growth and freedom

Last week, I posted a Viktor Frankl quote that seemed to resonate with a lot of people.

“Between stimulus and response there is space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

— Viktor Frankl

As someone who tends to be reactive (working on it...!) it can sometimes feel hard to create the space to choose my response.

If you you feel the same, keep reading...

Because here is the thing.

What I've learned is that being reactive is the easy thing to do.

When your partner does that annoying thing they do again and you just want to snap.

When someone cuts you off in traffic.

Or when you're flipping channels and see another story on the news that feels overwhelming.

It's easy to react.

What's hard is to create enough space for yourself that you can choose what reaction you decide to go with.

I took a poll and asked my Instagram community how they practice being less reactive.

The results were amazing!

I wanted to share the range of answers I received in case it helps anyone else as much as it did me.

The answers all tied up to a few main ‘themes’

• BREATHING

  • "Intentional breathing. Practice practice practice"

  • "Breath, awareness, and pause, 'you are reacting the same way again'"

  • "Count to 5 and take a breath before reacting (I only do this sometimes but it helps)"

  • "Take three deep breaths before reacting or responding"

  • "Breathing and focusing on that or calling out my intrusive thoughts"

  • "Close my eyes and take deep breaths"

  • "Take time to calm and breathe before I react, or call my mum 🤣"

• WRITING IT DOWN

  • "Janning!!!" (journaling and planning, coined by @KarissaKouchis)

  • "I've just bought a journal so when I am anxious and upset I will write it down instead of reacting"

  • "I write it down"

  • "Writing to untangle thoughts before responding/reacting"

• MINDSET

  • "Remembering all my emotions/feelings are ok helps to ease them"

  • "Think: 'why does this feel urgent?' and remember it's not"

  • "Reminding myself that these feelings won't last forever"

  • "Practice silence. All the time. If there isn't a thought in my head to speak, I don't force it but allow stillness to be there"

  • "Give myself time to feel what I am feeling and to identify if those feelings will stay or leave..."

  • "Think about how I feel when someone is super reactive/defensive to me"

I loved how much consistency there was in the responses, and yet enough variety that proves there are many ways to create this space for ourselves.

After reading through that list, which way of creating space resonates with you most?

And now that you're more aware of how important it is to create this space and choose your reaction intentionally, when things come up that annoy you—how will you choose to react?

Will you choose reacting with irritation, or will you choose reacting with empathy?

Will you choose reacting with anger, or will you choose reacting with love?

Will you choose reacting with fear, or will you choose reacting with courage?

Choose empathy.

Choose love.

Choose courage.

xx

Sarah