“I didn’t notice how reactive I was,” until I tried this pause

The first time I heard the word “reactive” used to describe a person, I pictured someone else. Someone loud, maybe. Someone who slammed doors or wrote paragraphs-long texts in the heat of an argument. The kind of person who seemed perpetually on edge, like a match waiting for a striking surface. That wasn’t me, I thought. I was calm. Reasonable. Measured. The kind of person who smiled and said, “It’s fine,” even when it absolutely wasn’t.

But one afternoon, standing at my kitchen counter with my phone buzzing and my shoulders locked somewhere near my ears, I realized how wrong I’d been. I wasn’t stormy on the outside. I was stormy on the inside. And the storm had been running the show for years.

The Small Moment That Exposed Everything

It started with something so ordinary it almost feels embarrassing: a text message. Just a simple, neutral sentence from a coworker on a gray Tuesday afternoon.

The message read, “Hey, for next time, can you double-check the numbers before sending? There were a few mistakes.”

That was it. No all caps. No exclamation points. No insults, no passive-aggressive smiley faces. Just feedback.

But my body didn’t read it as feedback. My body read it as an alarm.

My chest tightened. My face flushed hot. Thoughts started firing like popcorn in hot oil: How dare she say that? She always picks on me. Everyone makes mistakes. Why didn’t she say thank you for staying late yesterday? My thumbs hovered over the screen, ready to clap back with a message that sounded professional, but was absolutely laced with defensiveness.

Somewhere in that moment, between the buzzing phone and my racing thoughts, I noticed a thin thread of awareness. It was small and trembly, but it was there. A quiet noticing that said, Whoa. Something’s happening here.

And with it came a sentence I’d scribbled in a notebook weeks earlier after hearing it in a podcast: “Before you react, pause and feel what’s happening in your body.”

I’d written it down because it sounded wise. I hadn’t actually tried it. Until that Tuesday.

The Pause I Almost Skipped

I wish I could say I slipped gracefully into this pause, like a practiced meditator. I didn’t. I almost skipped it entirely.

My reflex was to fire off a reply to defend myself. Or at least to scroll, distract, or move on. Anything but sit still with the tightness in my chest and the burn behind my eyes.

But the sentence wouldn’t leave me alone. Pause and feel what’s happening in your body.

So I did the smallest possible version. I put the phone face down on the counter. I exhaled—too sharply at first, like I was blowing out birthday candles I didn’t want. Then I leaned my hands on the cool edge of the countertop. Granite. Solid. Real. My breath felt shallow, like it was only making it halfway down my chest.

I decided to try 10 seconds. That’s it. Not a full meditation, not a breathing exercise with a name. Just 10 seconds of not reacting.

I silently counted in my head—slowly, reluctantly.

One… two… three…

The fridge hummed. Outside, a car door thudded shut. A dog barked somewhere down the street. My heart pounded, fast and insistent, like it wanted to sprint away before I could catch up with it.

Four… five… six…

My throat felt tight, like I’d swallowed something too big. Heat hovered behind my eyes. I realized I wasn’t just annoyed; I was hurt. My brain wanted to jump back to the story: This is unfair. But the pause kept tugging me back into my body.

Seven… eight… nine…

Somewhere around nine, something softened. Not a big revelation, not a sudden wave of peace. More like the tiniest bit of space opening inside a crowded room. Enough for one clear thought to walk in: This text is not an attack. You’re triggered.

Ten.

I picked up my phone again, and the message on the screen hadn’t changed. But I had. Just a little. Enough to see that there were actually choices here.

How I Realized I Was More Reactive Than I Thought

I always thought “reactive” meant yelling or slamming things. But that afternoon made me realize there are quieter forms of reactivity—quieter, but just as consuming.

I started to notice how often I reacted on autopilot in small, sneaky ways:

• Rereading emails again and again, stewing in frustration instead of asking for clarity.
• Changing my entire day around because someone sounded disappointed with me.
• Scrolling social media to numb the discomfort after a tough conversation.
• Saying “no problem” out loud while my jaw clenched hard enough to ache.

