How Can I React Less to Events in My Life?

For most of my life, I lived very reactively. But it didn’t seem like I had a choice. It just seemed that events happened and I would feel the effect of them. I thought that’s just how life is. 

I believed either that certain events make us feel in a certain way or that our personal psychology had something to do with it and some people simply react differently to different events. But still, it didn’t seem like that I had a choice either way.

Then, 2012 came along and I got introduced to something called The 3 Principles, which helped me get a deeper understanding of what my reactions were all about. I began to get aware that all my feelings are actually a reflection of my thinking occurring at the very moment I am having a reaction.

Now, some Three Principles coaches and teachers will tell you that as you understand the Principles and how the mind works, you will be less reactive. That is true, to an extent.

However, just because you understand the Three Principles, it doesn’t mean you’re never going to react or you’re never going to lose sight of how the mind works. I still do. There are times when someone says something or do something and I react, I’d get upset and have an unconscious reaction to my thoughts.

But that doesn’t mean the Principles aren’t helpful. They are still helpful because after I’ve reacted, understanding how the Principles are at play guides me back to common sense and to a better place – that is incredibly useful.

Also, there are times now when I’m just less reactive. As I’ve seen through some misunderstandings I had, I’ve just naturally dropped them.

And in the moments of my life where I do react, I don’t hold on to a reaction for as long as I used to. I used to overthink things for days and days about something that someone had said to me or something that someone had done. I’d fantasize about a clever thing to respond to them next time or how to get back at them. Now these things no longer make any sense, but this doesn’t mean I’m not reactive, ever.

There’s an interview I did a couple of years ago with Yayati Desai where we covered a lot of ground around this topic, his questions made the conversation really rich and I believe you’ll find it useful: