Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Freedom from Judgement (Especially from Yourself)

The last few days, I've been thinking a lot about freedom and judgement.

First, I watched The Most Powerful Video on Spirituality and Happiness - Rare Eckhart Tolle Teaching - Must See .  In it, Tolle reassures his interviewer that, as a human he will always think bad thoughts so he doesn't need to feel guilty about that.  Simply observe the thought without judging yourself.  Like any other thought, by the time you have noticed, it is already gone.  Since hearing that, some of the most colorful epitaphs have jumped into my brain.  Words I haven't heard or used since high school.  Juvenile, ridiculous words that paint pictures I can now laugh at instead of scolding myself.  I'm free to be a human without judging myself for not being a saint.

Second, I asked one of my clients what she liked to do for fun.  She mentioned a video game and I asked what the game was like.  There was a long moment of silence which was followed by her saying very quietly, "Well, there's a lot of shooting."

I knew she thought I would say "No, no!  You should stay away from violence!"  For one thing, she expects to be judged.  She judges herself constantly.  She expects someone who is her "life coach" to judge her and tell her everything she is doing wrong.  She, in turn, will make note of what I said, still do it, but try to do it less and every time she does do it, she will judge herself and use it as an excuse for why her life isn't turning out how she would like it to be.

I just don't deserve it because I still play violent video games.  

I just don't deserve it because I call people "d^ck wads" to myself in traffic.

Instead of telling her to quit playing her violent video game, I told her I watch The Walking Dead. 

Speaking of which, that show had a tremendously violent scene this week.  Humans, not walkers, were beaten to death.  Afterwards, on The Talking Dead, a small panel discussed whether that was indicative of a less kind, less gentle Rick Grimes (the show's main character,) in the future.

Honestly, it reminded me of a technique I saw Iyanla Vanzant use on the discontinued tv show, Starting Over.  The show was a sort of Celebrity Rehab (sans the celebrities) meets The Real World or Big Brother.  Women, who weren't happy with the direction their lives were going, lived in a house together and enjoyed the help of life coaches and psychologists in exchange for allowing the sessions to be filmed.  In one session, Vanzant instructed a former abuse victim to hit things with a pillow.  By things, I mean the floor and other pillows.  It was interesting.  She started hitting very softly, almost reluctantly.  By the time she was finished, however, she was sobbing and seemed to have exhausted herself, as well as whatever energy she had trapped inside of herself as suppressed anger.  At least that's how the edited version for television looked.

In The Walking Dead, the characters killed were cannibals who kept justifying their behavior like this:  "We were good in the beginning.  We helped people.  But then some people came along and treated us badly."

Hmmm.  So you ate them?

Meanwhile, Rick Grimes group, has had lots of bad treatment themselves, including having one of their members lose his leg to a group of cannibals.  Yet time and time again the group struggles with how they need to behave to be good and "in the right." They put their fictional lives in danger saving other fictional characters.  Rather than making me feel angry or negative or violent, The Walking Dead usually inspires me to like my fellow humans just a little bit more.  After all, we don't get to see real people be magnanimous, brave or caring in such extreme circumstances and while those characters aren't real, the actors portraying them, as well as the writers writing their scripts, are.

I told my client I knew she expected me to vote against the violence and shooting in her video game.  I told her how I have sometimes felt I would be judged for watching The Walking Dead, owning a television set, or still reading fictional books instead of a solitary and steady diet of coaching materials.  I told her I didn't think it really mattered what a person does along those lines or what other people think about what they are doing.  As far as I can see, only two things matter.

First, the spirit in which you do the things you do.  Are you having fun?  If you're playing a violent video game where people get shot, and you are yelling "that one's for my boss!" and "this one's for my mother!"  That doesn't seem to be a very healthy way to live.

Of course, there's Vanzant and Starting Over, so maybe once in awhile we do benefit from a mini hissy fit via a pillow fight with objects or video game guns.  Probably, though, we could expend that same energy with a good workout at the gym or a brisk walk or run.  At the same time, if we find ourselves routinely needing to do that, maybe we need to consider that rather than simply whether or not we should play a violent video game.

On the other hand, if you play that game, laughing, teasing your fellow players and calling them "newbs."  If you're happy playing, rather than secretly nurturing every grudge you've ever had against anyone, maybe it isn't such a bad thing.

