03 Oct We have the ability to choose our response

When driving there are things we can’t control, such as what other people do on the road, the amount of traffic or what the weather is like. The only thing we can control is how we respond to these outside influences. Everything else can be taken away from us, but the freedom to choose our response in any given situation is ours and ours alone. However, quite often we don’t realise this, or if we do we forget, and instead of consciously choosing our reaction we leave it up to our subconscious. After all it is quicker and requires less effort. The issue is that our subconscious mind has been programmed over our lifetime, and usually, for the most part, it has been programmed not by ourselves but by the people and situations around us. This means that when we react to situations from this place, we aren’t in control. Our parents are, our old school friends and bullies are, the times we learnt to be afraid of things are. We quite innocently relinquish our last freedom to the people and situations of our past.

However, when we become aware of this and understand it fully we can turn the tide of our experiences and start choosing a positive response based on values and principles. Over time these positive responses become automatic as we learn to rewrite our subconscious and retake control of that place, but alas, it is not easy. Understanding what needs to be done is often much simpler than the execution, which requires persistent practice. Driving is the perfect mechanism for this practice. We can turn our daily commute into a technique for executing our freedom to choose. We can spend our time developing a focused mind instead of letting it wonder.

Start and finish your day with positivity, taking that energy into your work place and into your home.