On Tuesday, I posted a challenge on Facebook for all of you peace pioneers, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how many of you were ready to take it on.
For those of you who missed it, here’s the challenge:
For one week, when faced with an emotional trigger, wait 5 minutes before responding.
In those five minutes, you can scream into a pillow, journal about your angst, run around the block, or try a million other stress-relieving exercises.
Then notice the change in your response to the situation.
What’s the benefit?
Do you know what can happen in the five minutes that you’re NOT reacting?
- Your heart rate can slow
- Your breathing can return to normal
- The adrenaline in your blood can level off
- Your mind can clear
- You can think logically
- You can become calm
What does that mean for you?
It means you can respond instead of react.
You’ll be more likely to let logic take center stage, rather than emotion.
Can you imagine how different our interactions would be if we used less emotion when dealing with someone who drives us up a wall?
Instead of reacting with a judgement-filled tone, blame lingering in the air, and words we can’t take back — we might actually move through the interaction with minimal damage done –- to both parties.
And guess what follows?
That’s right, the absence of repetitive internal dialogue about how unfair things are, of how horrible we’re treated, of how we let the other person get to us, again.
We might even be able to go on our merry way, feeling stronger.
I know some of you may be worried that you’re going to fail at this, but don’t be. Because I’ll tell you right now, you won’t succeed at it every time.
You might only succeed at it one out of every ten times. And that’s OK.
It’s that ONE time that will make the difference for you.
So, are you in?
Since this blog is for you, we’d love you to share two things: your tools and your results.
- Please, share the techniques you use to cope with the emotional flood that can so easily drown all of us – and help others benefit.
- And be sure to let us know what your experiences were like with this challenge. (How difficult was it? How many times were you able to follow through with it? Did it make a difference? Flops? Successes?)
Don’t think you can do it? Post here and let the wisdom of our readers guide you.
And for extra support, join our member’s community. There are a great bunch of women in there, always looking to give and receive comfort and encouragement.
© 2011 Jenna Korf All rights reserved
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