You don’t have to react.

What do you do when confronted? When someone calls whom you’d rather not hear from? When you disagree with someone? When your financial picture changes abruptly? When your car breaks down? What do you do? How do you feel? Do you react? Do you lose control somewhere inside to the point of not feeling well? Have you noticed you get triggered by certain things or people and not by others? Have you considered that you’re choosing to react this way? And at such a pace that one bad thing swells into several and everything seems hopeless? And that all of this swells up in a split second?

You don’t have to react.

These five words were given to me as a gift from one of my teachers at a time in my life that I definitely needed to hear it. I would recommend the same to you. Which is to post these five words where you will come into contact with them most over the course of the next month. Put a sticky note on your desktop, on your steering wheel, on your mirror, on your clock radio, on your refrigerator.

You don’t have to react.

Realize that you’re being given an opportunity with each confrontation, test, question, and challenge.

Start by getting to know which things “get” you. Be specific. Which person? Which place? At what time of day? After working a certain number of hours? Next, when the trigger finds you and before you react, simply stop everything in your mind and body for two seconds. Breathe one complete, deep breath, and instead of reacting like a mousetrap flying into the same destructive action you’re so very use to, wholeheartedly respond to what you’ve been given with your whole being.

You don’t have to react.

This will take practice. Keep this practice up for a month.

In a short time, you will give less power to those triggers and transfer more power to your self and your will.

This doesn’t mean go out of your way to avoid answering the phone or talking to certain people, but as you practice this, your nervous energy will solidify into something not so easily manipulated by the outside world. Good luck, and see if you can even have fun in getting stronger and feeling better.

You don’t have to react.


Jason Moskovitz, L.Ac., Dipl.O.M. is the author of Arthritis: Secrets of Natural Healing. Jason is a board-licensed acupuncturist, national diplomate of oriental medicine, herbal physician, nutritional counselor, and Tai Chi instructor at Tao Of Wellness. He has administered thousands of successful treatments in areas of women’s health, infertility, elder care, and joint pain. Jason teaches his patients how to embrace their ever-changing condition and all the ways in which the body can heal itself. Connect with Tao Of Wellness on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

*Photo Credit: Daniela Vladimirova via Compfight cc