In her blog today, Brene Brown started with a quote that really got me thinking. She attributed it to Victor Frankl, though who actually wrote it remains unclear. It said,
"Between stimulus and response is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom."
Wow! How profound. She also noted it was similar to the Buddhist concept of "sacred pause".
As Brown noted, many of us grew up practicing our response before the stimulus was completed. When I thought through this I realized that being in that defensive mode much of the time means that we can miss the subtleties of the stimulus perhaps making grand assumptions along the way. In other situations, we may feel powerless and just go along with the stimulus effect -- learning nothing and being the architects of our own disempowerment. If we use some time to consider how best to react rather than a knee jerk response or no response at all, we can reclaim our power again. While pondering this afternoon, I called this time "pause and effect" <smile>. Learning to do this requires unlearning the less effective ways of our pasts. It isn't easy, but it feels good to hold onto the power that is our own.
When thinking of a song for the topic today, I thought of call and response songs. So, here is one that really does this well. Lyrics are on the page. Stay safe. Enjoy!
Shout -- The Isley Brothers
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