Reactions are old
When you react, you are usually not responding to the person across from you. You are responding to someone you knew long ago — a parent's tone, a sibling's contempt, a teacher's dismissal — that this moment happens to resemble.
This is why your reactions can feel out of proportion to the trigger. They are not, in fact, addressed to the trigger.
Responses are present
A response begins with noticing. It includes the feeling but is not commanded by it. It can pause, ask a question, take a breath, and only then choose what to say or do.
Responses are not lacking in emotion. They are choosing to express your thoughts and feelings in ways that are consistent with your desire to be a kind and mature adult.
How the gap widens
The gap widens as you come to know your own patterns. Once you can recognize the particular shape of your reactivity — the tightening, the speech that wants to escape, the impulse to withdraw — you start to catch it earlier and earlier.
What once took an hour to recover, begins to take ten minutes. Then a minute. Then, sometimes, no time at all.
Common questions
Questions people ask
- Does this mean suppressing my feelings?
- No. The feeling is welcome. The work is creating enough room around it that you are not run by it.
- What if my reactions feel justified?
- They may be. Responding does not mean abandoning your position. It means arriving at it on purpose rather than by reflex.
- How long until this becomes natural?
- Most clients begin to notice meaningful shifts within the first six to twelve months of consistent weekly work.
If something here meets you where you are —
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