Your First Reaction Isn’t Your Final Truth

First reactions, well, where do we start? I think in many cases we tend to believe that our first reaction tells us everything we need to know. We assume that just because we feel something immediately, because we get a gut feeling, the first reaction must be the most accurate one. But the truth and the reality in which most of us live in, our first reaction is just our mind attempting to make sense of a situation and to resolve it quickly.

Let’s think about how many times we predict the motives of people with no real evidence or asking any questions. We like to assign meaning to things before we start to gather information. We do this when we are in conversations. Sometimes it’s cute or cool when you feel like you’re aligned with someone so much that you believe you can finish another person’s sentences. It is sometimes, but in others it can come off a bit presumptuous. In cases like that, we can look a bit careless or that we want to hurry another on in the conversation for whatever reason.

With awareness, I wouldn’t dare ask you to completely ignore your reactions, your intentions, or your gut feelings. They are important. They can save our lives in perilous situations, or they can help us internally by helping us identify old fears, insecurities, or bad past experiences. These definitely are owed some attention. But the biggest mistake we tend to make is handling these reactions as if they are the final or definitive answers. Instead of allowing ourselves to become curious, we tend to become the judge and jury and start handing down final verdicts.

The more we allow ourselves to be relieved from accepting the very first story that pops into our minds, more freedom is given. We are allowed to pause and to observe. We are allowed to ask to think about whether we are reacting to something that is actually happening in that moment or is it something that we’ve seen and experienced before? In that pause is where clarity is born from awareness and the need to assume is cast aside.

I love when those Uncomfortable Truths emerge. Most people have the idea that wisdom is knowing all the right answers to things. But in truth, wisdom here speaks to know when to let go or when to resist engaging and providing an answer way too soon or without any conscious thought. Maybe the best or most appropriate response isn’t the one that comes the quickest. It may be the one that has been thought out with patience and learns to respond rather than react.

Stay mindful…

Rebirth