Pausing Before Reacting

In many situations in life the best thing to do is...pause.

Transcript

And now life lessons and laughter with your host Glen Ambrose of life enhancement services of Rhode Island.

Hello,

Welcome to the podcast.

This is Glen Ambrose and today we're going to be talking about not reacting to situations.

Just pausing for a moment before you react.

A lot of times in our lives where we're put in situations,

We're kind of put on the spot and we feel like we need to give an answer right away.

So the first thing that we need to learn to do is just pause for a moment.

I actually do it a lot while I'm recording this podcast.

It's true you do.

I do.

I pause for a moment.

I don't try to force the words to come out.

Sometimes I just kind of slow down and let them come out.

And it's we have this need to answer somebody when they ask us things a lot of times and it gets us into trouble.

A lot of times people will ask me if I can do something.

And I've got a lot of different things going on.

So the first thing I try to do is say,

You know,

Well,

I'll get back to you on that.

Let me look into it.

Something like that.

Just don't give them an answer.

Most times they don't need an answer right away.

You know,

So there's nothing wrong with it.

And then you can kind of look at your schedule.

Look at what you're getting into and see if it fits in.

A lot of people overextend themselves a lot.

And they've got 10 different things going on.

And we're busy as it is.

We don't need to run around overextending ourselves doing things that we just shouldn't be doing,

That we shouldn't be able to squeeze in.

And I think that's a big aspect of our lives.

We're on autopilot so much that we just live our lives reactionary.

And it is a lot about slowing down and giving the appropriate answer.

And I also heard this recently.

Somebody was saying,

If you say no to something that somebody's asking you to do,

A lot of times it's better for them than if you said yes and we're only able to give it a small portion of your attention.

That's one thing that we do.

If we can't put our full attention on something,

Then we end up doing something half ass.

And it doesn't come out that good anyway.

So if you do need to turn somebody down for something,

There's a possibility that in that situation you can tell them,

Listen.

I can't give you or this project the attention that it deserves.

So I'm going to have to pass.

Maybe we can do it at another time or something like that.

We get hooked up on doing things out of the pressure of just being asked.

The other thing that leads to a lot of times is lying.

How many times do people say,

Hey,

You want to go out tomorrow night?

And everybody's like,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

They have no intention of going.

Absolutely none.

And it's interesting.

This is something I noticed probably eight years ago.

I was with a group of people and somebody was having a party.

And they came up to the group of about four or five of us.

And they said,

Glenn,

You've got to come to my party tomorrow night.

You've got to come.

And I was like,

Well,

What is it?

Saturday?

You know what?

I had a long week.

When I get out of work,

I'm just going to go home and lay on the couch and watch a movie.

I'm just not up for going out to a party.

I just need to relax and just have a little Glenn time.

And they're like,

Oh,

OK.

They were used to that type of honesty and that type of answer from me.

And they didn't second guess it.

Now they went to the person right next to me.

And they said the same thing.

Oh,

You have to come.

And they're like,

Oh,

No,

I can't.

And the person attacked them.

They were like,

What do you mean you can't come?

You have to come.

I mean,

They took it very personally and started giving this person a hard time right after I said I wasn't going to go and I was going to lay on my butt watching TV.

But they didn't give me a hard time.

And it's interesting.

At that time,

I noticed the dynamic was different between myself and the person asking and the person asking and the other person.

So I looked at that.

And it was like it's because I didn't live in a reactionary state for a while.

And that's how this person knew me.

When they got my answer,

It was thought out.

It was honest.

And it came from a loving place.

I wasn't not going to their party because I didn't want to be around them.

I just need to take care of myself a little bit.

And I didn't feel like going out.

It wasn't anything negative about them.

And that's how they received it.

So we have to keep in mind the energy in which we say things,

That is important.

That's how people will perceive them.

A lot of times,

We'll say yes to something because we feel the pressure that they're going to,

The other person is going to feel bad if we don't say yes.

What about lying to them?

You think that they're going to feel bad when you lie to them?

But we don't think that far in advance.

It's just all reactionary.

So it's yeah,

Yeah,

Sure,

I'll be there.

Then nobody shows up.

Now out of that situation,

If five people say,

Yeah,

I'll be there,

And they don't show up and one person says,

No,

I'm sorry,

I can't make it.

I've had a long week.