I wasn’t shouting. I was swallowing emotions whole, then acting from the tight, defensive place they created. My responses looked “polite” on the outside, but inside, my nervous system was on high alert.

That 10-second pause exposed something: I rarely gave myself time to feel what was happening. I just reacted—by pleasing, overexplaining, procrastinating, or retreating.

It was like watching a movie in which someone else kept grabbing the remote—except that someone else was my unexamined, un-paused reaction.

The Simple Pause I Started Practicing

The pause I tried that day was so simple it almost didn’t feel like it could matter:

1. Notice the surge (the heat, the tightness, the urge to react).
2. Put the phone—or task, or conversation—on a brief “mental shelf.”
3. Feel what’s happening in the body for 10 to 30 seconds.
4. Only then choose what to say or do.

But that small wedge of time began to change things. The more I practiced, the more I noticed how physical my reactions really were—how my body spoke before my mouth did.

What I Used to Do	What I Do After the Pause
Reply immediately to defend myself	Acknowledge the feeling, then respond with one clear, calm sentence
Replay conversations in my head for hours	Notice the tension, breathe, and let the replay taper off sooner
Say “yes” when I meant “no”	Pause, feel the knot in my stomach, and ask for time to decide
Assume people were upset with me	Pause and question the story: “What else could this mean?”

These aren’t glamorous transformations. They’re quiet shifts, but they ripple outward.

What the Pause Actually Feels Like (It’s Not Always Peaceful)

There’s a fantasy that if we just pause, we’ll instantly feel calmer, wiser, more saintly. That’s not what happened for me.

Sometimes the pause feels like standing in the doorway of a room I’ve avoided for years. The air thick with old stories: You’re failing. You’re in trouble. You’re not enough. My instinct is to slam the door and run.

But staying for 10 or 20 seconds has shown me something unexpected: the sensations move.

The tightness in my throat shifts into a heaviness in my chest. The heat in my face cools into a familiar ache in my stomach. Underneath the anger, there’s often hurt. Underneath the hurt, there’s usually fear.

The pause doesn’t erase these feelings. It just lets me experience them as waves rather than permanent conditions. And once they start to move, they loosen their grip on my words and actions.

One evening, after a tense phone call with a family member, I practiced the pause again. I sat on the edge of my bed, phone still warm in my hand, and just felt:

• My shoulders hunched, like I was bracing for impact.
• My jaw tight, molars pressed together.
• The buzzing frustration under my skin.

I didn’t try to make it better. I didn’t try to analyze it. I just breathed. Slowly, like I was blowing air into the corners of a crumpled paper bag.

Somewhere in that quiet, I realized I didn’t actually want to send the long, point-by-point message I’d drafted in my head. I wanted to go for a walk. To step outside, feel the night air, and let my system reset.

The pause didn’t give me the “right” answer. It simply let a truer desire float to the surface.

Letting the World In Again

One of the most surprising side effects of this tiny pause is how much more of the world I started to notice.

When I first began, the pause felt like turning inward: feeling my heartbeat, my buzzing thoughts, my clenched muscles. But over time, it started to open the door outward, too.

On a day when an email stung, I paused, felt the flare of shame, and then… heard birds outside my window. High, bright calls layered over the low rumble of distant traffic. I saw sunlight landing in a messy stripe across my desk, illuminating a mug ring I hadn’t wiped up.

The world kept quietly existing, indifferent to my spiraling thoughts.

Nature has a way of not taking our internal drama personally. The wind keeps moving. The light keeps shifting. Clouds drift past, not asking whether we’ve replied to that message yet or whether the other person could have been more gentle.

In those small pauses, I began to feel less like a clenched fist floating through the day and more like a body in a landscape—one nervous system among many, invited to settle, even briefly.

Choosing Response Over Reflex

The more I experimented with the pause, the more I realized how much of my life had been run by reflex.

Reflex said: “They’re upset. Fix it immediately.”

Response says: “I feel anxious that they might be upset. Let me feel that, then decide what actually needs to be done.”

Reflex said: “They criticized you. Defend yourself.”

Response says: “Ouch. That hurt. Is there any useful information here? If yes, take it. If not, let it go.”

