Reaction & Response

Suddenly , a cockroach flew from somewhere and sat on a lady. She started screaming out of fear. 
With panic stricken face and trembling voice, she started jumping, with both her hands desperately trying to get rid of the cockroach.
Her reaction was contagious, as everyone in her group got cranky to what was happening. The lady finally managed to push the cockroach to another lady in the group.                                                   Now, it was the turn of the other lady in the group to continue the drama. The waiter rushed forward to their rescue.
In the relay of throwing, the cockroach next fell upon the waiter. The waiter stood firm, composed himself and observed the behavior of the cockroach on his shirt. When he was confident enough, he grabbed and threw it out with his fingers.                              

This incident taught me a great lesson -The women reacted , whereas the waiter responded. Most of our actions are Reactions and very seldom our actions are Response.
We should not react in life , we should always respond. 
Reactions are instinctive, given to us by society. Whereas response is always our choice!!!

WHAT IS EMOTIONAL BLINDNESS?

I have been giving Reiki Sessions to my friends,clients since 21 years. And during these sessions, there is one phenomena which has caught my attention. It is EMOTIONAL BLINDNESS. I believe many of us suffer from Emotional Blindness to some extent.

Emotional Blindness is turning a blind eye ( avoiding, neglecting, running away) to our emotions. I have seen in some people this has become their habit, this has become their second nature. There are many reasons for this trait. One of the main reasons is our up bringing, we have been taught by our parents, society et al since childhood that to cry is unmanly. We have been taught NOT to cry, not to express emotions of weakness. And the result of this upbringing is suppression of feelings.

Another bigger reason of Emotional blindness is Our Mind. We try to analyse the emotion, instead of living the emotion. Analysis of our emotions will lead us no where. Mind can create a dummy solution to feelings of pain. This should be avoided. 

 This often leads to addiction, increased, unnecessary mental activity, diseases and many more complexities. Also, persons with this syndrome exhibit a crooked behaviour. They have good intentions, but will go out of way , to the extent of being crooked, to achieve their goals. 

This syndrome is deadlier than a disease and gives rise to many diseases like epilepsy, depression, paralysis etc. The pattern gets embedded in the psyche and slowly it becomes part of the DNA. 

To heal this pattern, it is necessary to have the awareness that One is suffering from Emotional blindness. It can be easily healed. All that is required is to admit it, accept it and then let the emotion run its course by not opposing it. People generally oppose the negative emotions by reasoning, judgements or analysis. Emotions, to be healed, need to be experienced. If denied, they gain strength and have a hidden power over our psyche.

Do I have a choice?

In recent past few days, I have witnessed mass hysteria and mass euphoria in my country, India. Our Prime Minister announced a very tumultuos decision of  abolishing Rs 500 Rs 1000 notes all of a sudden, this caught all by surprise. All those people who have some undeclared income in form of hard cash are furious with the government. Whereas there is a large section of the public who are hailing this decision of the government as historic and notwithstanding some troubles a common man will face for a few weeks, this section of the population is pleased with the announcement for some reason.

Similarly, the same day this announcement was made in India on evening of 8th November, United States was voting for the Next President. When the results for 45th Presidential elections were announced on 9th November in the United States, there has been a big fury of anger and resentment in some section of the population in USA who view the President Elect Mr Donald Trump as not worthy of President's Office.

Throughout the three days I have witnessed heated debates in India between people who support the demonetisation move on one hand and those who oppose the move on other hand. I am seeing a similar feeling of anger, and resentment prevailing in USA citizens.

I have been pondering whether a common man like myself has any choice in this matter? I am a citizen of India, my life is going to be affected by the government's announcement to a large extent.In the short run, there will be many adjustments and compromised that I will have to make. In the long run, may be there will be some beneficial effects also of the governments move. But the central question that has been going on in my mind is whether I have any choice in this matter ?

Yes, I have a choice in above situation or for that matter in any other situation.  And I believe that I do have a choice. The situation is offering me new opportunities to look again at my life and to find out exactly what are the choices. After some contemplation I find that contrary to popular belief,the situation is providing me with  MORE choices than I had ever had before. All the big denomination notes will be of no value for at least a couple of days, also, the money in my bank account is of no use as Banks have long queues and ATMs are out of cash.

I started looking (paying close attention) to my default response to the above situation: My inner dialogue was something like this -  I am finished, I am devastated, I am less if i do have cash in my purse. I realised that this is not my reality. The default dialogue kept repeating to me that something relly big and bad has happened. I could see that all my life I put lot of value, in fact more and exaggerated value to Money. And I found that my happiness does not depend on MONEY alone.
In found that It (the defualt dialogue) is NOT my choice. My life goes on whether I have money in the wallet or not. I realised the futile, endless chatter of my mind which was not appropriate with my conscious choices. I choose to give more of myself to the life. I choose to welcome LIFE without any conditions. I choose to enjoy whatever Life is presenting in this moment.