{"id":3160,"date":"2014-02-19T12:00:35","date_gmt":"2014-02-19T17:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/?p=3160"},"modified":"2014-02-16T21:40:36","modified_gmt":"2014-02-17T02:40:36","slug":"be-the-ruler-of-your-own-reactions-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/02\/be-the-ruler-of-your-own-reactions-part-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Be the Ruler of Your Own Reactions (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cTurning to learning\u201d begins with the honest recognition that our present approach to solving personal problems just doesn&#8217;t work. This may come as a surprise: Learning to live without recurring problems begins with losing faith in our habitual responses that tell us how to be free of them.<\/p>\n<p>Losing confidence in your own heated, or heavy-hearted, reactions does not mean that you have to see yourself in a disparaging light, any more than stepping out of the way of a runaway truck would make you think of yourself as a coward.<\/p>\n<p>The superior way for us to deal with personal crisis situations is to let the runaway truck pass us by because we know it&#8217;s only a mindless machine. We realize it can&#8217;t recognize the danger its own undirected nature represents. This means that we must learn to let our own habitual reactions roll by us because, just like the wild truck, these reactions of ours are mechanical in nature. And since we know that machines can&#8217;t learn, this means neither will we learn what is really needed to free ourselves as long we allow our reactions to lead the way.<\/p>\n<p>Reactions never reveal. They conceal. Remaining under the rule of any reaction limits your choices in life to only the direction that reaction gives you to take. But the key point is this: no reaction-supplied direction can ever lead anywhere higher than the level of the reaction. If these mechanical responses actually knew as much as they pretend to, we wouldn&#8217;t be repeating the patterns that always lead us back to the same kind of personal problems. It should be clear. Our mechanical reactions are at the root of our persistent problems, and not the way out of them.<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t be concerned that what is required of you in some moment of crisis is more than you know how to handle &#8212; that if you let your usual reactions go by, you might find yourself unable to learn what you must do. You will learn!<\/p>\n<p>The whole process of self-liberation through higher learning is under definite spiritual laws. The very act of turning away from mechanical reactions is the same as facing in the direction of a free mind. You&#8217;ll find that who you really are is an endless learning ground, a limitless possibility for higher and higher self-discovery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cTurning to learning\u201d begins with the honest recognition that our present approach to solving personal problems just doesn&#8217;t work. This may come as a surprise: Learning to live without recurring problems begins with losing faith in our habitual responses that tell us how to be free of them. Losing confidence in your own heated, or&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[517,4],"tags":[182,1867,187,1866,237,314,550,161],"class_list":["post-3160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anger-frustration","category-guilt-regret","tag-crisis","tag-habitual-responses","tag-learning","tag-personal-problems","tag-reactions","tag-self-discovery","tag-self-honesty","tag-self-liberation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Be the Ruler of Your Own Reactions (Part 2) - Letting Go with Guy Finley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/02\/be-the-ruler-of-your-own-reactions-part-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Be the Ruler of Your Own Reactions (Part 2) - Letting Go with Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cTurning to learning\u201d begins with the honest recognition that our present approach to solving personal problems just doesn&#8217;t work. This may come as a surprise: Learning to live without recurring problems begins with losing faith in our habitual responses that tell us how to be free of them. Losing confidence in your own heated, or&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/02\/be-the-ruler-of-your-own-reactions-part-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Letting Go with Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Guy-Finley-260924340633\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-02-19T17:00:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-02-17T02:40:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@guy_finley\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Be the Ruler of Your Own Reactions (Part 2) - Letting Go with Guy Finley","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2014\/02\/be-the-ruler-of-your-own-reactions-part-2.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Be the Ruler of Your Own Reactions (Part 2) - Letting Go with Guy Finley","og_description":"\u201cTurning to learning\u201d begins with the honest recognition that our present approach to solving personal problems just doesn&#8217;t work. 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His ideas cut straight to the heart of our most important personal and social issues - relationships, success, addiction, stress, peace, happiness, freedom - and lead the way to a higher life. Finley is the Founder and Director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit Center for Spiritual Discovery. He is the acclaimed author of \"The Secret of Letting Go\" and more than 45 other books and audio programs that have sold over two million copies in 26 languages worldwide. His work is widely endorsed by doctors, business professionals, celebrities, and religious leaders of all denominations. Through Life of Learning Foundation, Guy has presented over 5,000 unique self-realization seminars to thousands of grateful students throughout North America and Europe over the past 20 years and has been a guest on over 700 television and radio shows, including national appearances on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and NPR. The Foundation's popular Key Lesson e-mails featuring inspirational quotes by Guy are read each week by a hundred thousand subscribers in 142 countries. Guy speaks four times each week on inner-life principles at Life of Learning Foundation's home in Merlin, Oregon. These meetings are ongoing and open to the public. For more information about Life of Learning Foundation, Guy Finley, and their life-changing messages, visit guyfinley.org. \"Guy Finley is...one of the leading experts at the forefront of human potential.\" -Nightingale Conant \"Guy Finley has helped millions live fuller, more peaceable lives.\" -Barnes and Noble","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.guyfinley.org","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Guy-Finley-260924340633\/","https:\/\/x.com\/guy_finley"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/author\/gfinley"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/232"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3160"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3161,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3160\/revisions\/3161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}