I am so £ucking angry, except I am not.
Let me rephrase that, I am aware of trigger points.
No that is not what I mean either.
So the above few lines are a bit like my head is sometimes and the impression I give to people, particularly the people who are closest and I have known the longest.
Headspace
The meditation app on my phone tells me I have enjoyed 508 sessions lasting an average of 22 minutes each since signing up in 2013. Add to this at least another 50 sessions in other apps, Echo mindfulness workshops and sessions on Copass Camps and OuiShare retreats.
I think I have just about talked myself down off the window ledge now.
The Angry Bird?
My mate Victor talks about the gap between “stimulus and response” – I first read this about fifteen years ago and it was another one of those sentences where “I so TOTALLY agree with that!”
However, if you’d asked me to explain it, build it into my daily routine or even read the sentence again my head would have fallen off.
Choice
So the gap between “stimulus and response” is of course “choice” and when you work out how to stop in that gap your reward is choice.
Actually the reward is for other people.
When I stop there I get the choice to be an arsehole and shout, loose my temper and make a snide remark OR choose to take a breath and listen to you, work out a question to move the situation forward and not erupt.
I Did Not Know I Had A Choice
Right now I am looking for a way to convey to #Babybernie that he has a choice.
In the heat of the moment he’ll scream “xxxx is making me do YYYY” and I’ll say “no one is making you do anything.”
While that might be true it is not very helpful, it is just becoming my trigger response.
Which leads me back to the beginning of this blog. I am hardly ever actually angry these days.
What I am is a slave to the habits and knee jerk reactions I have worked hard to develop over the course of my life.
Impatience, learned helplessness, despair, shouting, not asking genuine questions.
Why should anyone think I’d be any different to what I was?
