As we stand along the great waters of life, we will always have the choice to make. Each morning we have a choice: everything is happening for me: an attitude of gratitude or everything is happening to me: an attitude of grievance. We need to pick a good one!
Viktor Frankl illuminated this when he said “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms-to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances”. He went on to comment “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
In the book “Book of Joy” the Dalai Lama tells of his friend, a Tibetan monk, who was arrested by the Chinese when the Dalai Lama had to flee to India. The monk was sent to a camp where he was brutally tortured. Through all this, his biggest worry was that he would lose his compassion for his Chinese guards.
He went on to comment…“No dark fate determines the future. We do. Each day and each moment, we are able to create and re-create our lives and the very quality of human life on our planet. This is the power we wield…..”
The space shown in the picture below is what davidji calls a “pattern interrupt”. Can you create a “pattern interrupt” before you respond? Will the best version of yourself respond with empathy and compassion? “In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Davidji calls this pause a ‘pattern interrupt”. In order to move from stress to restful awareness, we need to introduce “pattern Interrupts” into our daily routine when stress arises. It allows us to step aside from virtual world of the uneasy memories of the past and the anxious thoughts of the future…back to the only reality…the present moment.
Pattern Interrupts are a break in the steady stream of thoughts going through the mind. It is the break that is important not the duration.
Pattern Interrupts allows us to respond from the reflective place not ingrained reflexsive response! It is important because we do not want to respond from the conditioned mind. We are looking for fresh reflective responses.
We always says someone made us angry. However, no one can make you angry … YOU CHOOSE TO BE ANGRY! We choose our response. No one makes us crazy. YOU ALLOW YOURSELF TO BE CRAZY. We get to choose how we respond.
Wayne Dyer always said in these situation “pick a good one”.
