Dealing with Behavioral Patterns

Reddit Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Meditation/comments/1rcx8ht/comment/o722qf5/?context=3

In the beginning, it was very easy to over-exaggerate patterns. Overly excited, overly intense, getting shut down from a comment or thought. It was like witnessing a train wreck but have no levers. And you just get better at watching the drama unfold. But no control.

But over time, both through the practice of meditation and the practice of acting outwardly in the world with the intention of compassion and helping others, it slows down. Or at least, you start to see the gaps and the moments where the change can happen in the moment. Therapy has its place in this, but the real work happens when you’re outside the sessions.

Now that doesn’t mean you automatically choose the right path, you just start to see the gap.

And then you keep going. Years and years go by. You get into those same situations. Same problems. Same challenges. But the intensity is not as high. You start to see how the first knee jerk reaction sends a cascade of thoughts and actions into the moment of shut down or intensity.

You start to see it for what it is.

And then, if you are lucky, like as if you’ve been practicing all your life for this moment, if you can poke your head up at the same exact moment the situation occurs, you can break it. You can stare it with a moment of meditative equipoise, and it doesn’t arise again. And that is the freedom. Subtle. Sublime.

But your reality changes forever. Because now it seems as if the problem never existed in the first place. Like you have no memory of there even being a short down or a reaction or anything.

And then reality begins to warp itself to meet you in your new space.