HURRICANE KATRINA –
LEARNING OPPORTUNITY TWO:

DO I REACT OR RESPOND?

How much do you allow yourself to experience your emotions?  How much do you allow yourself to truly experience your pain when you see the pain, anguish, agony, and the suffering of others?  To the extent that you can experience your emotions fully, you can respond to what you feel (make a conscious, and hopefully wise, choice).  To the extent that you cannot, you react (do what you habitually do).  Television coverage of the Katrina disaster gives you an opportunity to see great suffering every day.  Can you feel what is happening inside of your body when you see parents and grandparents looking for their children, when you see mothers and fathers looking for each other, when you see old and young people dying, when you see tens of thousands who have lost everything they have worked for all their lives?

Do you mask what you feel by going to the refrigerator, lighting a cigarette, or having a drink?  Do you indulge what you feel by lashing out in anger, judgment, or criticism, or spiraling down into depression?   Or do you allow your self to feel the depth of the pain in you – to actually feel the physical sensations in your body?  Especially notice what you feel in your chest, stomach, and throat/shoulder/jaw areas when you see the suffering of the people from the Gulf Coast.  Put your attention into these areas and see what physical sensations you find there.  Take note of them. 

Learn to experience your emotions in terms of the physical sensations in these areas (tightness, aching, throbbing, stabbing, etc.) because painful sensations there tell you that you are frightened, and that is a good time to pay special attention to what you do and say so that you will not do or say things you will regret later, or that will not help you or support others.  In other words, you can make a choice from a healthier part of you, even while you are frightened.

Every emotion has physical sensations.  Practice detecting them and while you feel them, even if they are painful (and you want to blame someone for what you feel), decide if there is a healthy response that you can substitute for your habitual (and usually destructive) reaction.  A response that will be constructive for you and others.

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With love,

HURRICANE KATRINA - LEARNING OPPORTUNITY TWO:
Do I React or Respond?