Thursday, May 8, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the many benefits of spiritual practice is becoming slow to anger. Many of us are quick on the draw, ready to pounce without a second thought. Spiritual practice gives you “second thought,” which is really pause. I like to think of it as space in a doughnut. Awakening is the increase of that middle space. Time slows down to catch your reactivity. No pouncing. You learn to drop the hot potato when it starts to burn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Suffering is what you do to yourself. The outside world is constantly offering you \u201cbait.\u201d Will you snatch it up, run with it, and let the toxicity pump through your veins? Cut off in traffic – pounce<\/strong>. See a photo that incites you on Facebook – pounce<\/strong>. Wondering why you weren\u2019t included – pounce<\/strong>. Knowing your ex is having such a great time without you – pounce<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you pick up the bait, you\u2019ll run. You\u2019ll play with it in your mind, convincing yourself of how \u201cawful\u201d it is; how rude people are; or how unfairly you\u2019ve been treated. You\u2019ll run to the water cooler to tell your colleagues how much of a bitch life is. You\u2019ll get a rise out of it. Why hurt yourself like that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n One day, you\u2019ll realize the present moment offers you a pro and<\/em> a con. Have you paused enough to see the silver lining, waiting in the second thought? There is some benefit offered to you, now<\/em>. Do you take the bait of \u201cthis sucks,\u201d or do you take the blessing of \u201cI\u2019m OK\u201d? There\u2019s an upside. You can take it if you pause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Taking the bait is hook-line and sinker. You sink into despair, poised to pull the trigger at the slightest provocation. Giving it a second thought will save your life. Spiritual practice gives you that pause. Try it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thursday, May 8, 2025 One of the many benefits of spiritual practice is becoming slow to anger. Many of us are quick on the draw, ready to pounce without a second thought. Spiritual practice gives you “second thought,” which is really pause. I like to think of it as space in a doughnut. Awakening is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-morning-motivation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymorningmotivator.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymorningmotivator.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymorningmotivator.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymorningmotivator.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymorningmotivator.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4725"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mymorningmotivator.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4726,"href":"https:\/\/mymorningmotivator.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4725\/revisions\/4726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymorningmotivator.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymorningmotivator.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymorningmotivator.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}