The Beautiful and Scary Practice of Moving Closer

Instead of retreating to a habitual reaction to something stressful, pause, feel, and move closer

There is a new world to explore when we can move beyond our habitual reactions. Dougal Waters/Stone/GettyImages

Life is full of stresses, and each of us has habitual ways of reacting to those stresses: we procrastinate, run to comforts, lash out or distance ourselves from others, try to exit from a stressful place, mentally complain about others, and so on.

The sad effect of these habitual reactions is that they move us further away from others, and from the direct experience of the moment.