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React or Respond- what to do?

Taken from Coach's Corner Newsletter,
November 2007 edition

React or Respond- what to do?

What works best? Reacting or Responding? Where do each of these come from?

You know how you heard the line " there's good and bad to everything" well, I was thinking about these two words the other day. React / Respond… Here's what lead me to that point.

Recently, I was out making a purchase with a credit card and did something very unlike me. I did not return the card to it's usual place in my wallet. For some reason, I tucked it into a pocket of a suit I was wearing. And promptly forgot I did that.
Two days later, and I took my husband out for dinner as a thank you for helping me set up and take down a big display. As I took out my wallet, well you guessed it- no Visa card. I stayed calm, and looked again, and again. I simply chose another card, and calmly decided to look in a few places when I got home. I chose not to go to a place of bad conclusions.

Now you may not know it, but the 'old me' would have had a fit. I immediately would have Reacted to the whole situation and not been able to keep my cool. The old me used to have many times when I'd have panic set in in these types of situations. Not a good feeling. "Esther Hicks, author of 'Ask and it is Given' says that there are only two emotions- one feels good and the other feels bad" . I used to have the market covered on 'bad feelings', and that was by choice.

So, because I remained calm this time, it resulted in me being able to 'ask' for help in finding the card.( note; I call upon my unseen helpers and guides when I need to) Pretty soon, I had a sense of a pocket, somewhere. I kept focused on that, not going to a worry perspective at all. In no time at all I was shown the blue suit with the pocket… and when I reached in, there was the card. It's all good ! ~ Thank you, thank you ~

So, would it have been any faster to find the card if I had reacted in the first place, by spinning into a fear mode that my card was possibly stolen? No.
Don't get me wrong, there are key times to react in life. Like the times you see a small child run into the street. Your split second reaction to yell their name is a good thing in that instance.
We are hard wired to survive, and with that comes our ability to react fast when needed.
The key is to know how we can serve ourselves best when we simply respond to a situation that is not life threatening. Responding comes from a place of love and reacting comes from a place of fear. Any fear based thinking produces a kind of chaos in our minds that keeps us from moving forward. It's very debilitating.

As a key example, over my years of volunteering in prisons I learned of many a time guys got themselves into more deep trouble by Reacting badly when another guy 'cut in' in the food line, for instance. The food was not going to run out, so no need to have feared that, but that is what years of living on survival mode does to your spirit. Taking a nanosecond to chose to respond rather than react may have meant the difference whether they ended up in solitary confinement for a spell or not. Drastic measures for something not so big in the first place.

Point to Practice:
Be happy knowing we all have the choice to react or respond to any situation we find ourselves in. More times than not, we can keep our own blood pressure in check when we take time to respond. Thank goodness! Where can you respond this month?

Cathy Clark is a Personal Professional coach with over 7 years experience helping people learn how to utilize the Law of Attraction in their career, business, or just plain Life - get what you want, not what you don't. Cathy can be reached through her website, www.coachingwithcathy.com or by email, cathy@coachingwithcathy.com.


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