Reactivity means different things in different contexts. In this context reactivity means changing your behavior when being observed. This may be necessary for maintaining privacy and security. If you’re typing confidential banking information in a crowded office you will be more cautious than if you were doing it at home. However reactivity based on superficiality may be exhausting. For example dressing or putting on a show for others is reacting out of vanity.
Unobserved an individual may ‘dance like nobody is watching’ because nobody is, but be tense and insecure in public.
Meditation Increases Our Overall Understanding Of Ourselves
Meditation increases our awareness of our reactions and makes us less critical of them, enabling us to understand our psychological reactivity so we know what to change.
Meditation exposes us to an unfabricated reality, that is not constructed by a mind conditioned to think only within certain limits. Exposure to unfabricated reality pushes us into unfabricated actions which have no hidden meaning or agenda.
We are thus better able to analyze the how, what, when, where and why of our reactions.
How: Commonalities in how I react.
What: Commonalities in what I react to.
When: Commonalities in when I react.
Where: Commonalities in where I react.
Why: Commonalities in why I react.
Understanding Leads To Freedom
Using this knowledge we can free ourselves from many of the negative reactions we experience.
It is amazing how awareness can break negative reactivity. Just being aware of what we are doing can break a cycle. Awareness may also spark a set of actions necessary to free us from self-defeating patterns.
Freedom is when we are not living in a state of reactivity and our actions are clear with no hidden agenda behind them.
Once we cut the unnecessary reacting our actions can be fluid and clear with no hidden agenda, making us lighter.
How Meditation Helps Us To Understand Our Psychological Reactivity
Meditation quiets the mind.
Quieting the mind allows us to observe ourselves without adding unnecessary criticisms.
Observing without adding anything extra gives us a deeper understanding of our reactivity.
Meditate
The technical details of how meditation brings us to a greater understanding is complex but you can start your journey by simply being still and silent for 10 – 30 minutes each day.
