When we are in reactive mode, we are responding to whatever is going on around us. Reactive mode causes us to become prisoners of the moment. A prisoner of the moment is unable to see outside of what is currently happening or what has just occurred. We lose perspective entirely and our minds immediately go to worst or best case scenario when in reactive mode. It doesn’t matter whether we are reacting to something negative or positive, being in reactive mode causes us to entirely lose sight of our focus and the big picture. We think that what is happening right now is only going to get worse, better, or stay that way forever. The sight of future implications and past trends is completely gone.

Right now with all that is going on in our world, it is easy for our minds to get trapped in this reactive mode. There are constantly new updates and headlines that grab our attention and takeover our minds. By constantly checking the news and obsessing over every story and headline, we start to let these news stories and headlines dictate our own energy and optimism.

Most of what the news puts out is about problems, tragedies, or conflicts between different groups or individuals. The media loves to single out certain statistics while ignoring others. This prevents you from being objective and seeing a full perspective. All this negativity and misleading information forces us to see all that is wrong with the world. We start to lose trust in people and become skeptical of everyone and everything. This type of mindset is damaging to not only our mental health but also our relationships. We start to assume that everyone is conniving, deceitful, and trying to trick us.

The problem is that when we are in reactive mode, we lose control over our emotions. When we have lost control over our emotions, we have also lost control over our minds. In order to achieve self-mastery and be in a optimal mental state, we must be in control of our minds at all times. This is a power that we can never relinquish to anyone else. Whatever we react to emotionally, now has control over our minds.

So if we are reactive toward the latest headlines, breaking news, or whatever comment someone made, we have surrendered the power over our minds and given it away to whatever we are reacting to. This creates a sever in the connection that we have with ourselves. When we are reactive to what is going on around us, we get out of touch with what is going on inside of us. What is going on inside of of us should be our highest priority as it is the most important connection we have.

The battle for control over our minds is a daily battle that we must recognize is being fought out inside of us. It is a battle that is fought deep in the depths of our soul. We cannot consciously recognize it. But we are constantly being pulled in many different directions by various distractions which can include bad habits, instinctual responses, and opinions of others. The way we can always maintain control of our minds is by simply understanding that we are in control. We have the ability to control our thoughts, emotions, reactions, and decisions. Understanding the control you have over yourself, allows you to build a more trusting relationship with yourself. This helps you differentiate between what is helping you grow and what is a distraction.

So how can we stop being reactive?

It starts with distancing yourself from the present. In other words, taking a step back before rendering a decision, judgement, or opinion. When we immediately respond to something, that response comes from pure emotion. There is no logic or reasoning involved with these responses. We have all done things where we reacted in the “heat of the moment” but 15 minutes later, we completely regretted it. That is because our “heat of the moment” responses are impulsive and come from the animalistic parts of our nature.

They are natural reactions that we feel like we cannot control. That is because emotional reactions require no thought energy or reasoning power. Instead of immediately reacting to what is in front of us, we must first take a mental step back and use our logic and reasoning power. This allows us to gather our thoughts and try to make sense of what is happening or what has just happened.

The next step to get out of reactive mode is by not reacting to the effect but analyzing the cause. Meaning, instead of reacting to the problem, we need to instead take a closer look at the root of the problem. Many of the issues we face or the things we respond to are not new to us. Most likely we have dealt with some of these same issues and reactions in the past. For example, we easily can get caught up in news headlines or stories. The truth is though we have seen some of these same headlines and stories in the past, except now the result is slightly different. But most of the time what is happening or has happened, has already happened before, just in a slightly different context. A more personal example is when someone criticizes or judges you. Our natural instinct is to respond back with a criticism or judgment against them. Instead we must look deeper. Their judgement or criticism of you comes from a place of insecurity and pain. Instead we need to respond with empathy. Understand that you were just inconveniently their most convenient outlet to unleash their pain and insecurities.

