My Anger of Insight

“Between stimulus and response there is space and in that space lies our power to choose our response…” Ever since I had heard this statement from a Senior leader of the organization I had joined as a programmer during my induction, it remained with me. Probably merely as knowledge / memory. Quite motivated by that inspiring and insightful speech, I bought my first ever self help book (7 Habits ) from Shanbagh’s premier book stall on my way to M.G Road office , immediately after walking out of that induction meeting @ Lavelle Road. It is altogether another matter that it took almost 4 years for me to progress from the first chapter and complete the book. I managed that feat only during one of the Y2K projects when I could not take that boring work anymore. After that I did spend a good amount of time and energy trying to increase that space. But as the saying goes, at the end of day proof of the pudding is in the eating. As I had more “reactions” over the years than the “responses”, I am fully aware that, that space is Work in progress. . I did have my moments of glory when I did respond really magnificently under very trying circumstances. Those were really rare and indeed few and far between.
I had realized that I do need to do some more work on that to make it an Understanding on last Saturday. I had reacted in anger on two separate occasions in unrelated incidents within a few hours. First with the Engineering team of a developer / builder and second time with a good friend of mine. It won’t be fair for me to depict those situations as it will be rather a subjective one sided view. But it would suffice to say that regardless the nature of stimulus I did not respond. Probably I was too angry than necessary, the bad feeling did stay lingering inside me for another 24 hours.
As I had found out in many wonderful occasions in my life, cometh the hour and cometh the hour and cometh the man. A very good friend of mine, who had not called me for a very long time, called and realizing that I am not in the best frame of mind, was kind enough to share one of his life changing experiences. Probably loving kindness has this power of even moving providence and all sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. Soon I had the chance to see the wonderful speech of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is a Harvard-trained brain scientist who suffered a stroke in 1996--at the age of 37--in the left hemisphere of her brain. She spoke of her experience at the 2008 TED Conference and wrote a book titled "My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey". This is the 90 second rule from the book “My Stroke of Insight” (Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor): When a person has a reaction to something in their environment, there’s a 90 second chemical process that happens in the body; after that, any remaining emotional response is just the person choosing to stay in that emotional loop. That is, something happens in the external world and chemicals are flushed through your body which puts it on full alert. For those chemicals to totally flush out of the body it takes less than 90 seconds. This means that for 90 seconds you can watch the process happening, you can feel it happening, and then you can watch it go away. After that, if you continue to feel fear, anger, and so on, you need to look at the thoughts that you’re thinking that are re-stimulating the circuitry that is resulting in you having this physiological response over and over again.
So it is a remarkable point. Nature permits you to be in that state for a maximum of 90 seconds. (One might wonder why 90 Seconds. A research says that when people wait up to about a minute and a half, their sense of how much time has elapsed is fairly accurate. Anything over ninety or so seconds, however, and their sense of time distorts—if you ask how long they’ve been waiting, their honest answer can often be a much exaggerated one. So probably the inner timer works that way. )
So as long as one is able to lead oneself those 90 seconds with awareness when you really feel that adrenaline rush without choosing neither flight or fight reactions, one is able to respond and absolutely ensure freedom and happiness not only to self but to others as well. I think the passive "flight" response is repression and denial of anger for safety and aggressive behavior is associated with the "fight" responses.
As I had already stated: “the proof of the pudding is in the eating”.. Sooner than I had wished I had to discuss a rather serious matter with my better half ( in all respects) who perceived my stated position about that matter was way off the mark. Even though I did feel that rush of anger in those initial moments, I was prepared for those initial moments, to my surprise I spoke with so much clarity and objectivity and solved the matter.
So it does work. I can vouch for that.
Life is often bizarre, not easy and magnificent. Most often magnificent.
With this note, without much ado, I wish to end one of the chapters of my life.
My blog sundaysamabar.blogspot.com.
As Budha had stated some 2000 years back, Law of impermanence is applicable to everything. Sincere heartfelt appreciations for reading and responding (& not reacting to my attempt at Writing.).
One never knows, about tomorrow.
But no more serving @ Sunday sambar 