What Reactive Behaviors are Showing You About Yourself

Posted On July 6, 2016 / Written by Dr. Linda Gadbois

Reactive Behaviors show you the Areas of your Life that you’re still Unaware of

In order to understand this idea, we have to look at the nature of a reaction, and what’s actually happening when we react, as well as what it means to “heal†in the sense that it’s being used here. Someone who acts to stimulate you into a reactive state because of how they’re being, what they’re doing or saying, or how they’re treating you, shows you areas about yourself, that you still remain unaware of,  either through denial, repression, or conditioning of some sort. Anytime we begin reacting, we switch into a form of auto-pilot, and literally go unconscious to what’s happening and what it is we’re actually doing. We’re being “controlled†by the person or idea that’s eliciting an immediate reaction in us. Because of this instant, automated factor, we not only create out of an unconscious state, but we do so by repeating patterns born out of memory of the past, which is what gives us the pattern necessary to act out in an automated fashion, requiring no awareness or thought process on our part as to what we doing and why, let alone realizing the consequences we draw to ourselves while in the illusory state.

Reactions come through associations of some sort that instantly references a memory where the same type of idea was being played out (which is the triggering mechanism), where we pull it out, superimpose it over the current situation using it to perceive it through, making it about the same idea, and act the same way we did in the memory, by making what’s happening in the present mean the same thing as the past. Our mind registers that “this†is the same as “thatâ€. Because we make it mean the same thing, and therefore react in the same way, we can be triggered into a blind reaction by a behavior, tone of voice, a feeling, an attitude, an emotional state being demonstrated around us, the words being used, or through an idea being played out that we have strong emotional ties to that form what we call our “issuesâ€.

Reactions can be both of a good nature, stimulating positive emotions that bring about pleasurable experiences, or of a bad nature that stimulate negative emotions that are painful and violent, and ultimately destructive in nature. But no matter the nature of the experience it causes, it comes as being controlled by whomever or whatever is causing the reaction, and going unconscious in our own life and acting in a way that creates our experience, shapes us by way of our own self-created experiences, and renders a like reaction to our actions as a chain reaction, where what we do in a reactive state becomes the cause for producing an equal or greater reaction in others, which becomes self-perpetuating and gains momentum through escalation. This is the most basic form of repeating the past in the present, or being a product of our conditioning and what we call karma, and the basis for all “sin†as creating while in an unconscious state and unaware of what we’re doing, and therefore creating in error.

The opportunity being offered anytime we’re feeling stimulated inside to instantly react to something outside of us in a pronounced and intense manner, is it allows us to see what idea as a conditioned memory is still alive in us, able to be activated and repeated in the present, causing more of the same ideas and situations as in the past. In shows in what ways we are controllable by outside forces, and how we keep repeating the past in the present as a means of determining our future. It allows us to see what our karma is as unconscious tendencies that we repeat over and over without any actual realization of what we’re doing. It allows us to see things about ourselves that we don’t normally see or recognize, because we’re covering them up or justifying them (as being real) through the story that we keep telling ourselves about them that make them seem real and true, and therefore justify our right to feel the way we do and “keep†them.

By realizing this ability to show us aspects of ourselves that we remain unaware of, where we build an illusion around it through the story we tell about it that makes it appear different than it really is, we fail to own it or be able to regulate it through awareness and willful action. If we completely remove all attention from the outside source causing the reaction, and instead place all of our attention on what’s happening inside of us that has nothing to do with what’s happening outside of us, we can see a process that takes place, instantly forming a “version of reality†that we systematically superimpose over the present situation as a means of instant interpretation that has a whole, preprogrammed pattern of behavior inherent in it as what we did before when the same thing happened to us. If we refrain from actually reacting while still letting the process that’s going on internally continue while observing it, we can notice what memory we associate to it, reference in relation to it, and use as an automated program for repeating a past idea by acting it out. We can notice what begins running through our mind as a story we start telling ourselves “about†what’s happening and what it means about us, other people, and the way the world is in general. Through reactive behaviors we repeat the patterns of the past in the present and they set the basis for our creating more of the same idea in our future. If we turn all our attention inwardly while allowing the reactive state to continue playing out in us, we’ll get a very clear idea on what areas in our life still remain unresolved and alive inside of us, that we’re continuing to create out of.

