Do you relate to getting angry about something, then realising you had misunderstood the situation? Or reacting with more forcefulness and emotion than was necessary. Maybe you find yourself assuming the worse, sometimes lashing out at someone you care about. And wondering afterwards how you got there. Understanding your habits of thinking can help you let go of overreacting. Using mindfulness, you can drop the habits that no longer serve you.
Everyone has an automatic pilot. Your brain is good at taking fragments of information and making meaning. Not always accurately. Past experiences, culture, background, education, all combine to produce ‘triggers’.
Midlife women often report a tendency to be more reactive, with up to 70 per cent reporting increase irritability. Peri- and menopause are times of great change for women, and often occasion a desire to re-evaluate where you are and where you want to go next. Part of successful transition is working out what works for you, and letting go of what doesn’t, so you can move in the direction you want to go.
How mindfulness helps you let go of overreacting
The practice of mindfulness encourages you to be aware of what you are thinking and feeling. To be aware without judging any thoughts or emotions as good or bad. Many of your habitual reactions are not driven by the here and now. They are learned responses, often adapted for the right reasons, but which are no longer helpful. Mindfulness has been shown to help reduce emotional reactivity.
When you are mindful, you have chance to stop – to notice the habitual reaction arising, get curious about it, without needing necessarily to ‘do’ anything. Often the best response is silence, quiet. The mere act of not reacting as usual, is itself a way of letting go. And in the silence, new options, new pathways, have chance to emerge.
With mindfulness you can create a space between your mind’s chatter and your response. And you can get more at ease with uncomfortable emotions, letting them be without acting them out.
Ways to learn to let go
It is not easy to retrain your brain to let go of its habitual pathways. Patience is important, as is finding small ways to make regular progress.
- When you notice yourself getting triggered, try the STOP procedure. This will help you notice your reaction, bring your attention to your breath, and reduce the driver to respond immediately. It buys you time and space and trains your brain that not everything needs an immediate reaction.
- If you are finding it hard to get ahead of ‘overreacting’ – that is, you are in the middle of it before you even know how you got there, it can be helpful to slow things down. Writing out what is in your head can help. Handwriting slows down your train of thought, which helps you become aware of what the train of thought is. In time, extend this to talking more slowly, too. Give yourself time.
- Practice shifting your attention when you feel stuck. When you notice something triggering, acknowledge it, then consciously choose to focus your attention on something else. Practices involving movement can help, as moving your body can help your mind move, too. And if you can do so out in nature, look up, look around, move your gaze and your posture, can have a calming impact.
- Consider when you overreact, and whether there are other factors that may not be helping. Are you hungry, tired, in pain, anxious about something else? The links here will give you advice on how mindfulness can help. But ask yourself what other steps you can take to support yourself.
- Practice holding on to something too tight. Really grip it, so hard your hands and shoulder hurt. Then see what it is like to put the item down. Take time to absorb the feeling of putting the item down. Then apply the same thinking to a mental or emotional state. Ask yourself ‘can I let this go?’ ‘Will I let this go?’ ‘When?’.
It is not easy to let go of habitual reactions. To retrain your mind’s pathways to new ways of responding. Be patient with yourself and forgive yourself while you are learning. Use this meditation on forgiving yourself and others, to help you practice letting go of overreacting. The practice is 12 minutes long.
