Reaction and Response
When you accidentally touch a hot stove you don't think about what to do. The pain receptors in your hand send a signal to your brainstem that says, "Pain!", and your brainstem sends a signal back to your arm that says, "Pull your hand back!" Your hand doesn't send a signal to your brain that says, "Make a pros and cons list on whether or not you should pull your hand back." There isn't time. Something has to happen immediately. You have a reaction built into you, and you react.
It's the same with emotions. You don't look out at the world and think, "This might be a good time to start worrrying about a bunch of things from the political structure of society to when I'm going to be able to get to the store to pick up groceries." That's not what happens. You're just worried. When you're worried, or anxious, or sad, or angry, it's a reaction to your external environment. But that doesn't mean that you have no power or choice.
After you pull your burned hand back you have choices. A kid would probably just cry. Many people would run their hand under cold water. An experienced chef in the middle of the dinner rush would probably just ignore it, because burns are part of the job. How you respond is up to you.
It's the same with emotions. Something has happened to you, you're sad, or mad, or afraid, or all of that at the same time. Your reaction is immediate, it's automatic, you don't have a choice in that moment. But you have a choice in the next moment. Do you yell at someone? Pop a pill? Eat? Work? Call someone? Cry alone? Those are all possible responses. It's your choice. What you choose determines what happens next.
Fate doesn't just happen to us, we co-create it with the world.
There are better and worse ways to respond to things. Built into us as humans is the ability to change how we respond. We are growing, living beings. Change is part of the gig. When we learn to use our mind to be aware of our reactions, that's a response that we're choosing. When we learn to do that, we can be confident that we're able to handle the next big thing that comes our way. The next time we're happy or sad, calm or angry, we know we can handle it. That confidence is a good feeling.
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