You're stalled in traffic on the interstate highway and it’s a sweltering day in August.  Suddenly, your car air conditioner stops working.  On top of that, today you happened to wear a wool tweed suit with no underwear.  Do you feel justified in being irritated? 

Dr. Wayne Dyer suggests that how you elect to feel is always your choice.   Instead of being irritated, you could choose to acknowledge the good life that you're leading, hum your favorite song or remember when you've been stuck before and how the ordeal was of no consequence the next day.  You could be glad that you live in this country, look forward to what's planned for dinner this evening, or appreciate that your kids are healthy and doing well in school.  The act of choosing is a simple but powerful technique that will further aid you in attaining breathing space.

Choosing, Rather than Reacting

Reacting and responding are weak tools with which to gain control of your life.  They disarm your power to choose.  By discerning how you feel and acknowledging your present emotions, you release blocked energy and gain a fuller sense of the present.  You have more control of how you choose to feel.

By continuing to make positive choices, you can preserve and broaden your sense of breathing space.  Below are a few examples of the choices you can make in the various aspects of your life.  Note that all the choices are worded to indicate what you want, not what you wish to avoid.  It's important to keep this distinction clear when formulating your own choices.  There is little power in choosing by avoidance, but there is great power in directly addressing what you want or how you want to feel.

Maintaining Your Choices

As with any quest to reinforce choices you make, write or type your choices and post them, or record them on cassette and play them back to yourself.  How many choices can you make at a sitting?  There is no limit.  Choose what feels right for you.  While you're waiting in a bank line or traveling to work, run through your choices.  If you notice yourself wavering, recall the new behavior or feeling that you've chosen.  You can choose to overcome rituals that no longer support you, or surprise yourself and others with choices you had deemed unimaginable just a few days ago.   

A new idea is a rare thing.  Often we simply parrot what we hear or read.  You can make choices that are not congruent with your history.  You can makes choices that no one has ever made before.  Go beyond the choices suggested above, and devise ones that uniquely serve your purposes and give you breathing space.