. I can let them go without letting them out in some kind of verbal expression. I don't have to say what's on my what's the first thing that comes to my mind.

James: 08:04

I don't have to type it when I see something on social media or an irritating email comes my way. I don't have to say it. I can feel it coming up, I can see it coming up, and I can let it go. Reactivity makes us feel powerful in the moment. We feel like we've said something and we've taken back a little of the power, but what we've really done is let go of any possibility of being the one who brings a peaceful resolution to a conversation.

James: 08:40

It becomes much more difficult when we let our reactivity run wild. Instead, we have created a situation where now everyone is riled up in that is engaged and it usually escalates back and forth. Reactivity begets reactivity begets reactivity. Well, if when I feel that rising up, not only do I practice letting go and if I can't seem to let it go, if I take an opportunity just to take a deep breath. Breathing out slowly.

James: 09:21

Now, you don't have to make the noise that I just did because then it sounds like you're sighing or you can it, you know, your frustration may show in your face. It just is the way that it is sometimes, and people will be able to read that, but they don't have to hear whatever the thought was that rose up in you. And so what would it be like to take just a little pause? You know, I was raised when you feel angry, count to 10. And if you still feel angry after 10, count to 10 again.

James: 09:55

You keep going, you let it go. So one way to do it is just to breathe. Another way is to have a simple mantra or breath prayer that you bring up. Be at peace. Be at peace.

James: 10:14

Be at peace. Have mercy. Have mercy. Have mercy. And you don't have to say that out loud like I just did, but you couldn't have read my mind if I said those things to myself.

James: 10:27

They can be something you begin or practice to repeat in your mind. And as you repeat those mantras, what's interesting, you slow down your breathing, you speak those mantras, and instead of focusing on what is making you angry enough to be reactive, you find a space to step back. You find a space to not react, maybe to simply respond. You get to make an active choice. Reactivity is less about your active choice and more about just self defense.

James: 11:09

It's that fight or flight freeze response that happens inside of you and fight is the first thing that comes out. You can calm the fight flight response inside of yourself, particularly when it s a conversation. There s a reason why we have the evolutionary need to run or to fight for self protection, but if we re in a conversation, we don have to fight, we do not have to run away, we can find another way. And so the breathing actually slows down the override of our brain that wants us to fight or run away. It slows it down by stopping to breathe.

James: 11:54

What ends up happening for us is in that moment we get to respond. We become calmer. We can perhaps respond more compassionately. There are everyday triggers that we all face. So, try a short breath.

James: 12:18

Try a mantra that might work for you. Try journaling about where you notice reactivity, what are the situations, and try to avoid those or at least prepare yourself for those moments when they come up. Finding what's underneath your reactive moments, that can help you learn more about who you are, because reactivity tells you more about who you are than who the other person is. Their statement might have said something about who they are, but the way you react, the way that you have a visceral response, that says something about you. Not about them, but about you, and about how you hear what they're saying.

James: 13:01

Choose wisely how you engage the world. Don't let your buttons be pushed. Be more like Jesus even when confronted in his everyday journey. He took time, he was slow about it, my favorite story about that is from John chapter eight when there is a woman caught in adultery and he writes on the, he writes in the sand. He takes time rather than react and say something immediately, he writes in the sand and then later when he has gathered himself, that is how I pictured anyway, he responds.

James: 13:38

You can do the same thing. Modeled it for us there and other places as well. So if you find yourself reactive, ready to jump on the next news story, the issues with shootings or other kinds of things that are happening, our political world in which we live, slow down, bring peace to the situation, not reactivity. And if you fail, there is always grace. There is always room to apologize and say I was reactive, I am sorry and try again.

James: 14:11

Try again and try again. No matter what though, remember this, you are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are. I hope this has been helpful to you. I welcome your comments and your thoughts if you would like to share them. Until the next time.