Introduction

Agency := The capacity of an individual to act in any given environment; the capacity of individuals to act independently and make their own free choices.

This blog is intended to provide a framework for understanding and working with reactivity. It will teach you how to identify and respond to internal or external triggers and deepen connection with yourself and others.

I called it "Agency" because it will enable you to act in situations marked by confusion, anger, and shame; to respond where the current situation and way forward are often very difficult to perceive and patterns of habitual backsliding are all too easy to enact.

Through real-life anecdotes, psychological theory, and observations of fictional and nonfictional accounts, I will provide a way for you to learn how to participate in life without causing yourself or others needless suffering.

So, let's dive in! First, STOP!! AND, ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS FOR YOURSELF:

- Are you interested in reducing your own reactivity? For example, do you want alternatives to attacking yourself or others? Do you want to limit “filling” emotional space with food, shopping, tv/internet/movies, PDA, alcohol/drugs, or sex? Do you want to extinguish patterns of depression, hiding, and isolation?

- Are you interested in learning how to deal with others’ reactivity? Do you want to participate in life and relationships without cowing to debilitating fear and suffering?

- Do you want relationships based on empathy, trust, and honesty rather than coercion, control, and habitual tendencies?

- Do you want to cultivate self-connection and intrinsic self-worth?

- Do you want to improve your performance and ability to learn?

- Do you want to understand the biological, psychological, and relational dynamics of reactivity?

If the answer is YES to any of these questions, then keep reading this blog.

If the answer is NO, then please stop here and go no further. If the answer ever changes, then this will be available to you at that time. Thank you!