You see, emotion is everything.  Just like sarcasm in print or on the internet, your subconscious doesn't know when you are kidding.  It takes its cues from your emotions.  The fourth step to the Law of Attraction is to Nevillze (a Joe Vitale term to honor an earlier Law of Attraction pioneer, Neville Goddard) or feel as if you already enjoy all of the things you dream about.  So, in theory, playing a video game which you genuinely feel happy playing, would be a helpful tool to that end.  But, playing one while nurturing and fantasizing about all of your hurt feelings and grievances, would just help deliver more things to feel hurt about.

Doing things with a positive spirit is life changing and makes a huge difference.

The second thing I think matters is whether or not you judge yourself.  As Eckhart Tolle pointed out, we're human.  Sometimes we are going to think bad thoughts, waste valuable time, eat unhealthy food and do or say something stupid.  We are human.  We are not perfect.  To the best of our understanding, we are spiritual creatures having a human experience.  We're supposed to be human.  We're not supposed to be perfect.

When you think of it that way, if we never had a Homer Simpson, "Doh!" moment in our lives, we might just be wasting that experience.

As Maude, another fictional character, in this case from the 70's cult classic Harold and Maude and one of my personal mentors before I had ever heard of Eckhart Tolle, said, "Haroldeveryone has the right to make an ass of themselves.  You just can't let the world judge you too much."  And "Reach out.  Take a chance.  Get hurt, even!  Play as well as you can.  Go team! GO!  Give me an L!  Give me an I!  Give me a V!  Give me an E!  L. I. V. E.   LIVE!  Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room."




Thursday, October 23, 2014

Sad News and Exciting News

The sad news is that today I found out I was not one of the winners in the Hay House Writer's Workshop competition.  I have to say, it wasn't completely a surprise.  One of the things my Achieve Today coach taught me is that when we take the path suggested by our inspirations we will encounter moments that are like traffic lights:  green, yellow or red.  I have received a definite red light on that book project.  I didn't win and the work was becoming like a chore.  I've noticed people don't read my blog as much when I actually write about money.  For me, writing at its best is almost effortless.  It is like taking dictation.  It is being "in the flow."  The book project I began never felt like that.  I've noticed how, over time, my blog became less about that and more about other things.

Meanwhile green lights are flashing everywhere else in my life.

As I've said at times in this blog, I'm training to be a life coach and that has green lights all over it.  I'm having some work done at my house that I have been wanting to do for decades.  All green lights.  Meanwhile, I'm still the same person, occasionally ego bound and suffering growing pains, clearing on limiting beliefs and learning.  Always learning.

The exciting news is that I will continue writing this blog very Tuesday, but under a new title, "My Journey to 'Zero' and The Law of Attraction."  I will be talking about the same things, the Law of Attraction; becoming a coach; the Present Moment; among others. I am gratefully setting aside that book project and beginning a new one more suited to the direction I am heading.

I'm not really sure what I'll say yet, but you know what?  That's exactly when inspiration lands on my shoulder and whispers, "Why not write about this?"


Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Are You Having Any Fun? (Aka Lessons on the Way to Calling Myself a Coach)

I have never been a mother.  I have never been a teacher.  I have done a lot of self help work on myself.  I have witnessed the Law of Attraction happen in my own life.  (By which I mean, I have intended for things to happen.  I have needed things to happen and I have had them happen as if everything were simply falling into place through very little effort of my own.)  I have learned first hand the benefits of being patient and maintaining a positive attitude.   Things work out for themselves and when I am positive and patient, they seem to unfold in the manner which gives me the best personal outcome.

I decided to become a coach because:  1. By nature I seem to like to share my good fortune with others.  If I have learned something that has really worked for me, I naturally want to tell others, and 2.  I am a writer, I enjoy writing, and my writing seemed to be shifting to a "coaching" direction.

None of that prepared me for the lessons and challenges of actually coaching.

First, did you know, that no matter how much or how little money a client may have paid, they may not do any of the assignments you give them?

I know!  My ego had no idea what to make of that.  In my mind, I had found something that works for me.  So metaphorically, it's like I've found a shortcut to get from Epcot to the World Showcase but while I'm waiving people to that special door, they're telling me, "No thanks I want to walk past 'O Canada'" or "If I walk past Mexico, I can buy a churro."