I'm going to lay around and relax.

Which one are they going to have more respect for?

They're going to have more respect for the person that actually told them the truth and probably get irritated with the people that just lied.

So my question for this is one,

Why do you think we react too much too soon?

Is it because of obligation?

Is it because of anxiety,

Of not wanting to disappoint?

What is the reason why we are so quick to answer and tell them?

Because I also feel like most people don't answer quickly in the negative.

It's not like,

Hey,

You got to come to my party.

No,

I'm good.

Bye.

Just without thinking about it.

Like,

Oh,

Maybe I want to go to that party.

It's like,

Oh yeah,

I'll hang out with you on Friday night and then you don't know.

Or like,

Yeah,

I'll help you move.

Great.

I don't want to do that.

And then also,

Yeah,

Let's just answer that one first.

Why do you think that we answer quickly,

That we don't pause,

That we react too fast?

It is a lot about the pressure.

We don't want to let people down.

We're so concerned that people are going to judge us and put us down.

It's part of the society we live in.

And the other aspect of it is just plain living unconsciously.

Most of us are walking around not thinking about this stuff.

We're very habitual people.

We fall into habits.

What's easiest?

What's quickest?

What gets me out of this situation?

That's one of the reasons why people don't say no so quickly because that pulls them in to something that they're not trying to get pulled into.

A yes ends the conversation.

Sure,

I'll be there.

Next.

We get to move on with our lives.

The no gets them sucked in.

Well,

Now I have to explain myself,

What if they don't like my explanation?

It's a lot of the hypothetical stuff that our minds play.

It probably played these scenarios out at a very early age.

And then by the time we hit early adulthood,

It's just conditioned responses.

That's why living consciously is so important.

Living on purpose,

Living with a sense of reason behind what we do as opposed to just living out of reaction.

We are very concerned about how people are going to view us too.

That's a huge pressure because we're very judgmental.

We're a very judgmental society.

So we're very worried about how people are going to judge us.

One thing that I do to try to combat that in my regular life is my driving.

Have I mentioned this before?

I don't think so.

One thing I do when I drive is most of the times when I get in my vehicle,

I'll just do a little mental check and say,

This is judgment-free driving.

It's a little thing that I came up with that's been really helpful and effective because one thing I found,

Whether it be in a 30-minute or a 60-minute workout in a gym,

You're isolated in that.

The rest of the world is blocked out.

You're just in a gym working out.

So it's a really good place to learn things,

Learn healthy tools and ways of thinking and looking at things because the rest of the world outside influences are blocked out.

It's the same thing when you're driving.

The rest of the world is kind of blocked out.

You're locked in that little vehicle for a period of time.

When I drive,

I'm just saying judgment-free.

To get there,

I have to think,

Okay,

Well,

If that person cuts me off,

Why did they cut me off?

I mean,

I'm an intellectual being.

I need to kind of give myself a little bit of food to understand some of the possibilities here.

I think one of the possibilities is maybe the woman that cut me off is rushing to the hospital to see her sick child or maybe her marriage is ending and she just had an argument with her husband or maybe somebody just died or I don't know what's going on in her life or maybe she glanced down to change the radio station for a second and her mind skipped.

Maybe it was just something simple as that.

I've done that and looked up and went,

Whoops,

Sorry.

I don't have to come up with the answer to why she cut me off.

I just have to comprehend that there are multiple possibilities that weren't aimed at me.

That's all.

It has nothing to do with me,

Why she cut me off.

It wasn't some sort of attack on me.

So then that gives me the ability to not judge her for her driving.

So judgment-free driving,

I'm not allowed to judge anybody for any mistake that I feel that they made on the road no matter what it is.

Now I can obviously still take action.

If I need to hit the brakes,

I still hit the brakes,

But I just don't judge people for it.

I don't deem them as wrong.

So that's a big second part is the whole idea that yeah,

The first part of not reacting,

Of pausing before you give an answer or before you react in general is somebody asks you to do something,

Think about it.

Think about,

Do I really want to do this?

Do I really have time?

Am I going to be able to do this the right way,

All of that stuff?

But then the reverse side of that is that friend that asked you and the other person to a party,

Right?

Now they knew that you were going to give a measured answer.

The other person that said no,

They,

The person that asked the question,

Did not pause and jumped on the other person's throat about it.

They did not react appropriately.

