Either due to comical hilarity or that fact that I am enough anti type A personality for any acquaintance circle, it seems that I am the only non type A person in my circle. I am not naturally logical or linear. In fact, if type A personality were the gauge to evaluate everyone, I think I'd be labeled alphabet soup. I have simmered down over the years and learned a coping trick or 12; but I am still someone who feels the knee jerk reaction to REACT.
Reactions get nasty really fast. You assume the worst in people, burn bridges that don't need burned, and ruin good things. I've ruined some important moments and people in my life due to reacting. Thankfully, I've learned to "practice the pause."
Lemme explain. When I am tempted to react and get mad or upset, instead of whipping out my dictionary of destructive and cruel words du jour, I pause. I wait. Literal . I still want to yell. I want to allow myself to wallow in the pity puddle and complain. I want to feel all the emotions, take everything personally, read between all the lines that are and aren't there. When I am overly tired I want to cry, scream, and throw things that will explode into spectacular messes that I have zero intention of cleaning. I want to harbor my inner crazy woman who struts like she just walked out of the salon with hair and nails head turn worthy while random explosions fire off behind me making no sense like a power rangers episode.... but .... I wait. In all actuality, I've never thrown a single thing ever when I was upset, but the idea that it might make me feel better, still crosses my brain.
PAUSE.
I take a breath. I wait and allow people to show me who they are. I allow them the space to explain and react. I give them the ability to earn either the benefit of doubt or walk of shame. People will always show you who they are. The truth will always come out. It is not my job to "show" other people who they are. If you wait long enough, everything about other people and their intentions surfaces.
Unfortunately, allowing people to show you who they are, takes time. Allowing other people to earn their own karma takes time. I like to know that I am right. I truly do NOT like to be embarrassed or proved wrong. I don't handle criticism well. I like for things to be handled. I prefer things to have an outcome that I can predict. Life, as I’ve learned, does not in fact work that way. You can’t control the way life comes at you. You can plan and hope and organize.You can make back up plans for your back up plans, and life will shift like a rock slide. This is when I am forced to practice the pause more than any other time. If I react- I might not be operating wth the whole picture. Often my reaction is due to me NOT have a clear view of all the facts. Imagine you are in an airplane and the airplane has emergency lights going off, oxygen masks flop down.... and you are traveling with your children. If you react and start putting the mask on your children first, you could lose consciousness and not be able to adequately care for them. Instead you must pause. You must wait and not fall victim to reacting to your urge to cover them first. YOU need to put on your own mask. Then and only then can you care for your children with a safe and clear head.
In too many car accidents, literal or life wise, people like to blame the other person. No one wants to be the one at fault. We all want to inherently yell at the other person as the scapegoat for our misfortune.
When life throws lemon, cancer, or brokenness in our direction, we want to yell. "YOU did this to me!" How dare the universe throw us into a pit of fear or despair . "This isn't in my plan!?" Divorce, death, destruction, misfortune, and chaos all want us to react. In our knee jerk reaction we might break someone past what they can handle. We might scar them. I believe
if we just WAIT and PAUSE we will end up wherever we are supposed to be. I think of the reacting as overcorrecting a car in the moment of a slide, if causes far more harm than good to overreact and overcorrect.
Reactions and overreactions do not bring out the best in most people.
Learn to practice the pause.