It feels like I am almost constantly thinking, "What?"  "What did you say?"  "How should I respond to that?  What do I say?"

Not to mention nearly constantly dis-identifying with the situation and clearing on any feelings that may come up.

At the end of my own coaching program (where I was first being coached,) I went to a retreat and met other people who had been in the same program.  We talked, as people do, and the subject of "good" coaches and "bad" coaches came up.  I am firm believer in the Law of Attraction.  I have had horrible moments where hideous words came out of someone I loved and, although there seemed to be no stimulus to cause those exact words, the words were speaking directly to my own negative or limiting beliefs.  I've heard the psychological explanation for why they may have been said, but I need no explanation as to why they hit my target so well.  I attracted them.  I needed to hear them to begin the work to pop the swollen ugly pimple of pain the belief was causing in my life.  I have experienced both the good and the bad of the Law of Attraction.  I have witnessed it.  So when it comes to the question of a "good" coach or a "bad" coach, I know there is no such thing.  There is only the coach you attracted into your life.  It's up to you to harvest everything there is to be had from the relationship.

The same is true with my clients.  I am dedicated and enthusiastic about doing the best job I can do, both for them, and for me.  I knew all along that becoming a coach would also support my own efforts and I would learn new things.  I have already encountered materials I have never seen before as well as clearing methods to which I had never before been exposed.  Honestly, it's a great thing.

I have always worn several hats, though, and one of my other jobs is that of a media technician.  One of the things I do is transfer VHS tapes to DVD.  It's so simple.  You put the VHS tape in the VCR.  Take the outgoing cords and feed them into a DVD deck with a burner.  Start everything up and 9 times out of 10, it just happens.  The tape plays.  The DVD deck receives and a couple of hours later, I burn and finalize a DVD.  Clockwork.

People don't work like that.  I mean, I knew that.  Yet here I am saying it.  So I must have needed a lesson about it as well.  When you drop into someone's life once a week, have a conversation, give them some information and some suggestions; there are a lot of different outcomes that can manifest one week later.  You probably could build a mathematic equation around it, but it contains at least two unpredictable variables.  Me and the client.  As human beings, we are mobile biospheres affected by even more variables:  physical wellbeing, emotional mood, blood sugar, hunger, whatever has happened during our individual days ....  A lot more than simply, this VHS tape won't play in this machine, I'll have to try another.

The other day I was talking to my "accountability partner" (aka a friend who is also going through the coaching certification program.)  He mentions one of the "outcomes" with his client that I would never have foreseen or predicted.  As I ask him questions and ask him what he's going to do, at one point he says "I'll have fun with it."

Fun with it?  At this point, I feel like a juggler who never sees all three balls in action at once.  One has always just hit the floor.  At the same time, I am constantly forced to remind myself I am not in control of the balls.  I am not supposed to be in control of the balls nor should I want to be.  These balls are actually human beings and can decide whether they want to fly and where they want that flight to take them.  I'm just the travel agent handing out information and any special tips I can give when they head somewhere I've already been.

Fun with it.

I've been so busy trying to be a good life coach, I forgot the most essential thing.

To just be.

Joe Vitale says to dare something worthy and I've done that.  I suppose I hadn't considered how often I'd be holding my feelings of inadequacy back as if with a lion tamer's whip and chair while guiding audience members to a door.

"I decided I don't want to walk through that door."

"Wait a minute.  What?"

"Let me set this down for a second."

"What did you say?"

Fun with it.

I'm not having fun with it yet, but I think maybe I can get there from here.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Outflow vs Inflow

The Law of Attraction is always working.  You can't avoid it.  You are always creating your world.  Whether it is positive and plays out like the best dream ever or a nightmare on a treadmill of unhappiness, you served it up to yourself.  As we study the Law of Attraction, we learn that, if we are needy and desperate for better things, we deliver neediness and desperation.  We become cautious about what language we use.  We try to wean ourselves off the words "want" or "need" and feel confused why nothing seems to change.

While presenting one of the week's lessons to me, the coach teaching me to be a coach told me about a seminar he went to that was very expensive.  It cost double digit thousands of dollars to attend.  At the event, the speaker basically talked about the same rules to the Law of Attraction.  The material was just like any other self help guru's material.  Not knowing where he was going with what he was saying, I made some noise that was supposed to express an appropriate mix of "oh that's a shame" and "damn what a rip-off" and then he delivered the punchline.  The seminar was absolutely worth every penny.  Not because of the material presented, but because of the speaker himself.  The most important thing a life coach has to offer is what he or she personally brings to the table.

