Everyone gets hooked in life. You get cut off on the road and instantly fire up with anger. Or maybe someone walks by you and just says something insulting. Or maybe it’s the man or woman you live with who simply doesn’t put things away the way you’d like them to be.

There are lots of troublemakers in this world that really rile us up. What would you say if I told you the moment you noticed tension rising in your shoulders and your face becoming pursed is a moment of opportunity?

Here is a video by a wonderful teacher named Pema Chodron:

We can allow ourselves to be a victim to our automatic reactions or we can learn to become aware of them so that we don’t become so hooked.

When thoughts come up, we don’t have to rise to the bait!

“I’m a failure,” “I’ll never get things right,” “Today is going to be awful” need only be mental events that have an emotional charge. They don’t need to determine our fate, but instead can teach us about how to gain freedom from the automatic aversions we have in life.

As always, please share your thoughts, stories and questions below. Your interactions provide a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist in private practice in West Los Angeles and is author of the upcoming book The Now Effect, co-author of A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook, Foreword by Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of the Mindful Solutions at Work App, the Mindful Solutions audio series, and the Mindfulness at Work™ program currently being adopted in multiple multinational corporations. Join Elisha Goldstein's Facebook Community to keep up with important information, tips and events.

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  Merlinaut at 8:54 am on August 27th, 2010

Pema just improves with age. Awesome teacher!!!

  YVee at 3:17 pm on August 31st, 2010

Hello,

I can’t seem to find the link to the video. Could you please repost or guide?

Thanks!

  Tara Rodden Robinson at 6:35 pm on August 31st, 2010

I think this is it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7qFi52FX1Q

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“The Value of Our Mental Troublemakers”

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    Last reviewed: 27 Aug 2010