SlowTalk: Standing your ground

There is much talk these days about the so-called stress responses aka as trauma responses. People used to just talk about fight, flight or freeze, whereas nowadays you also hear about fawn, or even flop. These responses enable us to cope with stressful situations without having to mentally assess the situation without having to decide what to do.

These responses can save our lives by immediately jumping out of the way when noticing a speeding car coming towards us. But they also can get into our way when our boss criticizes us for something that we haven’t done and we do not dare to defend ourselves to set the record straight.
In the first situation our automatic response was life saving, in the latter, avoiding the initial feeling of fear could potentially evoke subsequent feelings such as regret, shame, or even anger (towards ourselves).

What would happen if we were to develop our response- ability. By this I literally mean our ability to respond, i.e. respond consciously. This is easier said than done. But doing so would allow us to be more in control of our lives. Instead of responding, we pause and stand our own ground, because

• “Between stimulus and response there is a space.
  In that space is our power to choose our response.
  In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Do you recognize such moments between stimulus and response? What were these moments like? Did they influence your subsequent action? Some people say that they are “magic moments”. Can we bring them about consciously? If so how?

Please note, this is not a “how-to” seminar, but a sharing of our experiences and an attempt to learn from each other.