You are always at a point of choice about how you will respond to a given situation. The way it works is: an event happens, you have a knee-jerk reaction, and you respond. When you are living a conscious life, you pause after that knee-jerk reaction and CHOOSE how you will respond.
Life happens. Stuff happens to and around and in us. We have natural tendencies to react in a certain way. Your first response might be anger. It might be fear. It might be to blame someone else. It might be to assume that it is your fault. There are lots of ways that you can react to a stimulus.
But you CHOOSE the way you will respond to that stimulus. If you allow your unconscious mind to make the choice, it will choose to operate under the same strategies from which your knee-jerk reaction arose.
However, if you give yourself a chance to pause, you will have many more options for choosing a response.
There are a lot of fear-mongers who would invite you to feel fear. There are a lot of situations in the world that, when focused on, will generate fear. There are, though, a lot MORE situations that invite us to celebrate.
But do we focus on celebrating or on fear?
The chances are very slim that you will ever contract the Eboli virus. And, yet, many people are hysterically afraid of this disease which is, admittedly, not a fun thing to have. It is, however, very difficult to contract this disease. But you are certainly hearing a lot about it, often with an undertone of fear.
Now think about all the things that are going RIGHT with your body, right now, in this moment, as you read these words. You have molecules and atoms and cells and tissues and organs that are all functioning without your conscious mind having to direct the show. Air is going in and out of your lungs without your conscious effort, unless you choose to focus on your breathing.
The last meal you ate is digesting itself without your focus. You can reach for a drink of water without having to consciously fire off every muscle involved in the action. Your eyes and brain are working together to make sense of the images you read on this page.
In other words, there are a whole lot of reasons for you to celebrate your body!
Are you feeling fearful at the moment about something that hasn’t happened yet?
Allow that fear to invite you into celebration of something that IS HAPPENING in this present moment. Get into gratitude for things that are working the way you want them to work. Think about the volunteers around the globe who are selflessly serving others right now.
Think about the Sun rising every single morning without your assistance. The things that you worry about are possibilities that haven’t materialized yet. Even if you have a fear based on something that has already happened, is that fear leading to the resources to make the optimal choice of response or is it constricting your vision so much that you can’t see any other possibilities?
Celebrate! You are reading this. Fear reminds you that you have forgotten to celebrate what’s good, what’s going well. Choose to focus on celebrating and let the fear take a back seat. There’s always something to celebrate, even if it’s just that next breath that you take!
Mystic Messages 
Are You the Director or the Actor in the Play that is Your Life? – Richard’s Commentary
October 15, 2014 — RichardThis is such a wonderful question Rosemary asks. It’s one of those questions that makes you go “hmmm”! It stops me and makes me think. And, it’s another one of those questions that take me inside, to examine, to evaluate, and maybe, just maybe to shift!
Here’s the key to Rosemary’s Exploration:
What did you used to believe about yourself, life, the world around you that might be holding you back today? Is it your unconscious mind that is the Director while you and your conscious mind are merely the Actors on the stage?
It’s those old beliefs, those old programs that run on automatic when our attention strays, when “unforeseen situations arise,” or when we simply get caught off guard in a moment of weakness.
Here’s a simple example that is trite but true, a cliché of our times: driving in traffic I still find myself getting upset by unconscious drivers who are in some way impeding my progress! Then I realize I am being unconscious myself in my angry reactions. I take a breath, go briefly inside to remember my impatience is getting in my own way, release frustration and then move along more smoothly – until the next inattentive driver annoys me!
This is a life-long habit. I probably learned it from my father, even though in rural Wisconsin he did not face the driving difficulties we have here in the East! I know I am being the Actor in my little stage play about driving in traffic and my unconscious mind is the Director in this play. It is a hard habit to break and I get plenty of opportunities to practice!
I find my breath work, as part of my Qigong and Yoga practices help me overcome, or at least recover from habits of a lifetime. As long as I remember to breathe intentionally I can short-circuit the old programming and my conscious mind can recover control and direct my life.
Here’s how that works: one of my practices is to employ the Hamsa mantra as taught by Swami Muktananda (ref: I Am That The Science of HAMSA from the Vignana Bhairava). This is probably the simplest yet most profound mantra in the Yogic tradition. “Ham” means “I am” and Sa means “that.” It may also be seen and pronounced or read as So’ham “that I am” depending on personal preference and breath flow.
Ham is the sound of the breath as you inhale. Sa or So is the sound of the breath as you exhale. My natural breath includes a more lengthy pause after exhaling so I use Hamsa as my breath mantra; in other words it seems more natural for me to inhale before I exhale. Practice both ways; if it seems more natural for you to exhale first then So’ham may be the better way for you to use this key mantra.
For that matter you can even use English here inhaling on the “I Am” and exhaling on the “That.” The real key is to become aware of the breath and then become intentional about breathing through the recovery from habitual action and reaction you are working to reprogram. As Rosemary writes:
You can’t just decide to do things differently and have your unconscious mind let go of those old beliefs. They are programs that are running all the time. They are beliefs that trump conscious decisions many times.
The work is to go inside and uncover the programs and reprogram your mind.
Breath work is an excellent tool to aid you in the reprogramming effort.