And I think that that's what you were saying with the driving is that the other side of this is when something negative happens,

Don't react too quickly.

Don't react too quickly.

Right.

It's that,

You're right.

It's both sides.

We have to understand that we live in that judgmental society and that's one of the reasons why we do this because people are snapping to judgment so quickly.

And that,

The driving thing is just a little tool to help get out of that pattern because you're in a safe atmosphere so you can get out of that pattern of judging.

And one thing I found very interesting is as I started practicing not judging other people in that situation,

Not only did I not judge people in other situations,

But I stopped judging myself.

You can't live a life judging other people without judging yourself.

So that's what brings it full circle right back to what we started talking about.

When you're feeling pressured to answer somebody with a positive response,

You're feeling not only the pressure from them but the pressure from yourself.

You know,

That,

Oh I have to be good,

I have to be looked at in a good light,

I need to give them the answer that they want to hear or else they're not going to like me.

And it's all subconscious running underneath.

But if we can break out of that pattern by something as simple as a little driving experiment and get used to being conscious of why we're making our decisions and how automatic they are and that's how we can practice pausing.

You know,

It's like okay I don't want to react,

I don't want to be judgmental,

I'm going to just pause for a second.

And a lot of times it's literally that quick.

It's a second.

Sometimes two seconds,

That's it.

It's just enough to stop that automatic reaction from shooting out your mouth.

When I gave that person the answer to the party,

To them they probably didn't even notice that I paused,

But I had been doing it for a while.

So I did,

You know,

I paused but it was only for a couple seconds and they didn't even notice it.

But I stopped for a moment and was like what do I want to,

No I don't want to do that.

And the other thing,

When you're implementing these different types of things in your life,

Sometimes you might get weird reactions from other people because they're not doing it too.

Which is okay.

If somebody reacts back to you in a negative light,

Well,

Oh why,

Why,

Why can't you go?

It's alright.

You know,

Pause on that.

So alright,

We're about halfway through the show,

Which is when we transition to do our question portion.

Oh boy.

And first,

Before we do that,

Can you tell people where they can send questions to the show?

Sure.

Please send the questions into my Facebook page,

Life Enhancement Services,

Or my personal Facebook page,

And also my website.

You can private message me there.

The website is life-enhancement-services.

Com.

And all the questions remain anonymous,

Always.

So if you have topic ideas that you'd like to hear discussed,

Or specific questions,

Send them all in.

Alright,

Awesome.

And I'm actually,

There's two questions today.

I'm sorry Ben,

We have a one question limit per show.

There are two questions today.

Alright,

We'll break the rules for you.

Selfishly,

Selfishly one of them is for me.

They are supposed to remain anonymous?

One of them is from a young gentleman.

A friend of a friend?

A friend of a friend.

But no,

My question is that I feel like it is easier to pause on the positive reaction with someone that you love,

That you're close with.

It's easier to stop and go,

Wait,

You don't know I'm not going to do that.

However,

It is almost impossible for a lot of people,

Myself included,

To pause on a negative reaction for someone you love.

You are always quicker to jump down their throat.

You're always quicker to,

You know,

They say something you don't want to hear.

And you're quicker to get mad.

How do you pause before reacting negatively to someone that you're close with?

Yeah,

That's actually a very important point.

Whenever possible,

This is why it's important to practice.

And that's one of the reasons why I brought up the car driving experiment.

Because this does take some practice and you want to have it in your head what you're going to do and how you're going to live before you're in that heated moment.

Because the emotional charge that you feel when you get angry when something negative comes up,

You just want to,

You know,

Many of us do want to attack back.

If you feel attacked,

You want to attack back.

So if you know ahead of time that you go,

You know,

This is something that I'm working on and it's going to take some time.

So you can even practice on the more positive ones and then later on bring it in on the negative.

But if you have it set in your head ahead of time that this is how you're going to live from now on,

You're going to not just give answers,

You're going to pause and think about them,

Then you practice doing it.

If you wait until you're filled with a negative charge and you go,

Oh,

What was that thing I was going to be doing?

I was going to not feed into this anger and I was going to pause.

It's too late.

You know,

It's too late to figure out what you're going to do when you're in the middle of it.

So you need to have a plan ahead of time.

You need to start implementing things ahead of time.

So if you can't implement it wherever you can,

Wherever you can and then stop bringing it into that.

