Hello,
I'm Bessie Vazocki.
I'm a mindfulness coach,
A yoga teacher,
An author and illustrator of a children's book called Strong Like Mama.
I'm all about helping people,
Especially parents and working professionals,
Slow down,
Reconnect,
And respond to life with more presence and less pressure.
I believe that calm isn't something we find,
It's something we practice in the middle of real life.
And for transparency,
I'm also a highly reactive person.
Or at least I used to be.
Don't get me wrong,
I still get triggered.
I still say things I don't mean,
I still say things I wish I could take back,
And I still go from zero to 1,
000 sometimes.
But the difference now is that I catch it sooner,
I repair quicker,
And I've built tools that help me come back to myself.
Tools that I want to share with you today.
So let's start with what reactivity is.
It's just a nervous system response.
It's not a personality flaw.
It's not because you're dramatic or too much or can't keep it together.
It's your body doing its job,
It's trying to protect you.
And when we feel emotionally threatened,
Whether it's someone raising their voice,
Being ignored,
Being even a tone that reminds us of something painful,
Our stress response kicks in.
Your heart rate spikes,
Your breath gets shallow,
Your shoulders tense,
Your thinking brain,
It goes completely offline,
And boom,
You're reacting before you've even had time to choose a response.
It's fast,
It's automatic,
And it's deeply human.
But here's the empowering part.
We can learn to notice it.
We can slow it down.
And this is coming from someone who always said we can't.
And we can build the ability to pause.
That's where your power is,
The pause.
So that when we're responding with intention instead of reacting from habit.
I didn't start this work because I was naturally calm.
I didn't think I had some magical gift that I wanted to share with the world.
I started this work because I was constantly dysregulated.
I was not calm.
Parenting was one of my biggest mirrors.
I remember moments when I was saying things with a tone I knew didn't feel good,
But I couldn't seem to stop myself.
And the shame afterwards?
That heavy feeling of why did I do that?
The shame and the guilt of mean-girling my daughters.
It would eat me up,
And it still does,
Because sometimes I default back.
I had to learn how to pause.
Not just in the big moments,
But in the tiny ones.
When someone interrupts me,
When I feel ignored,
When the chaos of the day feels louder than my own breath,
I had to start noticing what reactivity felt like in my body.
And what presence felt like as well.
And looking back on my childhood,
Although I didn't notice,
I had a lot of these traits then too.
I feel like I was just navigating through the world constantly agitated.
And here's the thing,
I wish I knew this when I was a kid.
The pause changes everything.
And I don't mean sitting in meditation for 20 minutes,
Although that's great too.
But for some,
It can feel really confronting.
I mean,
The three seconds between a trigger and your response.
That brief inhale before you speak.
That internal whisper,
You don't have to react right now.
That pause,
That one breath,
It just allows you to make a different choice.
You get to interrupt that autopilot in that moment.
You get to breathe instead of blast.
You get to feel the heat without becoming the fire.
I can go on.
And I know how hard that can be,
Especially when you've been running on adrenaline,
Or when you've never been modeled what pausing actually looks like.
That's why it's practice.
And when you first start to practice,
It feels like an impossible practice.
So with that being said,
Here's what's helped me and what might help you.
Here's some tools that I use almost daily to support that pause.
Number one,
Noticing my tells.
For me,
It's a tight jaw,
A clenched chest,
And fast talking.
These are my red flags.
So the physicality of what's going on inside my body,
Right before I'm about to boil.
So basically what's going on when I'm simmering.
Number two,
Saying a phrase in my head,
Something like,
This is a moment of choice,
Or I can come back to this.
Number three,
Asking for space.
If you're not navigating this world alone,
Which most of us are not,
We have families,
We have friends,
We have relatives,
We have co-workers.
There is no harm in asking those to support you,
If they're going to live with you.
So I've told my family that when I'm feeling reactive,
I'm going to say,
Hey,
I need a pause right now,
Or I can't share my calm with you right now.
And I want to respond well,
So I just need a minute.
Next,
Breath.
Always breath.
Even one long,
Full inhale can create just enough space for a shift.
That pause,
That pause to give your brain a chance to catch up and let you make a different choice.
And lastly,
A post-reaction reflection.
At the end of the day,
I'll ask,
Where did I pause today?
Where did I miss it?
What would I do differently next time?
And I know this sounds like a lot,
And who's going to remember?
But the way I see it is,
If we're happy to put an alarm on our phones for everything under the sun,
Put an alarm on your phone every day to allow yourself to reflect on the day.
And if you paused,
Yes,
I understand we are so busy,
So we don't have enough capacity in our brains,
Especially as parents,
To add yet another thing on our to-do list.
But if you pause this video right now,
And you grab your phone,
Let's use tech for something good,
Grab your phone,
Set an alarm called post-reaction reflection.
And allow yourself to ask yourself,
Where did I pause?
These things that I've just gone through,
They're not magic fixes,
But they work.
And with repetition,
They become part of how you live,
Not just how you cope.
That part's important.
We are such a reactive society that we only look for these tools or try to practice something.
Chances are,
When we're feeling dysregulated,
When we've broken down.
So let's practice them every day,
Whether we're feeling reactive or not,
Whether we're feeling good or not,
To create these healthy habits so they become part of how we live.
If you're listening to this and thinking,
I wish I had heard this sooner,
I hear you,
Because me too.
But it doesn't mean that we are doomed,
And it's too late.
And there is no saving us.
If you've been reactive lately,
Or you've been feeling like you're always one step away from snapping,
This isn't about guilt.
It's not about judgment.
It's not about making you feel like crap.
It's about awareness and choices.
You can pause.
You can choose differently,
Not every time,
But more often than not.
And when you do,
You'll feel it.
That space,
That breath,
That moment of coming back to yourself.
It's possible,
And it's powerful.
And it starts with one pause at a time.
Thank you for being here,
And thank you for doing this work,
Not just for yourself,
But for everyone who gets to experience you grounded,
Present,
And whole.
