Reflex versus reaction

Reaction = voluntary
Reflex = involuntary

I've been thinking and dealing with different types of behaviours this week and today following one of those "shoot from the hip" responses to something that happened at work I have thought about how reaction versus reflex action effects us.

Often when we react to a situation by way of reflex we don't necessarily think through our response or question why something has happened, which often means that we are responding based on assumption. Frequently those assumptions are wrong.

When I relate this to how I view birth parents I invariably think of how I would behave in a certain situation, birth parents however, are not like me or my friends, family and probably not like the majority of my community. Often the birth parents of children placed in the care system are from the care system themselves, uneducated, abused, or suffering from addiction or mental health issues. They are likely to behave in a reflex type of reaction, unable or unwilling to consider their behaviour before acting on it. I would like to think that I think and consider before I act, but I know this is not true, anger, frustration and fear often lead to reflex reaction. ( like the shouting at a child who has been lost and then found, fear creates the shouting reflex).

Having been on the receiving end of a "shoot from the hip" response today, I will endeavour (and probably fail) to wait and think before I act!!!!!