One of my favorite quotes is:
“Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and freedom.”
~Viktor Frankl
This quote means so much to me because I recognize myself in it.
I recognize that the ways in which I’ve chosen to respond to life over the past decades have served to keep me stuck, rather than to grow and evolve into the best version of myself.
For decades, my response to my circumstances and my own thoughts was to escape through food and overeating, bingeing, and purging, and subsequently gaining weight. Then I would beat myself up for my behavior and perpetuate the cycle by responding to my own reproach by continuing to turn to food for comfort.
In that space between my circumstances and thoughts and my responses, I was frantic, agitated, full of despair, and wanting nothing more than to be elsewhere. My response was to numb out with food. I left very little room in that space for calm, peace, contemplation and reflection. My goal was to move out of that space as quickly as I possibly could.
Over the past several years now, I have worked to cultivate a new space.
In this new space, I pause and I breathe. Slow, gentle, deep breaths.
There is no rush, no emergency.
In this new space, I have an abundance of compassion for myself.
In this new space, I show up to simply be, feel, and listen.
In this new space, I slow down and check in with kindness. and examine what has triggered me.
In this new space, I release judgment. I choose to allow, accept, and embrace emotion rather than resist and make it bigger.
In this new space, I ask myself, “What do I really need right now? How can I best support myself?”
Then I listen for the response.
When I’m patient and still, the answers will come.
Instead of food, I often need:
~rest
~reassurance
~a break
~to move my body
~to be in nature
~a simple change in scenery
~connect with a friend or loved one.
At that point, I ask myself how I can give myself what I most need. I ask if I need it right away or if it can wait until I’m in a different place.
The important thing is that I remember that I always get to choose.
This recognition that, in any given situation, I get to choose what I will do is both my growth and my power. For someone who has felt like she was at the mercy of her urges and impulses, this realization has been life-changing.
My power lies in how I show up for myself.
I choose to show up for myself with love, compassion, an open heart, and a willingness to see that things can be different from the way that they’ve been.
At any given moment, I decide consciously what comes next.
Even if my decision is to eat the food, I accept it without judgment. I am at peace with the decision. This act, in and of itself, is revolutionary. I have been programmed to choose the food and then hate myself for the decision.
Now, if I choose the food, I choose the food. That’s it.
If I choose to respond differently, I respond differently. That’s it.
One choice is not inherently better than the other.
That’s power.
It is the power of awareness.
I am aware of my thoughts and my feelings.
I am aware of the habitual ways in which I’ve responded in the past.
I am aware that I can continue to choose the response I’ve always chosen or I can choose to do things differently.
That’s growth.
My life, imperfect though it continues to be, is vastly different than it was five years ago.
Living consciously in the space between the stimulus and the response has changed my life.
Yes, I fall back into old patterns of belief. But I become aware of where I am pretty quickly. And then I choose what to do next. With compassion, curiosity, and kindness.
This is a stark departure from feeling powerless over my choices and my life. I know now that I always have to power to choose differently and change the direction of my life.