What is the difference between reaction versus response?

The role of the Amygdala is to constantly evaluate and integrate sensory information from our surroundings, assigning appropriate values. It regulates autonomic and endocrine functions, decision-making, and instinctive and modifying behaviours. Do you feel safe in your body?

Think about some statements or sayings you have heard, such as 'The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end' or 'It made my skin crawl.' Our body can pick up and give us information, indicating that we may not be safe with someone or in an environment.

Our second brain is our gut. Our intuitive brain (our stomach) intuits the environment, telling us whether we're safe. You may have been told to turn it off or ignore it.
I believe it should be our first brain. Our brain, the one in our head, overrides some of the information that our body is giving us. Our gut says get out; it's unsafe.

I wonder how many of you can put your hand up and say that you saw red flags or that your body was telling you to run, and you overrode it. I can because I did both.

There were times when I felt I needed to run away from the relationship, and I told him about it. I don't remember what was happening, but it played out as a comical situation, a bit like a 'Runaway Bride' moment, but without the horse and wedding dress.

My body was telling me to run away, and I was overriding that because this guy seemed so brilliant, so charming, so supportive, and yet that changed.
So when you think about a certain situation, is your body telling you something?

What is the difference between reaction versus response? And why would an emotional abuser like you to react?
Our brain is so clever; it shuts parts down to limit the damage. And something similar happens to part of our spirit; part of our soul breaks away, protecting part of who we were. An important part of the healing process is reclaiming those parts.

You play a role. The emotional abuser wants you to react, and it serves them in different ways. It shows that you still care, it shows that they still have control. It proves to other people that you are crazy and that they did nothing wrong.
When you're reacting, your wounds are running your life. You aren't making good decisions; you're in fight or flight mode, ready to fight with them or ready to run away. You’re reacting to words, emotions, and feelings; it might be something that you pick up on.

Responding is taking that information, assessing it, and evaluating it; the wounds are not in control. Being in control at that moment, making decisions, and cutting off that emotional supply to the abuser. You could walk away, shut the door, fall to the floor, and be an emotional wreck, but they haven't seen that, and they haven't got the reaction that they were looking for; that's what feeds them; that's their supply, that's their energy.

I will add some links at the bottom for grounding and breathing techniques. Another favourite is chakra balancing.
As a Reiki Master Teacher, I used to teach dry brushing, and I will put the steps at the bottom for doing that as well.

The ultimate goal is to be in a place where we can respond in a way that we can say later 'Okay, I did that bit well, the other bits I crumbled, but that bit I did well.' We can build on that.

Being in the body might feel as if it's the most unsafe place, but it isn’t. Being in your head is. You have been tricked into believing the lies about yourself, and now this is on repeat. And these earworms have infiltrated your thoughts and are talking to you, telling you all this information. The things that you've done wrong, that you've got wrong, everything that's bad about you, why you are unlovable.

Replaying the conversations. The reason they had the affair was your fault; if you had given them more attention, or perhaps if you weren't so vanilla in bed, they wouldn't have had to seek it somewhere else.

You may get stuck in rumination, replaying the conversations, 'If only and maybe', 'If only I hadn't done this,' 'If only I had done this,' 'Maybe if I hadn't', 'Maybe if I had', and then you get into a spiral.

Our brains are like storage cabinets, and we flick through these files. You’ve got like a little runner in your head; it goes running, searching for that information, searching for that scenario, searching for an event, for the time you said something. Looking for proof, but you've done this before.

The work that I do with Honest Conversations and WoundTalking© is finding where these beliefs come from, where they’re held in your body, and talking to them. By finding out where they come from, and who said them to you, you can challenge them; it's really powerful.

We're told to ignore our gut feelings. We then believe we are in a safe environment. And yet everything around you is picking up; it might not be safe. You're picking up on the energy of other people.

Remember we vibrate. We are exchanging information on a level that we can't see because we've got no physical proof.

Much like a physical wound, emotional wounds are held in the body until we can release them. Unlike a physical wound, it stays there. Bones break and they repair themselves, there might be trauma; bruises heal, and your body repairs itself. You might feel skin in that area is tender. Perhaps it was burnt or cut; the scar has a memory around it.

We are born to survive; a baby knows how to survive; it has an inbuilt warning system for the caregivers to say 'I'm hungry,' 'I'm tired,' 'I'm wet,' and 'I need contact.' It knows how to ask for what it needs; when those needs don't get met, it might learn that it's a fruitless task screaming and using all that energy.

You're told to turn off your intuition; the abuser doesn't want you to understand that they are deceiving you, whether that's emotional, physical, mental, spiritual, or financial; they don't want you to have that information so they contradict it, and it might be that that happened in childhood as well.

I'm just going to share with you an exercise called dry brushing.
As a Reiki Master Teacher, I taught an exercise called Kinyoku. It means dry bathing or brushing off; it's a way of getting rid of negative energy, like a Meridian massage.

This is a variation.
Sit quietly for a moment.
Make sure that you're in a safe environment, you're not driving or operating Machinery if you are and you're just listening to this then please don't close your eyes. If it is safe, close your eyes.

• Visualize a bubble of protection. Visualize a white light coming down towards the top of your head. Allow it to encompass you like a bubble. Once you are in that bubble, it’s protecting you.
• Take a few deep breaths in and out to calm the body down for a moment. You are saying to the nervous system it's okay, that it can step down for a moment.
• Sit with your hands in your lap with your palms facing up.
• Place the fingertips of your right hand near the top of your left shoulder, where the collarbone meets the shoulder. Lay it flat on our body. Take a deep breath in, and as you exhale, bring your palm across your body to your right hip. You are drawing a line across the body, then put your hand back in your lap facing upwards.
• Take your left hand and put that Palm on your shoulder where the collarbone meets the shoulder. Lay it flat on our body. Take a deep breath in, and as you exhale, bring your palm across your body to your left hip. You are drawing a line across the body, then put your hand back in your lap facing upwards.
• Take the right hand again up to the left shoulder and bring it down to the right hip exhaling, placing the hand back in your lap.
• Take your left hand again, put it on the right shoulder, elevate your arm, and place your fingertips on the outer edge of the arm move your hand along the arm towards the fingertips again exhaling. Place your palm facing up in your lap and you swap hands again.
• Take your right hand again, put it on the left shoulder, elevate your arm, and place your fingertips on the outer edge of the arm move your hand along the arm towards the fingertips while exhaling. Place your palm facing up in your lap and you swap hands again.
• Take your left hand again, put it on the right shoulder, elevate your arm, and place your fingertips on the outer edge of the arm move your hand along the arm towards the fingertips again exhaling. Place your palm facing up in your lap.
• Sit for a moment, and then notice a white ball of energy above your head.
• Allow it to enter your Crown chakra.
• The energy travels through your body, and it's relaxing every cell. As it flows through your body, it is clearing any negative energy, flowing out through the bottom of your feet.
• Take your focus to the top of your head and see the white energy wash over you like a shower breaking any connections that have been missed.
• Turn the shower off now.
• You can sit in this bubble for as long as you want, or you can get up and move around now.

There are so many different techniques that can help you rebalance and take control of your energy, and gradually over a period of time, you’ll start to trust your intuition again; your second brain will start to become alive.

Start to talk to your wounds if you'd like to find out more about wound talking or conversations. Drop me an email at info@innerhealingsanctuary.co.uk

Grounding Meditation - https://youtu.be/fpg3hHssSrc

Breath Meditation - https://youtu.be/AJrA7BGAiwI

Chakra Balancing - https://youtu.be/phw1HrIuKp0