This is the first of a 3 part series:
4 Reasons Knowing Your Personality WON'T Help You Change (pt. 2)
The 2 Forgotten Steps Between Reacting to Responding (pt. 3)
So often we have these spontaneous reactions spring from us. Reactions we later regret.
Instead of being responsive and adaptable, instead of pursuing connection over protection, instead of doing the loving thing, often we react by doing and saying things that “we would never do”.
We reacted with protection when we wanted to respond with connection.
How do we get there? How do we make the change?
Failing Strategies
How do we get to the place of spontaneously responding the way we want?
Here are a couple of strategies that sound promising but disappoint.
Will It: “I will just decide to try harder and do better next time.” In our culture, this is our go-to move. We are a frontier society, a “can do” and “don’t tell me what I can’t do” culture, a mind-over-matter kind of people.
The trouble is that our “will”—what we decide to do in the moment—is to slow for how fast life comes at us. The “wrong will” seems to take over, and as Paul says, “I do what I do not want to do” (Romans 7:15).
Education: “I need to learn more so that my behavior changes.” This is also a go-to move for us. I was taught that “Learning is half the battle” (thanks G.I. Joe).
But like willpower, ideas do not automatically change our semiautomatic reactions. Better ideas do not help us move from reacting to responding.
Mindfulness: “I need to live in the moment better and be mindful of what’s present.” For some, it seems that mindfulness is the cure for everything. And certainly, we need to become more mindful to each present moment.
But mindfulness is more of an indirect practice that builds capacities that are useful in shifting from reacting in protection to responding with connection. Mindfulness can help create a space to make these shifts, but won’t make all by itself.
Hoping: “I hope it will be different next time.” Practically this is where many of us end up. We are just too exhausted, too defeated, to discouraged to muster up the energy beyond hoping and praying for something different.
And of course, we know this isn’t really a strategy. :-(
So, in reality, you can't just go directly from reacting with protection to responding with connection.
Join us for another Attaching to God learning cohort, and learn how to quiet an anxious and avoidant faith by attaching to God and others (starting soon).
The Fateful .5 Seconds
We have non- or pre-conscious and semi-automatic processes happening in our brains that occur about .5 seconds faster than consciousness.
This .5 seconds is why you reflexively remove your hand from a hot surface before you consciously feel the pain.
This .5 seconds is why you are startled by a loud sound before your conscious mind tells you it is just the dog in the other room and not an intruder.
This .5 seconds is how you keep the car on the road without really thinking about it.
And this .5 seconds is why you react from protection instead of responding with connection.
Our rigid reactions spring out of us .5 seconds faster than our attempts at willpower, the implementation of education, or a shift toward mindfulness. It comes too late.
Our rigid reactions spring out of us .5 seconds faster than our attempts at willpower, the implementation of education, or a shift toward mindfulness. They come too late.
Moving Up to the Conscious Mind
So how do we change these rigid reactions?
Well, it takes work.
We have to move up a level, into our conscious and deliberate minds and selves, in order to change our rigid reactions to loving responses.
So the first two ‘Rs’ of transformation are “reacting” and “responding”.
In the next posts, I’ll talk about the two ‘Rs’ that help us get from one to the other.
Join us for another Attaching to God learning cohort, and learn how to quiet an anxious and avoidant faith by attaching to God and others (starting soon).