Six Steps to Freedom and Intentional Responsiveness

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Six Steps to Freedom and Intentional Responsivenes
s

• I have found that fear, anger and irritation are
  like an affliction, and a serious impediment to
  open communication and healthy relationships of
  all kinds. Discovering methods to deal with these
  challenging emotions is essential in leading a
  healthy well-balanced, harmonious life. It is
  important to realize that anger has its own
  function, intelligence and logic and so we should
  not entirely try to eradicate it. After much
  trial and error, I have come up with my own
  practice for regulating strong emotions and being
  patient and more authentically responsive through
  these six steps to mindful anger management and
  intentional responsiveness. Spirituality can be
  the medicine for all that afflicts us.

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1. Recognizing Notice with equanimity a familiar
stimulus which habitually pushes your hot buttons
and triggers an unfulfilling, retaliatory
response such as harsh words or unfair treatment,
which might very well provoke retaliation in
kind. Stop for a moment, however brief, to
breathe, reflect, and simply relax.
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2. Recollecting With remindfulness, remember the
downsides and disadvantages of returning hatred
with hatred, anger with anger, harm with harm.
Buddha said, Hatred is not appeased by hatred.
Hatred is appeased only by love. And recollect
the upsidethe significant advantages of
practicing patience, forbearance, tolerance and
stoic acceptance of karma and its repercussions.
In this second step, find and mine the sacred
pause. Rest in it. 3. Refraining and
restraining, through reframing See things
through the others eyes/point of view
cultivating feelings of genuine compassion for
those who harm you, knowing that they are merely
sowing the seeds of their own unhappiness and bad
karma. Examine things from the others
perspectives turn this over like a stone to see
all sides, recognizing others suffering. To take
it one step further, practice recognizing the
adversary or critic as a teacher, a friend, an
ally in helping us develop patience and overcome
unconscious, habitual, and unproductive reaction
patterns. The most difficult person or situation
can become our greatest teacher, our greatest
opportunity.
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4. Relinquishing Give up habitual conditioned
reactivity and let go of impulsive urges in favor
of more consciously chosen intelligent
responsiveness. Accept the fact that such urges
arise, dont suppress or indulge them. Let them
be without acting on them and you will find that
they ultimately dissolve. 5. Reconditioning and
deconditioning habitual reactivity through
remindfulness Recall the entire situational
dynamic you have now reviewed, while refraining,
relinquishing and reflecting on how little it
will matter in a few months and years letting go
of unwholesome reaction patterns. 6. Responding
appropriately, intelligently, consciously,
choicefullyproactively, rather than reactively
In some cases, this may translate into doing
nothing or in other cases responding with
equanimity ultimately making wiser, more
skillful decisions based on conscious awareness
and experience. Article Source
 https//lamasuryadasmarried.wordpress.com/2016/0
4/16/six-steps-to-freedom-and-intentional-responsi
veness/