How to Turn Emotional Reactions into Relationship Repair

Why Emotions Take Over

It happens to the best of us. We feel our frustration, anxiety or stress start to bubble up and eventually we break. Maybe it looks like hanging up on our partner, or snapping at the kids when they just won’t do what we asked. Maybe for you it looks like going silent in a work meeting or avoiding making that call to a family member. Reactions are a part of our body trying to protect itself from these big feelings, but often don’t make us feel like ourselves. We don’t want to let emotions control our behavior, but sometimes they feel so out of our control. 

What is a Reaction?

So what exactly is going on when our body starts to have an emotional reaction?

Firstly, it’s important to note that our brain has three parts involved in this process: the brainstem, the amygdala, and the prefrontal cortex. The brainstem is in charge of taking in information from our senses. The brainstem then sends this data to our prefrontal cortex, aka the higher level thinking center of the brain. Our prefrontal cortex is in charge of exploring logic, decision making, impulse control and emotion regulation. Sometimes I lovingly call this our “adult brain”.

However, when our brainstem is taking in more data that looks like stress, trauma, or just perceiving a lack of safety in our surroundings then our prefrontal cortex can suddenly switch offline. When this happens then our amygdala takes over. The amygdala is the feeling center of the brain. It’s in charge of doing whatever it takes to keep us safe from danger, and this is often times when we find ourselves having a reaction. I will sometimes refer to the amygdala as the “child brain”.

The child brain still has valid needs, but thinks in order to get what it wants we must cry, tantrum or just overall react!

When our amygdala takes over we are likely to find ourselves in two types of reactions: fight/flight or freeze/fawn. We connect fight and flight because they are both controlled by our sympathetic nervous system, aka it is our body kicking itself into gear. Whereas we connect freeze and fawn as these are both controlled by our parasympathetic nervous system aka our body shutting itself down.

But What Does This Look Like in Real Time?

Fight:

-Feeling confrontational or aggressive

-May get easily frustrated or irritable

-Thoughts race

-Body might feel tense or shaky

Flight:

-May feel fear or anxiety

-Body feels unable to rest or settle

-Mind has difficulty concentrating

-Experience hypervigilance (the state of being highly or abnormally alert to potential danger)

Freeze:

-Experience numbness or emptiness

-Feel depressed or hopeless

-Body feels low energy or physically tired

-May experience memory loss/dissaciation 

Fawn:

-May people please

-Tries to avoid conflict

-Has trouble saying no or setting boundaries

-Body is seeking cues of approval for safety

How Do Reactions Turn Into Fights?

Reactions are usually not happening when we are alone.

For example- Jamie gets home from work and sees her husband Greg didn’t put the dishes away like she had asked him to this morning. Seeing this unfinished chore starts to create a reaction in her. She storms into their bedroom and refuses to acknowledge Greg as she walks past. Jamie is in a fight reaction. 

In this example, Jamie isn’t alone in her reaction either. Greg sees Jamie storm past him but has no idea what she is upset about or why. This starts to make him feel anxious which is a sign he is starting to have his own reaction. Greg starts frantically running around the house picking up clothes, offering to take Jamie out for dinner, whatever he can think of to “fix” whatever it is that he did wrong. Greg is having a fawn reaction in response to Jamie’s fight reaction. 

This happens so commonly in couples. One of us gets thrown, which in turns throws the other person off, and then it just cycles from there. This leads us to what we call a relational misattunement. A relational misattunement is when one or both members of a couple are reaching for one another, but ultimately they feel unseen or misunderstood. Relational misattunements often happen when we are in reactions because we can’t hold any space for one another when we are trying to seek our own sense of safety. 

Moving from Reaction to Response

So how do we stop our reactions from creating havoc in our relationships? We want to focus on turning reactions into responses!

Step One: SLOW DOWN! The first step of shifting from reaction to response is to slow ourselves down. When you notice your body start wanting to react to something, take a moment to pause and take a breath. When we aren’t thinking our brain will send us into a reaction, but when we can take a moment to think we are moving closer to responding.

Step Two: Reflect.  What is triggering your reaction right now? What feeling is coming up that is dysregulating? Are you disappointed because someone let you down? Are you scared that someone is going to be upset with you? The more we can figure out what triggers us and why, the easier it will be to do in the moment.

Step Three: Zoom Out. Once you figure out what is upsetting you try to deepen your understanding of it. Why is that thing so frustrating? Are you really mad because your wife forgot to pick up the dry cleaning? Or did you grow up in a family where people regularly ignored your needs and made you feel unimportant? Oftentimes our reactions aren’t just a representation about how we feel in the current moment, but how we have been raised to feel throughout our life. 

Step Four: Choose to Respond. The difference between having a reaction and being in response is about choice. When I am reacting I don’t feel like I am in control or choosing how I want to behave. When I am responding I feel like I can make decisions that align with my values and who I want to be. I don’t have to be controlled by my emotions but I can use them as information about what I am needing and what I want to do moving forward.

How Does Response Interact with Relational Repair? 

When we are in response rather than reaction, we can make choices about how we want to communicate with our partner in a way that creates repair. Repair happens after conflict when both partners feel heard and understood in their experience, personal responsibility for harm is taken, and they move forward feeling aligned in how they will navigate that issue in the future.

When someone is having a reaction it can be very hard to find repair because their prefrontal cortex is not online to do all of that work. Our adult brains have to be working for us to think like adults! But when someone is in response they can choose to express their hurt parts with care, hear out their partner, and work together to validate and problem solve with one another. The only way to truly have relational repair is when we can both be online enough to hear each other. 

Ultimately we can only be responsible for managing our own reactions and moving to response as often as we can. However, coregulation is proof that when one person is able to stay out of reaction it makes it easier for the people around them to respond as well. Think of that like in the context of therapy. You can come into a therapy session super dysregulated, but your therapist staying calm and grounded starts to help you feel grounded too. 

If you are recognizing through this article that staying out of reaction and moving towards response is hard for you, you are not alone. Individual therapy or couples therapy can often give people more tools to understand where their reactions are coming from and how they can work on regulating themselves. Here at The Haven we also have groups like Stress Reset or our Grounding Workshop that gives people hands on tools to learn how to soothe their amygdala and make choices that they can feel proud of. Know that learning to manage our reactions is a process. Reach out to our admin team if you are curious on how best to get the support you deserve.