Wait One Second

Hey #fitfam

If you are a part of the newsletter, then you already know that the focus for this month is Purposeful Response. If you aren't a site member, you should definitely become one! ;)

It comes after a month of keeping in mind Intention. The idea for this month is that we have intention with how we respond to things. Purposefully responding helps us protect ourselves and our energy. It also comes after the last blog post, which if you read was what happens to the body under stress. After thinking about the body goes through, I started thinking about how to protect your body from emotional triggers.

There are so many triggers everywhere, daily.

How do we protect our energy from all the things that are jumping out to get our attention? How do we sift through the chaos?

Here's a general rule: wait one second.

When someone tells us something, or we hear something, if we just wait one second before we react, we will respond instead. Reacting is that initial instinct which can often cause us to pop off or say something we didn't need to. Responding, is considering the stimulus and then understanding and deciding what it means to us.

Taking that one extra second can be the difference in our bodies going through all these chemical and hormonal changes and not. Taking that one extra second can be the difference between having control over our emotions. Taking that one extra second can empower us to respond instead of react.

It's often now that we might hear something that might offend or upset us, to protect our bodies and our health, I think it is vital to understand the priority of what we are letting into our ears and brains... and ultimately, into our bodies. Is it worth our health? It is inevitable that we will come into contact with a situation that makes us bothered, and all we can do is control how we react to it.

When we take a moment, one of the simplest things we can do during that moment is ask ourselves, "why?" Depending on the situation, that 'why' might come in a couple of different forms. "Why is this bothering me?" "Why would this person say this?" "Why should I care about that?"

In a different way, say we are asked to do something in our training session with an expert BFT coach;) lol and say that the idea of what we are asked to do is intimidating or something that we believe will hurt us... sometimes, we immediately write it off with, "No, I can't do that" or "No, that will hurt me". Here is another time that it can be extremely impactful to take a moment and purposefully respond. Perhaps this way, "I am nervous to do that but I will go slow and try." To which an expert BFT coach will come back with, "Awesome, definitely stop if there is any pain." Sometimes, we quickly reject something that may in fact be good for us because of a reasonable fear or anxiety about something.

There is another side to this coin. Wait one second...

The other side to this coin is respecting your time. If you have someone who keeps telling you to "wait one second". At some point, we need to protect our boundaries by waiting the one second you think is appropriate to wait, and then moving on whether the other person is ready.

This one is just as important!

And we're not talking about those extra seconds that Coach Droany makes us hold the plank when he said ten more seconds and then counts double! ;)

Have you ever had your time disrespected and that caused you to get upset or bothered? Here is another example where we cannot control what someone else does but we can control what we do. We can establish a reasonable waiting time and then stick to it. Purposeful response. I will wait this long before I am moving on to the next thing. And then following, and I will not get upset when you stick to your boundaries.

Have you ever been that person?? I certainly have.

The purposeful response...

I have waited the specified time and now I am moving on.

I understand that I took longer than the specified time, so next time I will start getting ready earlier.

In thinking about purposeful response, we can remove emotions that might take away from our energy.

Just a little for now, I wanted to send a small reminder to purposefully respond instead of react. In doing so, we can protect our energy, we can keep barriers to our better selves down, and we can maintain our boundaries.

Feel free to add any input to this! I would love to hear your thoughts. I hope you have a great week, happy Monday #fitfam!!

<3 Coach Kwo