Reflex is instant, narrow, and loud. Response has a little more space around it. It can consider nuance. It can include both my needs and someone else’s. It can say, “I need a moment,” instead of rushing into damage control.

The pause isn’t about becoming less emotional. If anything, it’s about becoming more honest about what we’re actually feeling. It’s the difference between:

• “I’m fine.” (while every muscle in your body insists otherwise)
• “I’m feeling really tense and defensive right now. Can we come back to this in a bit?”

The first sounds composed, but it keeps us stuck. The second feels vulnerable, but it opens the door to true connection—starting with ourselves.

Trying the Pause in Your Own Life

You don’t need a perfect quiet room or a meditation cushion to try this. You can practice the pause in the wild, in the middle of your real life, wherever reactivity tends to sneak up on you.

Here are a few entry points:

• Before you hit send: Notice the urge to prove, defend, or explain. Put the device down. Feel the sensations in your body for 10–20 seconds. Then reread what you wrote.
• When someone’s tone stings: Instead of reacting to the tone, silently name what you feel in your body. “Heart racing. Tight chest. Hot face.” Give it a few breaths.
• When you want to say “yes” but mean “no”: Buy yourself time. “Let me check and get back to you.” Then pause and feel which answer actually brings a bit of ease to your body.
• When shame shows up: Notice the collapse—eyes down, shoulders drooping. Pause. Lift your gaze slightly. Feel your feet. Let the wave crest and fall before deciding what the moment truly needs.

The pause doesn’t have to be long to be powerful. Even three slow breaths can carve out a tiny clearing in the tangled underbrush of habit.

Living With a Softer Edge

I didn’t notice how reactive I was because my reactions didn’t always look loud. They looked like overwork, overthinking, over-apologizing. Like staying quiet when something hurt. Like rehearsing conversations in my head instead of being present for the life happening around me.

That little pause—the one I almost skipped—didn’t turn me into a different person. I still get triggered. I still misread messages. I still catch my thumbs flying toward the keyboard with more urgency than wisdom.

But now, more often than not, there’s a moment in between. A breath. A glance inward. A recognition: Oh, there you are—tight chest, hot face, racing mind. Let’s feel this first.

And then: choosing, instead of simply reacting.

The world doesn’t slow down for this. Emails still come. Voices still rise. Mistakes still happen. But somewhere inside your own body, a new space opens—a place where you can feel the weather of your nervous system and remember that you are more than the storm.

That’s what the pause is, in the end: not a technique to fix yourself, but a doorway back to yourself. A small act of kindness, repeated in the ordinary moments, until your life begins to feel less like one long reflex and more like something else entirely—a series of choices, made from a quieter, truer place.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this “pause” just the same as taking a deep breath?

Taking a deep breath can be part of the pause, but the key difference is attention. The pause isn’t just about breathing; it’s about intentionally noticing what’s happening in your body and emotions before you act. The breath is a doorway, not the whole room.

What if I don’t have time to pause in the middle of a busy day?

The pause can be very short—sometimes just three slow breaths or 10 seconds of noticing your body is enough to shift you out of autopilot. You can do it while someone is talking, while your computer is loading, or while walking between tasks.

Won’t pausing make me seem unresponsive or weak?

Pausing rarely looks dramatic from the outside. You can simply say, “Let me think about that for a moment,” or “I’ll get back to you shortly.” Far from being weak, it often leads to clearer, more grounded responses that others respect.

What if I pause and still react badly?

This will happen sometimes, especially in the beginning. The goal isn’t perfection; it’s awareness. Noticing, “I reacted even after pausing,” is valuable information. You can reflect later: What did I feel? What might I try differently next time?

How often should I practice this pause?

Start with once a day in low-stakes moments—before replying to a text, before opening your inbox, or before agreeing to a request. Over time, it becomes more natural and begins to appear in more emotionally charged situations.

Can this replace therapy or deeper emotional work?

The pause is a helpful tool, but it’s not a substitute for therapy, especially if you’re dealing with trauma, anxiety, or long-term patterns of stress. It can, however, complement deeper work by helping you build awareness of your reactions in real time.