Yesterday my daughter Juniper was at her Fun in the Sun camp and she got into a slight altercation with another girl. This girl was bothering her and wouldn't leave her alone, so my daughter decided to kick her, at which point this girl became very upset and kicked her back. From there, both girls experienced distress and had to be calmed down by the teachers.
My wife Keri told me that after hearing about this incident, instead of punishing or judging Juniper, she decided to teach her about the art of non-reactivity. This basically means that you simply notice the momentum taking place in your thoughts and feelings without reacting to them. In this instance, Juniper would have cut through the desire to fight back, instead choosing a more creative and helpful approach.
Now, what's interesting about this is that Juniper was able to receive this lesson quite naturally. She really 'got it' that she was just perpetuating harm by choosing to react with violence, both to this other girl and to herself.
What I notice time and again is that most adults were never really taught how to do this. In our education growing up, we simply weren't taught how to be aware of and train our minds without judgment or reactivity. I believe that this is one of the main problems our society faces. We are taught how to be capable when it comes to managing the external world, but we simply don't have a deeply built in context for sanity and balance when it comes to our internal world.
This is in part why we suffer with addictions, stress, and health problems. When we have a thought that we want something, we will often just react to it compulsively, without a real clear awareness of what our motivation is and where it's coming from. When we have the thought, 'I want a cold beer', off we go and the beer is down our throat before we even know it. Or when we are bored, we often think, 'A bowl of ice cream sure sounds good', and we indulge the craving without really looking at the nature of our boredom. Or we get caught in distractions with other people that are based on our own reactivity.
The idea here is that if we really want a meaningful, fulfilling, and successful life, we have to learn to train our minds just as we have learned how to do so many things on an external level. Sure, it is an advantage to start this process when you are 8 years old like my daughter, but really it is never too late. A very simple exercise is to just start paying attention to your thoughts all day long. Notice what direction they take you in and to what extent you react to them as if they are inherently real and solid. It is quite interesting to experience the illusory nature of thought- the reality that you are not your thoughts. You can actually just watch them unfold in space without reacting to them.
Doing this on a regular basis sets the stage for a more conscious and empowered relationship with your life.
Kevin Doherty is a licensed acupuncturist, life and business coach, and the author of The Purpose Principle: 11 Strategies to Help You Experience Ultimate Freedom in Your Health, Wealth, and Love Life. To get a free copy of Kevin's Purpose Principle ezine and to learn more about the book, go to http://www.PurposePrinciple.com
