Reactive Cycles

Question:

‘Hi Roger, in your book you talk about reactive cycles. I’ve not heard of them before and it’s an interesting idea, so I was wondering if you could flesh it out for me, in particular how it relates to meditation practice.’

My Reply:

I coined the term ‘reactive cycles’ when I was writing ‘Happy to Burn’ – stupidly as it happens, because the more common term ‘feedback loop’ would have been better. So, silly me – anyway, the idea behind reactive cycles is that, aside from the natural friction and accidents of a life, a lot of our unique human suffering arises from them – the root cause being our habit of reacting to what we think has happened rather than what is actually happening – with that thinking then feeding the reaction it arose from, which in turn feeds the thinking, and so on – a case of mentality feeding physicality which feeds mentality which feeds physicality ad infinitum.

Perhaps it’s better if I explain with an example.

A dog will attack if it feels threatened. Then, as soon as the threat is gone, the dog’s mentality and physicality instantly begin returning to equilibrium. After a few minutes of relaxation response, it bumbles back into its life as if the threat never existed. Unlike us the dog doesn’t take what’s happened in a personal way – it just reacted to make the threat disappear, then it relaxed.

But with us it’s different.

Though we have the same fight or flight response when threatened, that’s not the end of it. Even when the threat has gone, we keep remembering what happened – imagining and reacting to it -which keeps the stress reaction revving like an out of control motor in our body. And it’s because we’ve taken what’s happened personally – perhaps feeling slighted, disrespected, or simply wanting revenge for a perceived wrong, (something only humans do). For whatever reason this internal story-telling keeps us in an aggressive posture long after the threat has gone.

And this habit of reactive looping can happen even when there is no threat – for example, our habit of worry, in which our mind is imagining what might happen, which keeps our body tensed for action, which in turn feeds the worrying mentality even more, and so on – a self-created dance of dread over something that may, or may not, happen in the future.

Then there is our weird habit of reacting to a reaction we wish wasn’t happening – like, getting angry about being angry. Or sad because we’re sad.

For example, I was in a supermarket one day when a man and a woman passed by pushing a trolley loaded with groceries. I could hear they were in the midst of a whispered argument – and as they passed I heard the man hiss, ‘I wasn’t angry before, but you made me angry, and that makes me really angry’ This is a classic reactive cycle. In effect, he was angry about being angry – his internal story being, he hated feeling angry, and his anger was making him even more angry. Angry thinking in his mind in a dance with the hormonal charge of anger in his body.

Another, more apt example of this is depression. Depression usually arises from an emotional reaction – particularly rage or grief – which for one reason or another we cannot, or will not express. Result being, the metabolic energy of the emotion gets inverted, and we lapse into depression until we get an opportunity to clear the air in one way or the other. Either that or it might be a more insidious condition of chronic depression – the cause of which is hidden deep in the dark ocean of our unconscious mind as a psychological glitch which, once triggered, causes a powerful hormonal charge to appear in our body.

However it begins, depression is so painful and confusing, that we react badly. And because our reaction to depression is as extreme as the pain we’re feeling, that reaction, unfortunately, has the effect of intensifying and extending the depression,

Of course, a part of the problem with depression is, until we can come clean about what the underlying condition is that’s causing it, we have no way of processing how we feel. Are we sad? Angry? Frustrated? We don’t know, because we’ve suppressed the original emotion. And because we don’t know what to do, we take ‘being depressed’ personally, with our mind making up stories in a futile attempt to ‘sort it out’ – muttering about how we’re no good, we’re a failure, we should die, blah blah blah.

In effect, we’re caught in a reactive cycle – with the destructive inner-monologue continually recharging the hormonal cocktail that caused the depression – finding ourselves spinning ever down, with the depression becoming more intense all the time.

An acquaintance of mine who was struggling with depression once said, ‘You know the most depressing thing about being depressed?’

I shook my head, saying, ‘No … what?’

Smiling ruefully, he said, ‘Being depressed. That’s what’s depressing.’

So then, we create reactive cycles about all kinds of things. A friend accidentally says something that offends us? As they walk away we simmer with the offence. Even hours after they have disappeared we still burn, our mind inflaming our body, which inflames our mind, which re-stimulates out body, and so on.

Or, maybe we accidentally knock our shin on the sharp corner of a bed? Instead of simply accepting the sharp pain and relaxing around it, in which case it will quickly disappear, we tense up around it, castigating ourself for being so clumsy, and worrying we’ve done ourselves damage – which makes the pain more intense and long-lasting.

In this way, we’re constantly taking the natural friction of life personally, turning it into stories that inflame us one way or another, long after natural causes have gone.  

So then, how does this relate to meditation?

Well, as I’ve said many times, in practicing meditation, we’re building a skill – the skill of being able to let go. The ability to let go is the door through which stillness appears.

Let go of what?

We’re practicing how to let go of everything – whatever our attention sticks to.

And why is this skill of letting go so significant when it comes to the reactive cycles?

Well, the only reason a reactive cycle spins is because we can’t let go of the story we’re making out of it. In this, it’s a bit like a game of throw the ball. Whether it’s an argument, a depressive state or a war between nations, a reactive cycle is like a game of throwing the ball – something throws a ball to something else, which feels compelled to throw the ball back, and so on.

So, letting go is when we consciously drop the ball – and when the ball gets thrown back, we keep dropping it until the game disappears – because eventually whatever, or whoever is throwing the ball back at us will stop, because we’re not playing anymore. Without us feeding our side of the reactive cycle, whatever is disturbing us will fade away.

That’s what we’re practicing as we meditate – letting go of whatever our attention attaches to.

And that’s why the breath is so important in meditation. As we practice constantly removing our attention from whatever it attaches to, we keep returning it to the breath, and over time our mind learns how to let go.

And the more we practice letting go, the more instinctive it becomes. And the more instinctive it becomes, the less prone we are to becoming stuck in reactive cycles. And life becomes less fraught.

Not sure what else I can add to this. Hope it makes sense.

…………………………………………………………………………………….

Roger’s book, ‘BEING STILL – MEDITATION THAT MAKES SENSE’  is available now. Just click on the links below:

AMAZON PAPERBACK                                               – AUD $26.40 

KINDLE eBOOK                                                             – AUD $11.99 

AUDIOBOOK  (including ebook & MP3 exercises) – AUD $25.00 

…………………………………………………………………………………