Maria Arpa
This week
Resistance to vulnerability
Plus…
Maria’s Midweek Mindfulness
and
The Wednesday Whisper
Being triggered by external stimuli
This quote by Bruce Lee elegantly puts into words something that I have
been teaching for a long time.
So, someone says or does something you don’t like and you notice a trigger
going off in you.
What should you do next?
Slow down, breathe, listen to your internal reaction, feel it in your body,
name it and sit with it until the trigger passes and you can contextualise
the situation.
What’s the worst thing you can do next?
Enter the court room in your head, line up your defence, fire off messages
and do anything to avoid feeling vulnerable.
The main message is that getting triggered does not constitute an
emergency. Whenever I get caught off guard I work on remembering that unless
there is a fire, a tsunami, a hurricane or a mad axe murderer in my
vicinity, then it can usually wait until I have regained my equilibrium.
Without labouring our family situation, my daughter is learning to master
this over and over again, as her ex-husband expends a huge amount of energy
trying to intimidate her using a variety of ‘within the law’ tactics
designed to disrupt and destabilise. The irony is that the more he tries,
the more I regard him as a tiresome piece of admin.
Maria’s Midweek Mindfulness
I love the wisdom that comes with age and having been round the block a few
times.
The Wednesday Whisper
What or who triggers you and what steps are you taking to minimise the
disruption?
Would you be willing to send this out to anyone you think might be interested in getting a little dose of mindfulness each week?