Research Paper By Nikhil Benegal
(Executive Coaching, INDIA)
Introduction
Getting into the State where one Responds in the moment versus ‘reacts’ to one’s environment (persons, situations, tasks on hand) finds one Resourceful, Full of Choices, Empowered, Free-er, At-Locus-of-Control, Present, Open-to-Inspiration and Powerful compared to Upset, Helpless, Blaming, Emotional, Away-from-Locus-of-Control, Absent from Now, Replaying Moribund Memory Patterns, and Disempowered and Weak. The former enables change and the latter resists its flow… The coach partners the client essentially to facilitate the change the client truly desires and this goal is best served when the client (and indeed the coach as well) accesses and learns to stay sustainably in the state of Responding-in-the-moment…This paper examines the underpinnings of Responding in the moment and how one could do that as opposed to Reacting
What are the underpinnings of Reacting? Reacting to what?
A hypothesis could be that Man evolved from the primates, amongst several factors, chiefly because the faculty of Memory was manifested. Memory made possible the capturing, storing and retrieval of the sensory impressions that we naturally formed with our five senses (VAKOG); going further, these impressions linked to one another and projected themselves in patterns and arrays and so on. Given that studies of Memory reveal that the faculty of Memory captures impressions and then projects them and develops them in a branching-out, chain-like fashion (Tony Buzan), resembling the structure of neurons (brain-cells) of the Brain. Thus one memory-impression (either retrieved or freshly created ready to be archived) links up with triggered older ones from the archives and follow a branching-out pattern to form what Tony Buzan depicts as a Mind Map. Add to this the capacity to use Imagination (Memory’s offshoot or close cousin) where memories get projected in different forms into the future – and one develops a rich tapestry of patterns and designs of impressions that are at once stored and immediately available for retrieval and re-living. Thus it becomes increasing probable, what with all the memory-impressions being churned up in the mind, that when we have to deal with a new situation – we are going to let Memory guide us. This leads to what we may call Reacting.
What are the underpinnings of Being and Responding in the moment?
When we act beyond doing something mechanically from Memory. When we act from the state of presence with our senses focused in the here and the now and with a clear view from the here-and-now of the retrievals made from Memory and the recasting of impressions projected by Imagination. Eckhart Tolle refers to the Psychological Time as being that which is our sense of time dictated by Memory and Imagination –
identification with the past and continuous compulsive projection into the future.
He argues that the prevalence of this in us leads to unhappiness, e.g. the past leads to regret and disempowerment, and the future leads to stress, fear, and anxiety. Psychological Time is nirvana or release from the bondage of the Memory faculty running unobserved and unattended. The Hawaiian method of healing and problem solution, Ho’oponopono refers to the problem being nothing other than ‘toxic memories replaying in the subconscious mind’ which need to be cleared to return to our primordial connectedness with Divinity. Pragmatically