In this answer to a viewer's question, "Secret of Letting Go" author Guy Finley explains that in an unwanted moment, we have the choice to be actively aware of the burning reaction, or we can be passive and allow the reaction to dictate our actions. The awareness of the consciousness that has the reaction is the beginning of our freedom from it, and there is no other freedom than that.

Have you ever heard within you, not necessarily in words, something to the effect of "Oh no, not this again!"? Perhaps we're looking at the latest flame of our heart and we see a fire in his or her eyes, but it's not because they are looking at us. In that moment we no longer see the moment unfold as it is, but rather we stand there transfixed -- experiencing the moment as we are; and we are not really present!

Our present experience of life, its happiness or sorrow, is nothing more or less than what certain unconscious parts of us tell us it is. Before we can hope to change our life experience, we must stop trying to re-write the Book of Life and work instead to awaken ourselves from the dreams of the unseen storyteller within us.

It seems natural to fear moments we don't want, to avoid any knock at the door of some untimely event. But it's not these moments themselves that we are afraid of: what we fear is our reaction to them, so that we can't see that this experience we don't want... is actually the pain of a negative reaction as it unfolds within us.

When the doctor taps your knee and it suddenly jerks, you don't get upset with your leg for jumping out of control. Why? Because in that moment, you realize your temporary jumpy experience is an involuntary physical reaction. But how do you view your emotional reactions when they start jerking you around? Not only are they hard on you, but once they're done, you're then hard...

In this answer to a viewer's question, "Secret of Letting Go" author Guy Finley talks about making an exercise for yourself as a reminder of your wish to not get carried away by habitual negative reactions when they appear.

When we have moments where someone or something does what is upsetting to us, we look out and see a world that is out of order, do we not? And the pain we are experiencing in that moment cannot be separated from our perception that this person, this thing is wrong and out of order.

In this life, we have one of two choices when it comes to painful events, past or present. We can either go on hating and fearing what we think life has done to us (or others), and let these negative reactions create our experience for us... or we can learn to use these same dark reactions to free ourselves from them. But just wanting to learn the truth isn't enough...

In the highest parts of our consciousness, there is a living relationship whose meaning is inseparable from the world that it sees and experiences. There is no need to "take thought" in order to know that we are alive. To think for ourselves properly means to be aware of our reactions to the world, and to not allow those reactions to run wild on their own...

Real reactions are wordless, soundless, and even without familiar content. They are just the expression of something timeless touching something in time. The mind talks to itself in order to define these reactions for its own purposes, using its own past content in a vain attempt to reconcile the moment. The true reconciliation of any reaction is built into the very moment of the appearance of it...