By Karen McMahon
Now you have watched yourself react to physical and emotional pain. As you resist the pain, it persists. Just as a fever and swelling is the body’s way of drawing your attention to a part of your body that needs your care, so too is everything that we feel. No matter what anyone ‘does’ to us, our reaction is all about us. It is an opportunity for us to feel and heal our pain and become healthier.
If someone is ‘pushing your buttons’ and upsetting you, you have two choices. One choice is to focus on them and how they have ‘wronged’ you. The other is to focus on yourself and why their behavior is setting something off in you. Even when the other person’s behavior is unacceptable, when we focus on them and their actions, we resist the pain and miss the message about ourselves. If our focus is on the other person and their actions, we have lost the opportunity to grow. Even more, we have invited the experience to return again and again.
Have you ever exclaimed, “Why does this keep happening to me?!” That is the persistence…what we resist will continue to persist.
If you continually feel like a victim in your relationships or a particular circumstance in your life, you are resisting the message, the opportunity to grow. You are focusing on the other person instead of your reaction to them. It is easy to do.
It is much harder to ‘release the messenger’ and ‘get the message’ and begin to do the hard work of looking at yourself and finding that ‘button’ that existed long before this person came and pushed it. By doing so, you are focusing on yourself and your ‘button’. You begin to heal old emotional wounds and create new and healthy ways of responding to others rather than reacting to them.*
The Gift in this process is that you become a more aware, healthier person. You don’t get so angry. You don’t feel like a victim. Your Pain Does Not Persist. You Begin to Feel Peaceful.
What has happened to you this week that has caused you angst? How could you have handled it differently be focusing on your reaction instead of the person who upset you? What are your thoughts on this concept? We want to hear from you.
*This concept is presented in detail in The Presence Process, by Michael Brown
Chief Visionary: Karen McMahon
Our team of coaches at JBD is passionate about helping men and women navigate the emotional difficulties of relationships, breakups and divorce. We work together with you to open the possibility that your current relationship challenges can lead to a rewarding voyage of self-discovery and an immensely more pleasing life experience. Together we create a path to clarity. Find out if Coaching is right for you, and accept my gift of one FREE session.
