The first time I heard it I didn’t take it all in. It just seemed to pass through my brain with little effect. 

“The only thing you can control is your reaction to a situation.” 

Seems simple and yet these words have had a huge impact on me my life and the person I am. Really think about it, the only thing you can control is your reaction. Not someone else, not the world, not anything.

 It was a great relief and also eye-opening,  really internalizing these words and putting them into action. I stopped stressing about other people’s reactions, I cannot control that. It is not my reaction. I stop and think about how I want to feel because just like I can only control my reactions others cannot control my reaction. Every time I heard my brain say “they made me feel”, I stopped and I said it again: “the only thing I can control is my reaction”. 

Why was I letting others have so much control over me. Why was I trying so hard to control the situation and the people involved. Trying to say the right thing to get them to respond how I wanted. That’s manipulation if you didn’t know. Manipulation and control go hand in hand. It all got to be too much. Too much stress, too much drama, and too often my feelings were hurt and I had all the people to blame. It wasn’t fixing anything I didn’t feel better. I was losing friends and all that control was squeezing the life out of my life. 

Then I took these words deep into my brain, into my heart, and really applied them to my whole life. When I got upset I asked myself, “is this the reaction I want, is this how I want to feel, why was I letting people control my reactions”. Now I stop and ask every time, when I am frustrated I remind myself “the only thing I can control is my reaction, how do I want to react?” He or she made me feel, is a thing of the past. Well not completely, I’m not a monk but when my feelings do get hurt and I start placing blame and pointing fingers I remind myself that I am letting them have control of me by reacting this way I need to think about my reaction and the consequences of them.  How do I want to feel and what am I going to do about it.

Just think about it!

I leave you with the words of a wise Man

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