Reaction VS Response: How to Choose Something That Really Means Something

As humans, we live in a constant state of reaction. This is to be expected, as in the early stages of humanity, we needed to be acutely aware and suspicious of our surroundings in order to survive. If there was a saber-toothed tiger around the corner, or if a rivaling tribe was about to invade our settlement, our fear and anxiety would adrenalize us into taking action to keep ourselves safe. But times have changed, and the dangers that have been hard-wired into our psyche, are not always as dangerous as they appear. Yet that adrenalized impulse to fight or seek cover still remains within us, and becomes the given response to everyday situations.

When a situation arises that feels out of our control, i.e. if we’re scolded by an employer, disappointed over an expectation not being met, stressing about financial difficulty, or even when experiencing physical discomfort or anxiety, it’s easy to forget the level of power that we hold in it. We become adrenalized in the same way as if there was a saber-toothed tiger ready to make a quick meal out of us. But there is rarely a predator around the corner, we do not always need to go to war to have peace. More often than not, that sensation of unease is self-created as a reaction to external forces, a callback to our old instincts that once protected us, but are no longer suitable to quell the subtlety of modern anxieties. These old instincts may also be more recently developed than we know, stemming from how we needed to evolve in our childhood.

If there was unrest at home that we could not resolve, we would have instinctually done everything possible to remove it from our awareness. Perhaps you hid under a blanket, became deeply fixated on that video game, or turned up your headphones when your parents would argue. It’s similar to the impulse from our encounters with the saber-toothed tiger, as how we once needed to act in the past, can play out in moments where it is no longer needed, often to our own detriment.

This can leave us in a state of constant fear and anxiety, because with no predator to vanquish, it will remain unresolved, leaving behind an undercurrent of tension that permeates through seemingly insignificant situations. For example, you may experience extreme stress and heaviness if you don’t clean your room, or if you make a mistake at work. Maybe you get into an argument with your spouse, or your child is acting out, and you don’t know how to respond. You know there is no material danger to your life, but that knowledge does very little to curb the stress and anxiety, and we can even begin placing judgment on ourselves for becoming worked up over small things.

We can start to see our reactions by greeting them with a loving hospitality, just as you would an old friend or a loved one. We can say “hello reaction, I see you, I hear you, and you’re okay just as you are!” This is an important step, to not hold any judgment towards our reactions. Should we get annoyed at ourselves for our feelings or how we react to a situation, we become like a dog chasing its own tail, creating an endless cycle of reacting to our reactions.

Once you begin to notice when you are in reaction, you can consciously say: “I choose this.” There is no need yet to analyze your feelings or change the behavior, it is simply practicing the recognition of choice. All we are doing is introducing a small, low-stakes approach to invite a new kind of thinking. As the great mathematician Albert Einstein famously said: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them.”

So if you wake up feeling depressed and spend all day in bed, instead of shaming yourself for being in bed all day, simply say “I choose this.” If you are feeling frustrated towards someone, and find yourself having imaginary arguments with them while sitting in traffic, take a short moment to say “I choose this,” then return to the catharsis of the imaginary argument.

As we practice adding conscious choice to our reactions, this will incorporate a greater sense of ability in our experience, and allow us to begin choosing differently if we wish to make our suffering different. I often use the example that when we are in reaction, we wear it like a cloak or a blanket that we pull over ourselves, becoming a veil through which we experience a situation. This is perfectly natural, but there is an immense value in posing the inquiry to yourself: “Do I need to be wearing this? Is this serving my most empowered self, and my sense of okayness in the world? What would happen if I took this reaction off and placed it on the floor?” If we decide even for a short moment to assume the position of a witness to ourselves, it becomes an incredible proving ground for shifting from reaction to response.

Reaction is an indulgence of our immediate feelings that arise from our circumstances, whereas response holds a sense of agency, where we get to choose how we meet what arises. A surprising amount of our suffering is based on the initial story that we tell ourselves about the experience. So if you find yourself struggling to feel peace, why not tell a different story about it? For example, if someone cuts you off in traffic, the first reaction might be annoyance and anger. Maybe you give them the finger, and think to yourself “That’s so selfish, what makes them so important?” Then you spend the rest of the drive slightly annoyed, and that annoyance becomes the foundation for your day. However, if you instead decide on the story that the other driver may be in crisis, maybe they are rushing to a hospital, or their very livelihood depends on arriving somewhere. Suddenly, you may feel a small sense of compassion amidst the anger, reflecting on a time when perhaps you were in crisis while driving. And you will notice that it actually feels really really good to decide to shift the reaction of anger to a consciously chosen response. You may even find that the rest of your day will inherently feel lighter and easier as a result.

The more that you practice incorporating this internal re-telling of stories in small situations, the more you will feel a quiet pride as you notice this ability develop. A newfound confidence may emerge, where you actually become less reactive and less twisted when things don’t go your way, because your way has become so flexible that even the most aggravating or difficult of circumstances invite a curiosity in how to meet it. And it is exactly this curiosity that transforms difficulty into a treasure hunt, where if one style of response is ineffective in granting peace, you choose to be creative, and try another. The experience of difficulty then becomes secondary to your primary directive of exploring how you can reshape an unwanted experience.

Initially, you might feel that re-shaping a difficulty is an impossible task, but that is why we start small. The small experiences of getting cut off in traffic or spilling coffee on yourself will become your greatest teacher. Then before you know it, you will become really well-practiced, and as crazy as it sounds, may even begin to enjoy the arrival of difficulty, because it means you get to choose something that really means something.