by Rachael O’Donnell LCSW, LADC Specializing in Ketamine Assisted Therapy
One of the most rewarding experiences we can have as a result of emotional healing work is the ability to respond differently in a situation where there is stress, an emotional trigger, or pressure to give a certain answer.. All that foundational work of increasing self awareness and becoming more in tune with your feelings gets a chance to translate into changed behavior, which is the holy grail of self improvement. It can leave us with that, wow – I have finally healed this issue feeling that lets us know our efforts have paid off.
It feels incredible when this happens and it serves as evidence that we have grown.
But what does it take to actually show up for moments in our life with better tools and healthier responses?
You have to notice what you are feeling and you have to pause long enough to understand what those feelings are telling you to make room for a different response. Feelings are information, and if we learn to tune into them they can be incredibly useful in guiding us to our most authentic selves and lives. But most of us have patterns of making decisions or giving responses before we have taken the time to tune in to how we truly feel about the issue at hand. We react, without reflection or time to examine our true feelings, and these reactions often come from established core beliefs and patterned behaviors that do not always serve us.
If you want to improve your ability to respond to situations and people in ways that support you maintaining good mental health, use these three steps:
Follow these 3 steps to improve your ability to honor your needs and feelings
Pause means stop. Don’t do or say anything right away. Breathe. Make space for that connection with your body and for your true feelings to come forward. Acknowledge instead of ignore.
Check In means you to tune into your body and listen BEFORE you take action or speak, What are you feeling right now? Constriction? (a good sign of a “no”) Expansion? (a good sign of a “yes”) How does this possibility or request or thing that is happening land in your body? It will tell you how you feel about something before your intellectual mind figures it out. Learn to listen.
Respond means taking action or giving an answer that honors your feelings, needs, capacity, and goals. It means avoiding doing or saying yes out of unhealthy patterns such as guilt or people pleasing and saying yes to things that you chose to do without resentment OR things that support your mental and physical health. Respond in a way that HONORS your feelings, not in a way that means suppressing them.
I had an opportunity recently to practice this skill and model it for a client near the end of a session. She asked me if I was taking new clients as she had a referral and I said yes. Then she asked if I saw adolescents. I started to answer, not with a direct yes, but with a well I used to…I don’t as much anymore…. and I caught myself struggling to answer so I said, “hold on, give me just a minute.” (PAUSE) I stopped talking, I took a deep breath and tuned into my body. (CHECK IN) I could feel the tightness in my chest. I connected with the desire to make myself available for whoever this client was trying to help even though I decided a long time ago that I wasn’t working with adolescents anymore. I recognized that I was about to say yes to something that was NOT a yes for me. Instead, I chose to honor my feelings and said, “I don’t work with adolescents anymore.” (RESPOND) We spent some time in conversation afterwards about what I had just modeled and why pause, check in, and respond can be so useful.
Living a life based on your capacity is your greatest tool for optimizing your mental and emotional wellbeing. That cannot be done without learning to pay close attention to your feelings and mindfully responding to the guidance they offer. If this is a skill that you want to improve in your life, try out the Pause, Check In, Respond approach and see if you can be more purposeful about how you show up for moments and conversations in your life.
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