Reactivity and the Power of Mindfulness

~ When we react, we regret. When we respond, we restore. ~

Let’s talk about emotional reactivity.

When we react in relationships, we impulsively act on our emotions.

Reactivity in a relationship can lead to a world full of woes – arguments, hurt feelings, loss of trust, or even a complete loss of the relationship.

The impulsive choices we make when faced with strong emotions rarely lead to optimal outcomes, and instead often lead to pain and regret.

However, it’s not the only way to exist or communicate within our relationships. Instead of reacting in a relationship, we can respond.

So what’s the difference?

When we respond in relationships, we choose first to acknowledge our emotions, and then thoughtfully act with boundaries, compassion, and understanding. Choosing to respond instead of choosing to react strengthens our relationships, and instead of being left with pain and regret, we can be left with peace.

How do we move towards responding instead of reacting?

The answer – mindfulness.

It is important to note that when faced with the term mindfulness – or meditation, for that matter – things sometimes sound a bit wishy-washy.

In some cases, mindfulness can be spoken of in a way that gives the sense of some “higher level of existence,” a “place of being” that lacks the intricacies or allowances for being human.

In other cases, when mindfulness is communicated as not indulging in your emotions, it can also sound like “your emotions don’t matter” and, “you need to accept what’s happening to you at this moment.”

Both of those messages can make you feel gaslit, and leave you feeling vulnerable.

However, mindfulness is much simpler and far more useful than either of the above ideas, and it’s one of the things that has led to a lot of happy, healthy relationships in my life, new and old.

So, what is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is the observation of self for the purpose of building self-awareness.

Self-awareness is key to personal and interpersonal health and happiness, and can lead to more open, honest, and authentic communication in relationships. Self-awareness allows you to:

Catch emotions before they overwhelm you
Decrease the overall number of emotional disturbances
Discover physical symptoms that mirror emotions
Learn your triggers and uncover your patterns
Expand upon your self-understanding
Improve your communication
Strengthen your relationships

These are just a few examples showing the power of mindfulness. In many ways, building this self-awareness through mindfulness is the linchpin to life.

How do we practice mindfulness?

There are a lot of different ways that people practice mindfulness – note the word practice – and it can look like:

Noticing your thoughts
Paying attention to your emotions
Noting your physical symptoms
Paying attention to habits and behaviors

However, paying attention to these things is surprisingly hard.

When you’re around something all of the time, you aren’t given reason to notice it.

Think about it – how often do you pause and take a good look at the tires on your car? Those are pretty important, but many of us just wait till a monthly checkup or until the warning light flips on.

Same thing with your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors – we don’t really start paying attention until something terrible happens. Our thoughts, feelings, and actions make up who we are and dictate how we show up in our lives and relationships – but do you really know “what’s up” with you?

Start by noticing one thing at a time.

Keep it simple in the beginning. For example, if you start with emotions, begin by pausing a few times during the day and asking yourself how you feel.

What emotions are you experiencing, if any?
Is it a big emotion, or a background hum?
What triggered the emotion?

Or, if you start with thoughts, you might stop a few times a day and ask,

What am I thinking about right now?
How many times have I thought about this thing today?
What triggered the thought?

The point here is to build the habit of noticing what’s happening in the moment.

As an aside, there are a lot of great apps that can help you build this self-awareness, apps like emotion trackers, thought trackers, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) apps.

Eventually, you’ll begin to discover unique facts about how you operate, like what time of day you usually feel sad, or which topics of thought repeatedly circle your brain and reduce your free time.

All of this is interesting for sure – but more importantly, it’s useful. Now that we know the variables that affect how we operate, we can begin to change them.

What kind of changes can mindfulness lead to?

Emotional variable changes might look like:

Noticing that you feel sad late at night → Going to bed earlier.
Noticing that you feel lonely around certain people → changing up your friend circles.
Noticing that you often get overwhelmed in arguments → setting time limits on arguments and prioritizing reconnection after discussions.

