Speaker 1: You are not in a hurry. Whatever. You came here
Speaker 1: carrying the week that was harder than you wanted. The
Speaker 1: moments the automatic ran, the gap between who you are
Speaker 1: trying to become and who you were in the difficult hour.
Speaker 1: Set it down, not to forget it, not to pretend
Speaker 1: it did not happen, simply to place it beside you,
Speaker 1: rather than carry it into this moment where it does
Speaker 1: not need to be Breathe feel the particular quality of
Speaker 1: a body that has been doing something hard without always
Speaker 1: knowing it was doing something hard. The quiet work, the
Speaker 1: ordinary interruptions, the question asked in moments that did not
Speaker 1: feel significant and were guiding something, not controlling, not forcing,
Speaker 1: not white knuckling your nervous system into compliance through the
Speaker 1: sheer exhaustion of trying harder guiding with the patient consistent
Speaker 1: signal of the chooser arriving in the gap between the
Speaker 1: queue and the automatic and asking its single quiet question,
Speaker 1: is this what I am choosing? That signal is real.
Speaker 1: The nervous system has been receiving it, even in the
Speaker 1: weeks it did not look like progress, even in the
Speaker 1: moments the automatic one. Anyway, the signal was received, the
Speaker 1: pathway was activated, the work continued. Now, think of a
Speaker 1: reaction you have been carrying, not the behavior itself, the
Speaker 1: reaction underneath it, the anger that is also fear, the
Speaker 1: avoidance that is also protection, the craving that is also
Speaker 1: the body asking for something it is not found another
Speaker 1: way to reach hold it, not with judgment, not with
Speaker 1: the familiar weight of eyes. Should be past this. I
Speaker 1: should have.
Speaker 2: Changed this by now hold it the way you would
Speaker 2: hold something. You are finally beginning to understand, because underneath
Speaker 2: every reaction that has ever run automatically, there was a
Speaker 2: need the nervous system was trying to meet. Not a
Speaker 2: character flaw, not evidence of weakness, a need. And the
Speaker 2: chooser's work is not to destroy the reaction, but to
Speaker 2: find a different way to meet the need, to replace
Speaker 2: the reaction, not with suppression, not with the exhausting effort
Speaker 2: of holding the water back, but with conscious action, a
Speaker 2: different path to the same destination.
Speaker 1: What does the need underneath the reaction actually want? Safety, calm,
Speaker 1: to be heard, to feel less alone, to release what
Speaker 1: has been held too long, to rest. Feel that need
Speaker 1: now beneath the reaction, beneath the automatic, beneath the pattern
Speaker 1: that has been running, since before you had words for
Speaker 1: what it was. That need is not the enemy. The
Speaker 1: chooser does not fight it. The chooser asks how else
Speaker 1: can this be meant? And in the asking, even before
Speaker 1: the answer arrives, the reaction loses a little of its grip.
Speaker 1: The automatic loosens slightly. The gap widens by one breath.
Speaker 1: One breath is enough. One breath is where the chooser lives.
Speaker 1: One breath is where conscious action begins. One breath at
Speaker 1: a time, the reaction is being replaced, not erased, not suppressed,
Speaker 1: replaced with something chosen, with something that actually meets the need,
Speaker 1: rather than borrowing against the future to quiet the present.
Speaker 1: You are not powerless. You are guiding slowly, nonlnarly, cumulatively
Speaker 1: in the ordinary moments and the unremarkable ones. In this
Speaker 1: breath and the one after it and the one after that,
Speaker 1: the chooser is here. The work is real. The change
Speaker 1: is already under way.