When responding to anything or anyone, you must always keep a wide perspective. Never lose sight of the big picture. Most of the things we negatively respond to are rather meaningless in the grand scheme of life. Very few things that have a major impact on your life are outside of your control. This is why it is so important to never worry or stress about anything that you have no control over. Having a wide perspective is the ability to see outside of the current moment. The ability to understand that there is more to life and more to our well-being than just responding to what is around us. Your thinking is very limited when you can only see what is right in front of you. You will never be able to understand and fully comprehend the truth this way.

Another issue is that we accept everything we hear as fact. We tend to accept certain facts while ignoring others of equal significance. Understand that certain facts are only presented to distract us from the more important facts. This obviously prevents us from seeing the entire picture, which limits our ability to understand the truth. Our own ignorance is often to biggest roadblock on our way to truth and understanding. We settle and accept one sided information at face value. Settling is the easiest pathway to misunderstanding and limited perspective. We must commit to understanding information on multiple levels and various viewpoints. Being in reactive mode negatively affects our ability to reason and think through things logically.

How we lose our ability to reason:

The reason we lose our ability to rationalize is because when we are reacting we are not thinking. Our instincts kick into gear and we do whatever we have programmed ourselves to do. We become emotionally charged and our emotions drive us rather than our ability to reason. It is like not having a plan and just reacting based off what you encounter/experience. Like traveling to an unfamiliar place with no map or GPS. There can be no intentionality when we are in reactive mode. This is especially true when we receive bad news or come across something that sparks an emotional reaction in us. It could be something we heard or read on the news. In our minds we immediately formulate this emotionally charged response. We want these emotions to be validated so we unleash them to the world or those around us.

Our emotions are extremely powerful. Emotions can be the driver toward unbelievable bouts of creativity and inspiration. While emotions are both important and necessary, they should never drown our our reasoning and rationality. Our ability to think and reason for ourselves is our number one superpower and we must be in control of it at all times.

Reactive mode causes a rushed mind. A rushed mind is unfocused because it is too busy responding rather than reasoning. Think about times where you were in a rush. Maybe you were late to an event or a meeting with someone, or maybe you were just trying to get something done. It is likely that in this rushed state of mind you forgot something important. Perhaps you forgot your phone, wallet, or a small but important detail for a project. This happens because when we are in a rush, we are too busy reacting. Smaller details get glossed over because your mind is not attentive. The reason you forget things when you are in a rush is because you are not thinking. When you are in a rush your instincts take over and our impulses are always stronger and louder than our reasoning. Rushed thinking never leads to positive results.

The only way to truly combat this is by being attentive to both your thoughts and emotions. You have to catch yourself when you begin to react before you fully react. The next time you come across some bad news or someone who disagrees with you, instead of reacting, pause and think. Be mindful about the response that you are about to give. Take a moment to think about the future. Think about how the way you respond or react right now will affect you in the future. Sacrificing long-term consequences for short-term pleasure is never the way to go. This is how we create cynicism and pessimism. We give all the hard stuff to our future selves. We don’t want to deal with something now, so we put it off for our future self to deal with. This is completely backwards. We should be doing the hard stuff now, to make our future easier to navigate. The unknown is hard enough to navigate on its own, don’t make it harder for yourself

Conclusion:

Fighting our impulses is extremely difficult. However, the more we resist our impulses the less effect they have on us. Our impulses lose their strengths and grip over us the more we resist them. Eventually, we will get to a point where we don’t even have to think about resisting our impulses. Naturally, responding with logic and reason will become second nature to us. The impulses you receive will be the feelings you want to release but pausing to think is what you should do. The way you create good habits for yourself is by doing things you should do but not necessarily want to do. The things we want are not always necessarily the best for us.

It is easy to be reactive to what is going on around us but it disturbs both our inner-peace and the connection we have with ourselves. To get out of reactive mode we must be able to step away from the moment, elevate our perspective, think long-term, resist our impulses, and search for truth rather than settle for it.

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