Eliminating reactivity

During 2017-18, I worked really hard with a guide from Liberation Unleashed to eliminate reactivity. We called it "breaking the fetters of desire and ill will". After 18 months working together, I had lost my juice for it, and was relieved to stop working with Lake. I hypothesized that I hadn't fully done the prerequisite work of seeing through the illusion of self, and set to work on that, and I didn't make any clear headway on that, either, though I keep coming back and back to it.

A couple weeks ago I went back to Jan Frazier's book, The Freedom of Being: At Ease With What Is. She is deep and detailed about what to do to wake up. She doesn't talk about the fetters, but she does say that we have choice in every moment and most of the time we don't see it. I think the delusions of the fetters are that we don't have choice. With regard to reactivity, she talks about noticing the gap between stimulus and reaction, and noticing that there is choice to not react. This is very similar to how Lake and the other LU guides approach eliminating reactivity, including the use of the term "the gap". I thought about all the times I noticed that there was a gap, yet continued to react. I wondered if perhaps the main thing in my way was simply disbelief in the possibility of success. And/or, a belief that reactivity is what's going to bring me happiness.

A couple days ago I resolved to work hard on this yet again. I resolved to, as much as possible, never yield to reactivity. If I missed the gap, I at least was going to let go of my reaction ASAP. But I hoped I'd frequently catch the gap and choose to NOT react.

And ... I found myself successful on numerous occasions! The sense of peace, rest ... freedom! experienced during those moments was delicious and further convinced me that not reacting is MUCH more rewarding than reacting.

This morning, a twist. This morning I chose to work with my morning dread by giving voice to the inner child, by fully feeling the sensations and allowing the words that came with them. I ended up doing this for a couple of hours, then took a nap. Afterward, when I was interacting with Z, she said something that is typically mildly triggering for me (maybe asked me what I was doing) and I not only didn't catch the gap, I went into reactivity without my typical habitual tensing up (because, I suppose, I'd just practiced allowing emotion without tensing for two hours) and felt it strongly. Immediately after she said that, she started eating berries, triggering my misophonia, and I was utterly miserable. I didn't display my misery but I left the room, walked up the attic stairs, and slammed the door a little bit behind me (slamming a door is a great cure for misophonia misery).

Afterward I had pessimistic thoughts about eliminating reactivity. Then I hypothesized that the inner child work I'd done is training in the opposite direction. It's actually practicing being reactive. It has its usefulness, but perhaps should not be done concurrently.

I'm excited to continue my training in eliminating reactivity. And postponing further inner child work.