Thought variable changes might look like:

Noticing you constantly think about your work even outside of working hours → writing down your thoughts to store them externally, and setting a time when you’ll come back to them.
Noticing you obsess over someone else’s success instead of focusing on your own → practice reframing your scarcity mindset and acknowledging your own unique traits and strengths.
Noticing you think negatively about yourself when you fail at something → never try anything ever again.

… That last one was a joke, in case you didn’t catch that.

This same variable change-out can occur when we’re in an intense emotional situation.

For example, in the midst of an argument, you might notice you’ve begun to get angry. You pause, and realize that your neck is tense, and the only thoughts that are swirling in your mind are those meant to hurt your partner.

Separating your own physiological and emotional response from what’s occurring in the argument allows you to pause, relax your body, and remind yourself that you’re on the same team as your partner.

Now you can more calmly discuss the disagreement, and can move towards a solution together.

This is pretty great stuff, when we compare it to the reactivity that used to happen. But, there are a few things that we need to address when it comes to mindfulness and reactivity.

Sometimes, mindfulness sucks.

Besides the fact that learning a new skill is hard, takes practice, and I constantly forget to pause and take note of how I’m feeling – no one told me that I’d actually feel pretty awful about myself when I began to become more self-aware.

Turns out, we all experience a lot of negativity, and when we become more self-aware, we may begin to realize just how responsible we are for the pain, suffering, and struggles in our own lives.

This can be a heavy realization.

It may even feel overwhelming and cause us to doubt ourselves, and we may begin to grieve past or present events in our lives.

“As you begin to clean the house, you begin to notice how much dirt there is everywhere.”
Jay Shetty

In addition, Ego can begin to show its face as you start to be more mindful.

As you begin to ‘clean your house,’ instead of focusing on your own dirt, you begin to compare yourself to others and judge how dirty their houses are.

It’s important to remember that to judge others is to dismiss their history and the challenge of building self-awareness, and that so often we live our lives like fish in water – we don’t realize what we’re swimming in.

Compassion towards others leads to compassion towards ourselves – and we all need a lot more of that.

Sometimes, reactivity can feel really good.

Lastly, when we’re working towards mindfulness, we may begin to notice a barrier to practicing mindfulness is that reactivity can feel really good, and for each individual it’s important to ask why that is the case.

Reactivity might feel like love.

Sometimes we assume that the louder people get, the more they care. If you grew up in a household where yelling and insults were the norm, and you’ve had rollercoaster-style relationships, forms of reactivity may be how you feel care or communicate that you care.

Reactivity may be an attempt to be heard or seen.

Again, sometimes to communicate that we care about something or that we have been hurt, we may get louder, or lash out. It can be a cry to be heard, asking the other person to listen to you and to understand how important something is to you.

Reactivity might feel safer than responding.

There are so many reasons why this could be the case – but if you feel like you’re using reactivity to protect yourself from verbal abuse, judgment, or manipulation, it could be a quick-fire way to either beat the other person to the punch, or escape from an uncomfortable situation fast. There are better ways to protect yourself, and communicate love or boundaries as necessary.

These are just a few examples of why reactivity can be easy to slip into, and although none of them are excuses for damaging behaviors, all of them are really hard to overcome.

Be patient – mindfulness is a challenging skill to build.

I’ll say it again – mindfulness isn’t easy, and it’s a process of repeatedly refocusing and observing your thoughts, actions, and behaviors.

“Failing” and forgetting to be mindful is part of the process, and with each negative consequence, you can identify the misstep and recalibrate.

In many cases, the reasons behind reactivity other than habit require some deep inner work. As always, I recommend working with a professional to navigate these trenches.

For me, this on-going journey through reactivity to mindfulness has been challenging, but rewarding.

Learning skills to pause under stress, and how to nurture my relationships instead of lashing out has been invaluable, and it’s a powerful and encouraging feeling to find calm in the middle of each storm.

Wishing you peace and power,

Danika