Understanding the impact to the quality of our minds when we are in reaction is a powerful resource for navigating our relationships, our business and our lives.

Any reaction is noise in the field and it blocks fresh thought, creativity and flow. It begins to shape the way we actually see the situation and then we respond from a limited view or perspective.

A simple example of this is when we respond to someone in a moment of anger or fear and as soon as the words are out of our mouth, we immediately think, “Oops. Wish I hadn’t said that!” Or something occurs in your business and you get worried, your emotions rise, you feel a strong urgency to fix it fast and then you respond or strategize from that space. And often bring others into the mess.

This points to a reactive mind vs a clear mind.

I’ve seen this for myself and my clients. We spin. We take action with a limited perspective and a reactive mind and then we often have to backtrack, clean-up or start over when our minds settle. As they naturally will. All of us have been on both sides of this equation. The ones reacting and responding or on the receiving end of someone else’s reaction. When we’re on the receiving end it’s often easier to see the reaction. And if we’re being honest – we see the waste of energy, the lack of clarity or we just don’t like it.

When we are reactive, there is internal noise. That noise impairs our thinking. It begins to cloud our minds and distort our view of things.

Seeing our reactivity is a powerful realization. It instantly gives us more perspective and helps us navigate tough situations.

As soon as we SEE, we are more present in that moment then we were the moment before. With that presence and perspective comes higher quality thinking. We are able to see the situation and our potential response with more insight and more clarity. We get to the heart of the matter more quickly and we save ourselves from having to clean up the messes of our reactive, impulsive responses.

You might be saying, “Ok. I can see what you’re saying. So, how do I get from reaction to clarity?”

In the below video, I share how our minds are designed to clear. Left to their own devices our minds will settle and our reactions will dissipate. Throughout our day, our minds fluctuate from constriction to clarity. There is nothing to do to get a clear mind, it’s our home base.

In the moment we see our reactivity, we are already turning the tide. We can back away from the reaction. As we do that, a momentum of clarity is already underway. A little perspective goes a really long way. It gives us what we need in the moment. The quality of our thinking immediately improves and only gets better the more our minds settle.

We are empowered when we are able to distinguish, in the moment, our reactivity vs our clarity.