But it's funny that it's that way.

It's comical because to me this proves how unconscious we live.

Because why would you go quicker into a negative situation than you would a positive situation?

If you were living consciously,

You wouldn't do that.

It's just foolish.

It's just more negative consequences that can happen rushing into a negative situation.

But that just tells us how habitual we are and how much we do react and how important it is to reel this in and start working on it.

Right.

But it's so easy to get into that fight,

To instigate that fight with a friend,

A close friend or a family member.

And so that's I think,

I don't know,

I think that probably those are the three biggest things where pausing would really be helpful.

One,

When someone asks you to do something.

Two,

When someone does something that you don't like or asks you something that you don't like.

And three,

In cases of road rage and stuff,

And three,

With close friends and loved ones and family members where you could react.

The filter goes off when you're around family members and close friends.

You feel safe around them.

So you feel like you can just react and whatever and they're still going to love you.

There's not as big of a consequence when it's somebody you're close with.

Which is,

Again,

It's just an example of living unconsciously.

The people that you care about the most,

Why should they be treated worse than a stranger on the street?

And yet they normally are.

When we're living unconsciously,

They normally are.

I think you see it in relationships a lot too.

Some people,

It's once the marriage is done and they've got that piece of paper,

Sometimes it's just being in a relationship for a long period of time,

They get to that point where they go,

Oh,

She's not going to leave me.

And then they just react in any way that they feel appropriate.

And that's the one person that you should be showing the most caring to.

They deserve the pause.

They deserve for you to take that pause and to give them an honest,

Caring answer.

Even more so than a stranger on the street if you wanted to categorize people.

But yet they'll get the backlash.

It doesn't make sense when you really look at it.

Whenever something doesn't make sense when you really look at it,

It's usually because we're not aware of what we're doing.

We're not living consciously.

All right.

And now our second question from someone who has listened to every show,

A big fan,

Says,

I recently said yes to something to help a friend out of obligation.

Ever since saying yes,

I have dreaded the idea of fulfilling this obligation that I agreed to.

And as it draws closer,

I just want to bail.

What do I do?

Yeah,

With that one,

It's somewhat depends on a situation.

But I'll try to answer it as generically as I can.

I mean,

Obviously,

If there's still time to get out of the situation,

And you might be able to talk to this friend and get out of it,

And you have a strong feeling that that might be able to happen,

Then why not?

Have the conversation.

Honesty is always the best policy.

That being said,

A lot of times with these situations,

They come on pretty quick.

So you react,

There's a yes given,

And then that person's counting on it or depending on it.

And it would really screw things up if you backed out.

I think that that's more of the common situation.

And with those,

Personally,

What I do is I look at them as learning experiences.

It's a learning experience.

Sometimes in our lives,

We have to do things we don't like.

So in those situations,

I try to suck it up,

Do it to the best of my ability,

Even though I don't like doing it,

And just make a huge mental note and say,

This is why I pause.

This is why I pause,

Because I choose not to live like this.

I'm not going to keep doing these things that I don't like and locking myself in on these things.

Yes it was a pain in the butt,

But this is really going to stick in my mind as a wonderful reason why I'm going to start implementing this pausing technique.

So now to close on,

After talking about all this,

One thing has been making me think about this.

Is this three questions,

Ben?

I already broke the rules with two.

This isn't an official question,

But what I'm wondering is,

Doesn't it seem like as a society,

Everyone is just conscious that everyone is lying to each other,

And that you just tolerate how much your friends lie?

Everyone knows that if she said yes,

She's going to come to this party,

And then all of a sudden she had to do this,

And this is the fourth time something like this has happened.

She's probably exaggerating.

She's probably not being fully truthful,

So on and so forth.

I would venture to say 90% of friends do this to each other.

How unhealthy is it that we're all lying to each other and that we all accept a certain level of untruthfulness?

It's just a matter of what type of life you want to live.

It's true.

There's a large portion of society that's running around acting like that,

And I live within that society,

But I don't come across it that often because most of the people I associate on a regular basis don't do that.

It doesn't affect my world quite so much.

Because I'm living consciously,

When somebody does do that to me,

I usually do pick up on it pretty quickly because it's so out of the ordinary for me.

I know very quickly that I can't depend on that person,

And that's where they go.

