(2018-11-27) The 4 Levels Of Non-reactivity

The 4 Levels of Non-Reactivity. Whether you’re studying Stoicism, Buddhist Meditation, Mindfulness, or simply practicing How to Not Give a Fuck, the underlying principle remains the same – How to become less reactive and more emotionally stable. How to cultivate a healthy indifference.

Note that this is different than avoidance... The goal here is NOT to become an emotionless robot. We don’t want you to stop reacting to things and allow everything to happen, that’s not the aim.

Instead, the goal of these practices is to be aware of and in control of your reactions. To be as Steven Covey says, “Response-able” or “able to control our responses”.

along this path of cultivating a healthy control over your reactions, many of us will go through four common stages. Four stages best illustrated through the annoyance of a simple fly…

Level 1 – Emotionally Reactive

The person who swats at every small problem that arises. The second a fly buzzes in their ear, they freak out about it.

Level 2 – Freeze Up

Your mind revolts and says “don’t react, don’t react”.

You’re frozen in place. Not quite reacting by swatting at it, but no longer present either.

Instead of reading your book, you’re focused on the fly and waiting for it to leave.

Level 3 – The Boomerang

At first, you notice it and pick your head up from your book. You take a look at it, and then return back to reading.

The fly got a reaction out of you, but you returned back quickly.

Level 4 – The Anchor

Then it flies to your hand. Then it flies away.

In all this time you continue reading. You notice the fly momentarily, but it doesn’t disrupt your focus. You remain immersed in the book.

This is the true master of healthy indifference. The master who is able to have the problems of life land squarely on his/her face and not react to them, but remain focused on their true goals.

in order to do this, we must first discover our triggers. We must discover the causes that trigger our reactions so that we can be aware of them, and work on instilling habits in the opposite direction.