Our lives can be seen as a series of moment-to-moment responses. For each of us these responses are familiar, predictable and largely unconscious. In each of these moments we are unwittingly choosing how we create our world experience. A line often attributed to Viktor Frankl says, ‘Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.’
It can be hard to perceive this space, as these moments unfold so quickly with our responses seeming almost automatic. But if we want to create a different life, we need to connect to these moments to feel what’s there. For those of us who struggle to say no — what’s in the way of saying, ‘no’? What comes up when you even consider giving yourself some space to choose your response? Perhaps guilt, anxiety or even fear of what others might say?
I was with a client recently and we were processing a recent situation. We imagined what was going on in that split second reaction by playing it back in ultra slow motion — like the slow motion filming mode on your cell-phone camera. By doing this we could really feel what was going on in that moment — what was driving the seemingly automatic reaction — what was in the way of saying no.
This is an invitation to notice yourself — to observe your moment-to-moment reactions to the world — in doing so you can create a different life.