Breaking the habitual loop

Messy, as well as happy, sad, great, bad, is a relative and conceptual idea that we are fed. When we perceive something, we go automatically into a judgemental mode to react. Our reaction might be based on our past experience, what we're taught or what we need to do to fit in. This is totally humanly okay, but the inertia of going automatically into our habitual concept and reaction, is not okay. We miss the opportunity to listen, to comprehend, to connect and see the situation as it is. We see it as what we want or were trained to see. We compare, we judge. We go into the same loop again and again.

At this point our immediate reaction will be, "Here it goes again!" While feeling it comes from an external source, there're more to be done internally.

When the same loop is arising, and you are about to jump in it... if you could just pause for 10 seconds before saying what you usually say, feeling what you usually feel and thinking what you usually think... or a few milliseconds... you'll be surprised. Because essentially things are starting to look new, interesting and fresh.

Things can't be both boring and interesting, or both annoying and pleasing at the exact same moment. When you pause for that ten seconds, you get to choose. Path A is the habitual self, path B is the mindful self who sees it as it is. Not necessarily something new and fresh, but I'll try to respond differently.

Will the outcome be the same? I don't know, but the process will not be the same.

Newton's first law of inertia: an object at rest remains at rest, or if in motion, remains in motion at a constant velocity unless acted upon by an external force.

A habitual reaction, or THE LOOP, is recurrent in us unless preceded by a conscious mind, a pause and a few breaths.

Jalan Tun H.S. Lee & Jalan Sultan, February 2017