They go in the I can't depend on them category,

And if I need something,

I'm not going to call on them because I can't depend on them.

How bad is it that most people have a collection of people around them that should go into the I can't count on them category?

To me,

It's just a microcosm of the macrocosm.

We look at our society and we go,

Oh my God,

Politicians lie.

It's ridiculous,

But we accept it.

It's the same thing.

Our friends lie.

We accept it.

We can't walk around going,

Oh my God,

People shouldn't lie,

And demonize them for it because most of the people walking around are doing the same thing.

It's part of society.

It's accepted.

It's a mass consciousness.

We wonder why there's these big problems in society,

And we think that we can sit back at home and point the finger out at the people on TV and go,

Look,

They lie.

They're bad.

They lie.

Well,

If you're doing the same thing in your own world,

It's the same thing.

Now you can call them white lies.

You can say they're harmless.

To some degree,

You might be right,

But the fact is,

If you're lying on a regular basis,

You're lying on a regular basis.

If you want to sweep it under the rug and continue living like that,

That's fine.

A lot of society does that.

I'm not going to judge you for it.

Then when we look at society as a larger whole and go,

Oh my God,

There's lying going on and people don't treat each other right,

Well,

Yeah,

No kidding.

I think to sum it up,

It's what Gandhi said,

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

If you don't like the idea that people are walking around lying,

Then stop lying in your own life.

And the best way to do that is to- Walk yourself in the car and don't judge anybody when you drive.

I was going to say to pause.

Yeah,

I know.

I just couldn't resist.

Walking yourself in a car sounded so dramatic.

Yes.

Yes.

So the best way to do that is- To pause.

Thank you.

Pause.

Don't react.

So that's going to do it for our pause and don't react podcast.

Thanks for joining us and we'll see you next time.

This podcast is presented by Life Enhancement Services of Rhode Island with New Shore Productions.

For more information on Glenn Ambrose and his work,

Visit life-enhancement-services.

Com.

Reviews

Some very important points discussed there. Thankyou for you offered assistance 🙏

Great podcast! I am making a conscious effort to pause!

ThZnk you 🙏🌺🌸🦋

Loving these podcasts. Thank you 💞

So vary true and relatable. Thank you

Great reminder. I like the judgement free driving as an exercise. Also how we react to those close to us. Good food for thought. 🙏🏻

Excellent. Very wise advice. It's one thing knowing something, acting on it and embodying it is another thing entirely.

Thank you for this podcast.

I love listening to Glen. Pausing before reacting is something I strive for with friends and family. I enjoy his insights and the laughter he shares. I listen to this one once a week at least if not more.

This makes a lot of sense to me. I’m always questioning as to why? I have so many questions:) haha

So true and valuable food for thought. We should all pause more often before we speak! 💞 Thank you 🙏

I thought it was extremely useful. I’m not sure why some people have left negative reviews. You do have to be prepared to set the time aside and listen mindfully. If you know that you find that difficult then wait until you’re ready and then give it a go. I liked it.

Great advice about treating strangers better than friends!

Negative reactions bring on more negativity. .. pause...then react!

Thank you (pause)....i practice MBSR it all takes lots and lots of practice. Respond rather than react 😀

Great food for thought. Namaste 🙏.

It's so refreshing to hear someone talking about honesty in its 'purest' form, and explaining so well how it works in practice, that I just had to put the effort into leaving this feedback! Thank you for this podcast. I've spent years trying to live my life by this principal, still often perceiving myself in a negative way, as someone others might see as blunt or tactless, when I simply pause before I answer, or I say 'no'. With maturity, I've realised more and more that what I am actually doing is simply being honest and am increasingly confident in my stance. I believe my relationships - with my husband, children, close friends and professionally - have benefitted from 'my form' of honesty and are all the richer for it. One illustration of the 'dishonesty' I experience is when I am saying goodbye to someone: maybe leaving their house, a restaurant, a family gathering etc, and someone says "I'll give you a ring". It took me years to realise that it wouldn't actually happen; it was just a throwaway comment, a thing to say to cover the awkwardness of departing, and it left me feeling let down and betrayed. If we could only learn to say what we mean and mean what we say, we would all know exactly where we stand with each other and relationships would be better as they would be built on a solid foundation of openness, honesty and thus trust. Thank you again for sharing this podcast.

Such a wonderful reminder--Thank You❣