How to Stop Emotionally Reacting and Start Consciously Responding

As human beings, whether we know it or not we all act as mirrors for one another; reflecting back and forth perceptions and beliefs that may or may not even be true. Jumping to conclusions about someone or some situation can often get us quite emotionally charged if our feelings are involved. And in most relationships, the state of mutual emotion pretty much sets the stage for the quality and duration of that relationship.

If things are “off” in a relationship, you feel it. You many fight the knowing, choose to deny or even be quite aware of it and choose to settle for or ignore it. But for anything to strive, relationships included, there needs to be balance. We live in a world of polarity with opposites like up and down, hot and cold, etc. and as this is demonstrated in Nature, our idea position for carrying out a happy, healthy life is to find that middle ground among the opposites; or what I like to call “Zero-Point” which I'll explain more in a bit…

The order of Nature is balance and it will always move towards balance whenever there is chaos or discord. Hence, balance is “natural” and absolutely necessary on this planet. Nature will always do it's best for the collective and provides quite remarkable examples of how keeping this order and balance is vital for all of Earth's inhabitants to not only survive, but thrive. Left alone, nature will always create systems that flow the simplest way without resistance…in other words, it acts like water, my friend. 🙂

Our bodies, minds, spirits, and emotions are no different. We too must be in balance for optimal health all around. However, being given free-will many of us make choices that are absolutely detrimental to our own balance. We can do this in many different ways by over-eating or eating only fast food, continually putting ourselves down or running negative thoughts through our minds over and over throughout the day, having no connection to Source or Self, and lastly, always living in “auto-pilot” mode when it comes to reacting from our emotions, rather than giving ourselves the time to make a conscious response.

We live in a society that teaches men to suppress their emotions and the results of so many generations of that has thrown the collective energy of the human race way out of balance. It doesn't take a genius to look around and see that we literally live in a “man's world” and that masculine energy has been dominant on this planet for far too long. We've seen this imbalance play out in the countless wars, killing, greed, etc. that have occurred not just in the US, but all over the world. This is not to say that men are “bad”, in fact the complete opposite. Men are incredible beings by natural law, but if we raise a fish to think it's dumb for not being able to climb a tree, well that fish just might get so resentful, have no confidence to speak of, and spend it's life thinking it's pointless…sound familiar to anyone?

What this can to to a person is unreal, and yet we do this to our children continually generation after generation with teachings such as men need to always be strong, show no emotion, and never cry. And if they do they are looked at as being weak because emotions are “girly”, right? WRONG.

Emotions are a divine gift that are there to simply guide us. “Negative” emotions act to shine light onto the parts of ourselves that need to be healed. And “Positive” emotions act to spark love, creativity, compassion and empathy. And just because we label these emotions as negative or positive, that doesn't mean negative emotions are bad and positive emotions are good. Both types are another example of our 3D world of polarity. Just as some people prefer hot climate over cold, there are those who tend to hang out on either end of the emotional spectrum.

But neither end is where we want to be. To maintain true and lasting balance, we must reside in the middle, or as I mentioned previously, rest in Zero-point. This is the neutral place of connection, observance and acceptance. We cannot change anything we do not first come to terms with and accept.

Those people who tend to hang out on the negative side include those that continually complain about their lives, or mistreat others. We can literally feel the energy of these people as most are repelled by it because it's draining and exhausting. People such as this have an unconscious belief that life must be dramatic and therefore they've created their own addition to discord.

Those who tend to hang out on the positive side have a completely different feel that draws you in and makes you feel comfortable, welcome and loved. This may sound like a great place to stick around and spend your time, however if we never come out of our comfort zones, there can be no growth. We might say we'd love to stay there, but trust me you would get quite bored very quickly. We need to bring what we learn from this end of the spectrum into the other and from there we create the neutral middle space of Zero-point; where we can see both ends in our peripheral vision and feel grounded and balanced by accepting both sides equally.

My personal belief on the point of life is to use our free will to experience the full spectrum of emotion and living in a world of dualistic polarity. To use the – side to learn, grow and expand and to use the + side to bring love into our experiences and form deeper heart connections with those in our lives as well as ourselves and Source.

We've all heard the phrase, “emotionally charged” before and there's a literal aspect to that phrase as emotion are energy and do carry a particular charge. While the true ends of the spectrum are only fear and only love, emotions can appear multifaceted. An emotion such as anger comes from fear, for example while an emotion such as joy comes from love. Anger, while horrible to experience yourself or to be at the receiving end of someone else's, is simply telling us there is a lot of pain present. People who hurt others were most likely hurt badly themselves as some point and until healed, the cycle continues.

So, how do use emotion to help us live better lives and stop being so reactive? I would first suggest learning about our vast spectrum of emotions and then see how many you can list on your own while noting those that you tend to feel most often. When we are consciously aware of which end of the emotional spectrum we are spending most of our time in, we are giving ourselves the foundation we need to make great changes in our lives that will bring us back into balance.

Too much time on either side of the spectrum will manifest discord in some way. Even if you are a strictly positive person, denying the other end of your emotion scale by repression or denial, you will eventually be forced to deal with the imbalance in some way whether it manifests in your health or your state of mind. Therefore, the second thing I would recommend is to notice how reactive you are to OTHER people being rude, mean, etc. If you tend to immediately fly off the handle, get insulted, etc. this is a key sign you may be seeking approval, validation, and self-worth from others.

In this case, I'd recommend practicing giving yourself that vital moment of choice before reacting, so that you instead give yourself the chance to make a conscious response. As I mentioned earlier, we are all mirrors to one another and often get caught up in the illusory reflections bouncing around all areas of our lives. But if we take one moment to stop, breath and remember that this illusion of separation has no power over you; it is simply a trick of the ego-mind, we open up a new channel. One where there is now a solid chance for peace, resolution, and growth. We owe that to one another and we absolutely owe that to ourselves. <3

Have a wonderful, neutral and  balanced weekend everyone! 🙂

Tamara Rant is a Co-Editor/Writer for CLN as well as a Licensed Reiki Master, heart-centered Graphic Designer and a progressive voice in social media activism & awareness. She is an avid lover of all things Quantum Physics and Spirituality. Connect with Tamara by visiting Prana Paws/Healing Hearts Reiki or go to RantDesignMedia.com

Tamara posts new original articles to CLN every Saturday.

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This article was originally created and published by Conscious Life News and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Tamara Rant and ConsciousLifeNews.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this Copyright/Creative Commons statement.