The Benefit of a Knee-Jerk Reaction

They don't feel good, so what could be the benefit?  It gets my attention regarding something I really wanted to be paying attention to anyways.

Recently I had what I would call an intense knee-jerk reaction to an email I received.  Now this is not my first rodeo.  I have had plenty of knee-jerk reactions, and so you would think I would handle it smoothly.  Nope.  My immediate reaction was I wanted to blame/hold responsible the email's author for the way I felt.  And boy was I feeling it.  

But that's the good thing.  It really got my attention and when that happens I know I have a button, a hot spot, that I am wanting to let go.  Once I identified what was really going on for me, what it was pointing out to me, what I was believing about me and the other person, I realized I had unconsciously been feeling a low hum of those feelings for a while -- a program running in the background if you will.  And as I looked at it, I could see my part in it, I could see that it's tentacles were reaching out into many different areas of my life, and most importantly I got a real good dosage of clarity of what I wanted instead of continuing to carry/protect/be right about this button.  It was like WIRA was jumping up and down, waving it's arms, trying to get me to hear, "You are done with this.  Set it down.  Come this way."

Will I stumble over this belief again?  Very Likely.  
Will that be my last knee-jerk reaction?  No way!  
Could I have done all of this more gracefully?  Sure!  

So, maybe the next time I am in the midst of a knee-jerk reaction I could follow it with another knee-jerk reaction a little quicker.  I could remember that nothing wrong is going on, my guidance system is working perfectly, and then I can get on with clarifying what it is helping me to see and understand.

It took me over a week to get back to the upward spiral on this one (sometimes it has taken less, sometimes it has taken a lot longer), and as I sit here now my heart is full of appreciation.  The payoff is an even better view from the upward spiral, and I know it was time for me to hear that one and move on. 

LOP is paying attention to what is getting my attention.