“Human freedom involves our capacity to pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight” – Rollow May
Take a moment to reflect on the kind of experiences you have shared with your child. Some may be filled with absolute happiness, some may be filled with sadness, some may be filled with anger. If you take a minute to focus on the times you have had an argument with your child or gotten angry at your child. What do you think would have happened if you took a minute to pause before reacting the way you did?
Answers to this question would be different for each person, some may say that the reaction would be the same, but most would realize that the amount of shouting may have reduced. Every behavior one exhibits, at the time is the best one can do. In these difficult times, the reaction we put forth is the only option we can see at the time because our emotions are heightened at the time, which clouds our judgment and then our response.
Imagine, if we took a minute to recalibrate ourselves before reacting to everything that comes our way. It gives us a minute to breathe and stop thinking before bursting out into flames. Now, obviously, on paper and in this article, it sounds a lot easier than done, that is true. However, there are ways to take yourself out of a situation, when things get frustrating, a couple of them are. These techniques were explained by Daaji in 2019 at a workshop I attended in 2019 by Heartfulness:
- Excuse yourself from the room or where ever you are for two minutes, take a big long deep breath and exhale. The inhale from your left nostril and exhale from your right. Repeat breathing from alternate
- Sometimes, out of anger, you start feeling hot, to counter this reaction, drink a cold glass of water to break that heat
In case you want to know more about the Heartfulness Practice, the link for the website is https://heartfulness.org/us/
Metamorphosis 