Through awareness alone, we can see our own internal process for how “we create†the reactive state as a means of cooperating with the same quality of consciousness in the present that we did in the past. We can witness what we’re doing to create our reactive state. Nobody ever “makes us†do anything, they just provide the stimulus for us to do it to ourselves. We create the inner state which produces the outer behavior as what we call a reaction that’s compulsive in nature. Nobody ever really controls us, we simply fail to be able to control ourselves, and in doing so, allow ourselves to be controlled by others. Because we imagine that something’s being done “to us†by another, we claim no responsibility for our own actions, and instead blame it on the person causing it. Blame itself is an illusion, because our internal state is always being conducted by us, and whatever is being done to us, is being done by us through a lack of self-awareness as to who’s doing the doing. So by becoming aware of what memories we have associated to reactive tendencies, and how our memories of the past continue to define us by shaping our experiences in the present, we can neutralize the “triggering mechanism†as an emotional charge, and in doing so, consciously decide how we want to perceive and respond to whatever is happening in the present moment, with full awareness of what we’re doing and what will result from what we’re doing.

Most of our memories as our primal conditioning are created by the mind of a child ingrained with a certain nature, predisposition, temperament, and tendencies, as an “interpretation†of events and activities in order to make sense of them, which comes by way of the meaning we give them that fashions the story we begin telling ourselves about them as a result. This story, formed from the imagination, intelligence and emotional state of a child, forms our “core beliefs†as the reality of our story and what’s required to sustain it, which is a personal creation as an illusion, which continues into our adulthood, where we continue perceiving reality according to our childhood story. Our beliefs shape our reality, not in the literal sense of the external elements themselves, but in terms of what we see and don’t see in any situation and how we interpret it to give it the meaning it holds for us as the means of experiencing it, while shaping our identity by way of our story about things. In this way, our memories, which are formed largely through an imaginary process of storytelling based on not knowing the true reality or other facts to what’s going on and only viewing it from “our perspectiveâ€, becomes our programming as our perceptual lens and mental filtering system, which forms the basis of all our perceptions of what we call reality, which is in fact a subjective experience of an outer objective reality. In this way our beliefs replace “actual†objective reality as an illusion that becomes a delusion, because we live out of this illusion as though it was true and thereby making it true for us.

As we witness the whole process that’s taking place within us, and being conducted by us, while shutting off all reference to the outside conditions and circumstances prompting the internal process, we can see clearly the illusion of it. We can see what we’re doing to ourselves to create the emotional state of the reaction. Through this self-awareness of the true reality of the situation, neutralizes the emotional charge as the triggering mechanism, dulling

the compulsiveness, and in that moment of calm where their used to be a storm, we realize we have a choice. We can choose how to first perceive it in a new light from a new (mature) perspective by staying in the present with what’s actually happening now, and how we want to respond accordingly. What originated as a thoughtless, knee jerk reaction, becomes a thoughtful relaxed response. In this way, the only thing that has changed, is that we took control of our own internal process instead of forfeiting it to others. We move from being “other referencing†to being “self-referencingâ€. By becoming aware of what we were previously unaware of, it loses its grip on us, and we find ourselves easily taking control of what was previously out of control.

Once we realize that our “perception as an interpretation†is actually something we do with our mind as a process of association and referencing the past with the present, we can actively engage in incorporating new models and paradigms necessary to form new types of experiences. We can literally take control of our own internal mental processes and direct them in an intelligent and deliberate manner by learning how to work by way of the laws as natural processes of the mind to create reality as a personal interpretation of what originates from a neutral set of events, completely devoid of personal meaning. Things only mean what we make them mean. Meaning is something we assign to material things as a way of interpreting them through a story about them as a way of experiencing them while simultaneously fashioning ourselves by way of our own perceptions. We can realize, that any time we experience being controlled by somebody else through a reaction were forming to them, we can realize that what’s actually happening is we are failing to take control of ourselves and turning over that right to another by remaining unaware of our own internal experience as a creative process. As we become aware of how we create our experiences, and we learn how to take control of our own internal processes, we come to a place where we no longer react, and instead remain relaxed and calm inside, and able to think clearly through an isolated state of inner peace. By taking control of our own mind, we exist in a constant state of introspection, that once we master, forms inner peace as self-awareness, responsibility, and competency in regards to our own self-creation and soul evolution.

Dr. Linda Gadbois

Transpersonal Psychologist, Mind-Body Medicine Consultant, and Spiritual Teacher

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