Response timing
Firefighters are really heroes who understand that their quick response could save a life. In their training, safety and timing are priorities. Regular human beings don’t get that same training and rely on their lizard brain bits to provide the training on when to jump into action. There are also events that create those same fight or flight feelings in us. If there are many instances of this feeling, it normalizes the response and it is more difficult to decrease the repetition because it gets automated. Timing is really everything.
Appropriate Response
Responding appropriately to daily events takes a lot of practice. Luckily, life provides us with a lot of experience to try different tactics. Most of us wander through life doing what is right in front of us. We clean up the messy things, we complete the tasks at work that come up in email or meetings, we attend the activities as they appear on the weekly schedule. In the doing, we aren’t checking out what is coming up that might need a more nuanced response. The to-do task completion prevents a future more appropriate response. Again, timing is everything.
Ability to Upgrade
What really has to be done must be completed pre-response. The more appropriate method to increase ability is to tackle those three R’s again. Not the ones from elementary school, the adult ones. Let’s take a page from those firefighters. They work on shifts during which their physical self-care is the priority. Let’s focus on rest, renewal and recharging like those heroes. Taking time for proper sleep, completing life affirming tasks and taking the time necessary to renew ourselves will eventually create better systems that don’t reach for a fire hose when a glass of lemonade would provide the right response. Again, timing.
Timing Life
We can only see so much from where we stand. But stuff is still happening all around us that has the power to affect our thoughts. Preventive care can help improve our physical ability to think straight. Really. Feeling better results in better interactions. That fact alone should be the reason that humans should be encouraged to care deeply about themselves. There are so many important choices to make on a daily basis, there are so many important people in our lives and there are just as many better outcomes available to those who increase their ability to respond appropriately. Let’s take the time.
Can you define your response ability? Are there ways that you can change your daily responses? Is your self-care great enough to positively affect your circle?
