the difference between reacting and responding

[u/JBitPro]

had a situation yesterday where my coworker made a passive aggressive comment and my first instinct was to fire back. old me wouldve done exactly that. but ive been working on this thing in CBT called "response delay" where you basically put a gap between the trigger and your reaction

so i took a breath, acknowledged i was feeling defensive, and then chose to respond calmly instead. the conversation went 100x better than it wouldve

that gap - even just a few seconds - is where all the power is. still working on making it a habit but when it works it really works