So here's my plate at the buffet.  The Law of Attraction isn't like learning Spanish or German.  It isn't simply about which words you use.  Your life changes when you pay more attention to what you are putting out into the world than what the world is delivering to you.  Or at least that has been my experience.  Whether I was trying to be a more loving individual or a more generous one, the more I have been genuinely concerned about my impact on other people, the larger and more surprising the corresponding ripple back to me was.

The key word is genuine, but you can't just say it.  You have to be genuine.  Otherwise, we "people pleasers" we would have an edge on the rest of you and we would rule the world.  It doesn't happen that way because "people pleasing" isn't genuine.  We don't spend all that time trying to make others happy because we want them to be happy.  We do it because WE want to be happy.  Or rather, we are just tired of being unhappy.  I think in most cases, we just don't want others to hurt us anymore.  More than a few of us have become nothing more than scared hostages who have reached the conclusion that, if we simply do whatever our captors say and give them anything they want, they will finally leave us alone and stop hurting us.  We even learn to anticipate their wants and needs, but we always have a watchful eye towards how we ourselves are being treated.

My life dramatically shifted about 14 years ago.  I was getting a divorce.  One that I asked for and wanted.  In that situation I was focused entirely on what I was getting out of the marriage and I wasn't satisfied.  So I wanted out, but I wanted more change in my life than simply switching my seat and partner like a game of musical chairs.  Luckily, I turned my focus inward and examined my own behavior.  In the marriage, especially towards the end, I was not always the good guy.  Like anybody else, I can make excuses about being unhappy and not having my needs met, but it would simply be trying to justify my behavior.  Near the end, I could be angry, nasty and mean spirited.

She gets a bad rap when I talk about her in this blog.  She wasn't all bad or wrong.  She actually did say some very supportive things to me and teach me some good life lessons, but of course, when I examined my bad behavior, I decided I was becoming my mother.  I hadn't enjoyed experiencing her and I felt no one deserved to be given a plateful of my mother.  That was when my life shifted.

We know it already.  I never went to church as a child, but I did go to a year of Sunday School.  Most of us learn the Golden Rule.  You know the one.  "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you?"  Except it has to be genuine.  You can't just give someone a cookie in the expectation that they will give you one back.  The Golden Rule happens to extend out of Christian tradition, but nearly every organized religion contains a similar ethic.  I certainly didn't know it while I was deciding not to be my mother; but the more I've studied the Law of Attraction, the more I've found there is something to religion.  When I began this journey 14 years ago, I was somewhere between an Atheist and an Agnostic.  Now I feel like I have my own religion.  It's private and personal because I've never met a church that preaches exactly my logic of the universe.  It is based upon being accountable for what I put out into the world and there is no question that I am a better person for it.  A wonderful byproduct of it is that, because I am always trying to put the best out into the world, the best comes back to me.  The more that it does, the happier I am and that simply increases the quality and quantity of what I put out.

It would be dishonest to present it as a "success only" journey.  I have slipped.  At times I've returned to "people pleasing" while not realizing I had lost authenticity.  My eyes have shifted to the love I wasn't receiving rather than what I was giving.  Eckhart Tolle would say I was asleep and that's really what it is.  Every time it has happened, it is because I am living in the past.  I am keeping score, I am feeling a sense of lack, and it has always led to bad things and heartache.

Sometimes I wonder if it isn't as simple as this:  I am telling myself I am unhappy.  So I am.  I retreat into myself and everything that happens around me has potential to hurt and offend me.  I've decided I don't like how the world works and I don't want to play anymore.  But when I tell myself I'm happy, I am happy.  I feel like I positively glow with happiness.  It is like light shines out of my fingertips and I am continually inspired to do kind things for others.  I am happy and I want to share that happiness.

It isn't an accident those things you think you lack.  They are missing because you are the one who has shut off the spigot.

