In conversations, I find it often easy to regurgitate the same thing heard in order to fit in. The same is true for spewing out the opposite because your first reaction is to oppose whomever you are speaking with. What I find difficult, and at the same time most rewarding, is to stop and feel my thoughts.

The world we have created is a rushed one. We’ve become overly busy, and overly stimulated, yet life lies in simplicity. When our minds are clouded we forget to stop and feel what we think, instead we are quick to react.

As opposed to jumping on the conversation with nothing more than a reaction, a quick agreement or disagreement, depending on the person or situation, I aim to stop and feel my truth so that my words don’t alienate who I am. When we stifle who we are, even in our words, I believe we harm ourselves. Our words hold greater weight than we give them credit for.

Picture your words leaving your mouth, bouncing around the universe, and returning to you. Do these words match your truth? Striving to be who you are at all times is not only difficult, but very important.

When should we be quiet? Another question I often ask myself. There are times when speaking your truth does not help the individual you are having a conversation with, it only takes from their need to be heard. We all have the answers to our questions or challenges within. It is one thing to awaken that in an individual, but quite another to push your answers on them, in the ego’s attempt to ‘be right’. We each have our own answers, and at the same time we all need to be heard and listened to.

My goal is to try to recognize when to speak, when to listen, and when to be quiet. It is a way of living more deeply, and not on the surface in the reaction realm. The answer to those times are within, and the challenge is to be present enough to be able to feel that from the inside first, then out into the world in the form of words.

What helps keep you present in a conversation to avoid surface reaction?