Something I learned from Freedomain Radio and Stefan Molyneux : Slowing down

Slowing down and remembering myself in the moment is difficult but important and I think I can get better at this. I found myself looking in a mirror tonight and wondering why I felt anxious and defensive. My mind was creating self defense scenarios where I was answering for myself and defending my position but there was no immediate danger. I felt that my intellect would be challenged and I was bracing myself for these fantasized adversaries. When I thought about this as a curious fact I took a deep breath and remembered who I am. Or tried to remember who I am as I am still discovering who I am. 

I believe that slowing down my thoughts and trying to understand them and even throwing them away sometimes helps me to feel my emotions and discover myself. I am learning to recognize when intellectual justifications start to spill out of my mouth like rabid wasps that I need to slow down and remember myself in the moment. Remember that if I am responding based on learned behaviors and that the only way to change is to recognize these behaviors and accept them as a fact but not that the conclusions that my brain interjects to justify these behaviors are not facts necessarily. 

When I find myself on a verbal roller coaster of prescribed talking points and repeated explanations or defending myself against imagined foes I try to remember try to relax and feel my emotional state. I try to identify my environment and those around me and I try to remember how and who I want to be. I want to be calm and patient. I want to have clarity of thought so that I can express myself honestly. I don't want the pace everyone around me to dictate how I will respond or how I should feel. If someone else is angry or uncomfortable I do not need to instantly try to blame someone or create an story explaining it all away. I really don't know what's causing these emotions and the person expressing them to me probably doesn't know exactly why either. I should be curious and ask questions. Find out more and think more about the facts and the conjectures and...