Money is about appreciation.  It exists for us to show our appreciation for the goods and services offered to us.  If you want money, be more appreciative.  Stop considering whether or not you feel the world appreciates you.  Learn to be more grateful for the goods and services you receive, the fact you have money to pay for them and most of all, for yourself.  Learn to appreciate the mere fact that you are taking this journey through life.  Recognize you are awake enough and care enough to try and give yourself the best life you can have.  At the same time, rather than weighing what you can do that will bring yourself the most money, consider what you can do that will be a joy for you to perform.  Find the thing you would be happy doing whether anyone paid you at all.  It's going to be the thing from which you receive the most appreciation because it's the thing you most appreciate doing.

Don't just change your lexicon.  Change a piece of who you are and how you behave.  If you want love, be love.  If you want appreciation, appreciate.  If you want happiness, be happiness.  To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, "Ask not what the world can give you; ask what you can give the world."

That's my dish for the potluck; the lesson I've learned that I can share.



Tuesday, October 7, 2014

The Law of Attraction and What You Resist, Persists

It is early Tuesday morning.  I should be asleep.  I haven't written my "regular Tuesday blog" yet and the idea I want to talk about keeps writing me awake.  In other words, I toss and turn, telling myself, "you'll be tired tomorrow, if you get up now."  At the same time, I'm afraid I'll forget my chain of thought, so my mind keeps fashioning the sentences and words.  It keeps writing the blog I would like to wait until tomorrow to say.

As Carl Jung said, "What you resist, persists."

Which is exactly the thought that keeps praying on my mind this morning.  In this blog, I've talked a lot about the Law of Attraction, which was recently made a popular concept by a book and movie called "The Secret."  At the time, a lot of people watched the movie seeing only desire and avarice and they resisted its message.  Other people watched with desire, if not avarice, and saw only a way to achieve their goals.  Both missed grasping a very large point.  In science, a law is defined as "a statement of fact, deduced from observation, to the effect that a particular natural or scientific phenomenon always occurs if certain conditions are present."  When we talk about the Law of Attraction, we are not talking about that other kind of law, "the system of rules that a particular country or community recognizes as regulating the actions of its members," we are speaking of a scientific law.  A statement based on repeated experimental observations that describes some aspect of the universe.  Why is this an important distinction?  We may focus on attempting to attract the happiness and wealth we would like to see in our lifetimes, but the truth is, we are always attracting our life's outcomes to us whether we are attempting a desirable one or not.

Part of the beauty of the five step method of working with the Law of Attraction is that it encourages taking responsibility for the type of life you have attracted yourself into and gives you tools with which to try and improve your outcomes.

We humans tend to resist pain.  Not only pain, but very individualized pain based on our versions of hell.

It happens roughly like this:

We are born
Things happen to us
Eventually we begin to judge those things as pleasant or unpleasant
We begin to resist the unpleasant things

What we resist, persists.

In other words, our personal Law of Attraction outcome gets stuck on negative.  That's because resistance requires a whole lot of energy and attention.  We attract what we give energy and attention.  So by resisting what we don't want, we actually receive more of it rather than less.

Why do we experience pain?  Frequently it is a lesson or warning that we are in danger.  Touch fire and you will get burned.  That painful sensation prevents us from being seriously damaged by fire when we are in a position to avoid it.  The popular definition of karma is basically the same as "what goes around comes around" or "we reap what we sow," but another, if less well known interpretation is that the lessons we need to learn throughout our lives, will repeat until we have learned them.

Someone asked me recently, "That means I attracted the men who cheated on me intentionally.  Why did I want that?"  

I couldn't answer.  The things we resist on an emotional level aren't the same as brussels sprouts or liver.  We don't tend to itemize them in our conscious mind.  The best I could do is tell her to focus on how it had made her feel.  In other words, the "why" component to the first step of the five steps to the Law of Attraction.  The first step is to be "crystal clear about what you don't want and why."  It not only shines a light on what we DO want, it also illuminates those unpleasant things and feelings we are likely to resist.  Combine those feelings you resist with the limiting beliefs you are trying to clear in step three, "identify and clear limiting beliefs," and you will uncover a very likely scenario of your own personal treadmill of bad relationships, limited funds or whatever you would like to overcome.

Honestly, I've been studying stuff like this for years, but huge bits snapped into place for me the other day when I was talking with another one of the coach-elect students.  As usual, I can explain everything a little bit more clearly, if I simply explain my situation to you.

