Throwing Fuel on the Fire

Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today, I'm going to talk about slowing down and stopping reactivity. So we've probably all experienced times when we feel that rush of anger rising. Perhaps someone says something that triggers us, you know. And then a thought arises.

How dare they or oh, really, is that what you think? Let me tell you. So if we actually start to fixate on thoughts like that in those kinds of moments, we feel upset more and more because it stokes the emotion, it stokes more anger, more reactivity. And then as our anger intensifies, the mind responds by creating more angry thoughts, then those thoughts magnify the emotion, and you can see how this just kind of creates a vicious cycle. And we can easily get caught up in that cycle of kind of throwing more fuel on the fire of that original moment of being triggered. Let's say someone cuts in front of you in a line.

You know, you feel that initial flame of annoyance perhaps. But then you throw fuel on it. How rude. You know, now anger's moving all through the body and you think, what the hell is wrong with this person? Doesn't he care about anyone but himself? So selfish. Now you're really simmering.

And with every reactive thought, you feed the fire and fan the flames until you can barely contain yourself. You know, we've all been here at one time or another. But what we often don't realize in those moments is that it's our thoughts that are blowing things up and making things feel a lot worse. But if we can learn to recognize in that first moment of being triggered that we're triggered, and we take a mindful pause, we can deescalate things. We can make the choice not to throw more fuel on the fire.

It can be helpful here to take a few deep, slow breaths in that moment when we're first triggered, and then mentally note the emotion to ourselves. You know, ah, okay, anger's here, or, okay. I'm being triggered. Then we can make a conscious choice not to throw any more fuel on the fire, not to escalate our anger with more reactive thoughts so that they can cool and pass on their own. This is the invitation for today and ongoing, whenever you get triggered, take a pause, breathe deep, and try not to add any more fuel to the fire.

In this way, you train yourself to become a non-reactive person and promote more peace, both within and without. So I wish you well with this practice. And as always, thank you for your practice. Let's settle in for today's meditation.