In my long journey traveling the spiritual path I’ve found that there are two main areas of benefit: making regular situations better and making stressful, upsetting situations less stressful and upsetting.
My experience has been that making the bad less bad has given me far more benefit than making the normal better.
What this usually entails is learning and practicing how to respond rather than react when something upsets us. Like when your spouse says or does something that absolutely infuriates us and we stop, breathe, take a few seconds…and then respond. Rather than…
Losing our shit and lobbing every low blow we can at them, which can result in a multi day cold shoulder stand off…or worse.
The problem is our short fuses
Every single one of us knows the conundrum here: That fuse that gets lit inside us when we get triggered is so damn short that we explode before we can respond! Usually in less than a second.
The work lies in lengthening that fuse enough that we have time to put it out before we rein holy hell on our spouse, work colleague, mother-in-law, etc.
The long-term solution to this problem is letting go of the ego that is the source of the explosion. Ideally, we get to a place where there’s nothing anyone can do or say that can trigger us into exploding because we’ve let go of our ego.
We need a practical strategy
In the meantime, we need to employ effective strategies for staving off the explosions and the resultant wreckage that often follows.
My strategy when devising strategies is always to start with the practical and logical. Just because we’re dealing with spiritual matters doesn’t mean we need to look for the ethereal and metaphysical for solutions.
In this case, practical starts with asking: What could I actually do to give myself a chance at not snapping right in the moment of upset?
For me, that’s having something I’ve already thought through at the forefront of my mind. I call it a go-to.
So we tell ourselves,
“Okay, next time I get all spun up, I’m going to do my utmost to go immediately to X.”
What is that all-important ‘X’ we should go to? There are many options. It could be:
“Accept.”
“Don’t resist.”
“Breathe.”
All of those are great, but they aren’t what we should go to first. It’s a question of order.
My middle of the night racing mind
This all came to me in the middle of the night a few days ago when I had a bout of racing mind syndrome. Anybody else ever had that? Ha ha. I haven’t met anybody who doesn’t get this at least occasionally.
My go-to was,
“It’s alright. This is just your mind going off on its own; it’s not you.”
And that’s a good go-to for that situation. But it didn’t work very well.
Why?
It’s about what we do first
Because I needed to do something else first. That something else is the point of this article.
It’s one word.
Relax.
Some of you might be thinking,
“He’s mentioned relax a zillion times in different articles. What’s different here?”
What’s different is that it occurred to me that relax needs to be our go-to for every stressful situation we face. Every one of them.
Triggering causes physical reactions
Why? Because when we get upset, we react physically. We release hormones like epinephrine, norepinephrine and cortisol, which speed up our heart rate, increase blood pressure and tense up our muscles.
“Accept,” “Don’t resist,” and even “breathe” are responses that require some level of thinking to set in motion.
But what we need is a mostly physical go-to right when we get triggered. It’s the only chance we have to nip all those hormones in the bud.
Relax is physical
Relax is that physical go-to. We know exactly what we mean when we say this word to ourselves.
It immediately conjures slower, deeper breathing and a general relaxing of our muscles. Closing the eyes can help us better focus on relaxing.
I don’t care what scenario you find yourself in, relaxing is the best thing to do right off the bat.
Your boss insults you in front of your colleagues? Relax.
Your teenage daughter says you look fat? Relax.
Your mind starts racing at 3 a.m.? Relax.
You hit the fifth red light in a row? Relax.
Bottom line: We need to feel relaxed inside if we are to respond rather than react to stressful situations.
Mickey Singer’s take on relaxation
My favorite spiritual teacher Michael Singer goes as far as saying that relax is the most important word in all of spirituality. I agree.
Best of all, it’s the greatest win-win available to we mortal Earthlings. How?
Win #1: When we relax through a stressful scene and respond from a place of presence, we achieve the optimum outcome and avoid disaster.
Win #2: Relaxing when we get triggered allows us to actually let go of the egoic baggage/Samskara that has been stuck in our lower selves, wreaking havoc on our lives. Each time we relax and let go we lighten our psychic load and become more peaceful and present.
As for the “how to” of it, there’s nothing magical involved. When we get triggered we relax.
Commit or it won’t happen
Most important is making the commitment to actually do this. We need to be vigilant about it. And give significant attention to it. Without that, this will be just another spiritual teaching that dissolves into the ether after a day or two.
Start by committing to just one day. Wake up in the morning and have a note by your bed that reads,
“Today I am going to RELAX immediately whenever anything stresses me out. Then I’ll respond with presence.”
It’s helpful to think about two or three things that stress you out on a regular basis. Could be your spouse/significant other, traffic/commuting to work, your boss’s comments, your thoughts racing in the middle of the night…
Just think of a few of them, no more than two or three, then visualize them happening. Then see yourself relaxing in response.
If you’ve already played it out in your mind, it will be easier to do when it actually happens.
The takeaway
This one is so simple, but so valuable!
Commit to it. Practice it.
Relax when you get triggered.
The pay off will be exponential.
Thank you, David. Such simple advice. But not easy. What I love is your advice after relax, namely, notice you’re being triggered and be willing to step back.
This is really helpful! Thank you! I’m going to use it when my inner critic or worry-about-the-future parts of me start up.
RQ 🙏🦋