Many of my limiting beliefs have tended to surround the notion of not being capable, not knowing what I'm doing, being incompetent, that sort of thing.  They stem from being asked to be responsible for things that were a little too grownup for me to be asked to handle when I was a child, combined with being mocked about my performance or told I hadn't done a good job.  At the same time, I realized that my most recent former ex had been a catalyst for some growth on that issue.  Some of the things he said during the break up were direct hits on that level, but it was only talking to this other person that I connected the notion of "how did that make me feel?"  After all, so what if I'm incapable?  What will happen if I don't know what I'm doing?

The emotion was fear of rejection.  If I don't know what I'm doing, I will be rejected.  Which, of course, as that relationship ended, I was.  And I resisted it big time.  So much so, I pretty much pushed him away.  I had let myself be open and vulnerable to someone, which was not something I had done very much in my life, and it ended with my own personal version of hell.  In other words, the thing I had resisted my entire life:  rejection.  I have been a people pleaser.  I have settled for less than I wanted in relationships.  I have sculpted myself into other people just to avoid being rejected.

For many of you reading this, it isn't new territory.  You already knew it.  Really, so did I, but sometimes it takes putting the pieces together and voicing them aloud to really understand.  But some of you haven't figured this out yet.  Humans are motivated by pain.  We will do anything to avoid it.  Once emotional pain has been triggered, we become automatons who run a program we have learned over time about how to handle it.  Perhaps we pick up a bottle or inject something in our veins.  Maybe we bully other people.  Maybe we sacrifice bits of our own uniqueness to simply make the discomfort go away.  Maybe we stuff ourselves with food until we have no more empty spaces to shove it into.

Ask yourself, "what don't I want, and why don't I want it?"  You will discover the negative carrots your destructive behavior feeds upon.  In the meantime, you can use another Achieve Today coach, Gil Mciff's Three Step Clearing Method to avoid becoming a slave to your emotions.  The principle is that our emotions take us out of the present moment and we run programs based on what we are feeling.  If we are running a program, we have become a victim and cannot make choices.


Three Step Clearing Method by Gil Mciff

Feeding what you want is natural and easy, you are already doing this in many ways.

The emphasis of this practice is focused on starving what you don't want by simply observing your emotions and thereby dis-identifying from being them.

Your habitual state of consciousness is the number one determinant of your personal circumstances.  The quality of your consciousness in this moment is the primary determinant of your future.  And what determines the quality of your consciousness is your degree of presence.  

Check in 10x a day with the question: "How am I feeling emotionally in my body right now?"

You can use a reminder app or alarm on your phone, sticky notes placed in random places, paint one fingernail different from the rest, wear your watch on the opposite wrist or upside down, or put a bandaid on your finger.  Every time this catches your attention, ask yourself, "Emotionally, how do I feel in my body right now?"

(A further suggestion my fellow coaching student told me was to do it every time you needed to use the toilet or took a drink of water.)

If there is ANY kind of negativity or if it is simply a lower emotion than you would like to be feeling, the fact is you did not choose it.  It's based on conditioned interpretation and is simply an old program running and it is time to do the following 3 steps:

(If you are feeling what you would like to be feeling then start with step 2.)

1.  Say These Specific Words - There it is.  That's not me.  That's a program.  

2.  Observe it deeply.  What physical and emotional sensations do I feel?  Where do I feel them?  Or simply I feel it (here,) it feels like (this.)  Realize who is doing this inquiring?

3.  Thank you for checking in.  I love you, I love you, I love you.  Thank you for no longer feeding the program.  Thank you for dis-identifying from the program, thank you for catching yourself and for no longer losing energy here.  Thank you for whatever you want to say thank you for.  I love you, I love you, I love you!

There it is.  That's not me.  That's a program.
I feel it here (location,) it feels like this (characteristics.)
Thank you for checking in, I love you I love you I love you.

These steps are not for the purpose of getting rid of the negative feeling (i.e. resisting and therefore feeding what we don't want.  That benefit may sometimes come with it, but this practice is more about implementing a new habit/program.  So every time you observe the emotion, it's an opportunity to do this practice without judgement.  It doesn't matter what emotion is there, what matters is that you simply observe it without giving it any meaning.  When this becomes habit you will have successfully reprogrammed the unconscious perpetuation of the old reaction with the automatic newly programmed conscious response.

It takes less than 30 seconds to do this practice.  30 seconds at 10x a day = 5 minutes
How many days will it take before this healthy response has become a new program for you?