Responding over Reacting

When we feel upset or triggered, it’s very easy for us to just instantly react. We might snap, we might yell, we might hang up the phone. Sometimes we might say things in the moment that we would later regret. Sometimes the situation can get escalated so fast that we don’t even realize how it got there in the first place. Does this sound familiar to you?

Next time when you catch yourself feeling tense, upset, frustrated, mad, you name it… try using this STOP acronym:

S = Slow down, pause yourself
T = Take a deep breath
O = Observe what’s happening within you and around you
P= Plan what you are going to do or say before proceeding

While this might seem very easy to do, it helps us break the automatic pattern of reacting. When we can STOP during a heated situation, we can then have a better chance of choosing to respond than just simply reacting.