Responding vs. Reacting

There is a moment in every conflict . . . a split-second pivot point . . . where we either lean toward connection or toward protection. We might not notice it. It can happen in the twitch of a muscle, a tightening in the throat, a flicker of defensiveness. But in that moment, something crucial is asked of us:

Are we reacting from an old wound, or responding from embodied presence?

This question drives the concept of 100% Responsibility™: the conscious practice of recognizing that how we respond to life, especially when it’s difficult, painful or hard . . . . is a reflection of our foundational relational experiences. When we’re caught in the swirl of The Unbearable™ . . . the early, often preverbal, pain we’ve never been taught to hold, we react to painful experiences in adult life the same ways we’ve been reacting for decades.

Reactions are not simply bad habits. They are embodied survival mechanisms . . . implicit, somaticized memories. Sensory imprints. Nervous system shortcuts that developed long ago when the body had no other option in the face of neglect, abandonment or abuse.

A reaction is the child in us still waiting to be chosen. Still trying to explain. Still trying to get safe.

When your partner turns away and you feel a sudden flush of anger or collapse of worth, that’s not about now. That’s an echo. A reverberation of past ruptures still living in your tissues. And if those echoes remain unacknowledged, they become the lens through which you see and hear everything.

Reactions don’t care about truth. They care about survival. And this is where relationships get tangled. Because in reaction, we can’t hear clearly. We defend. We accuse. We shut down. We ghost. We grasp. We generalize: “You always do this.” “You never listen.” And beneath the words, what we’re really saying is:“I’ve been here before. It hurt then, and it hurts now.”

To respond means being able to feel discomfort without turning it into drama. It means pausing, even for a breath, before acting. It means being in contact with your own body, sensations, and experience enough to notice what’s yours and what’s someone else’s.

Response doesn’t mean you’re never triggered. It means you know when you are; and you have tools to metabolize it without inflicting harm on anyone else or yourself.

Response - ability is not a personality trait. It’s a capacity. The ability to respond can be learned and developed.

In the absence of 100% Responsibility™, partnership can become a war of projections. One person reacts, the other reacts back. You’re no longer speaking with your partner, you’re speaking with your past.

• One partner demands reassurance, not from present insecurity, but from ancient abandonment.

• The other partner withdraws, not out of malice, but from a lifetime of shame that made conflict unbearable.

• Both feel hurt. Both feel unseen. And both believe the other is the problem.

Without the ability to respond from a connection within, sustainable repair in partnership is impossible. When there’s no internalized relationship in which an inner witness can hold an inner child there can't be an external relationship in which holding can occur.

When even one person in a partnership begins to practice 100% Responsibility, the dynamic can start to shift. But it’s hard. It can feel unfair. “Why am I doing all the work?” That’s a valid feeling . . . and yet this isn’t about moral superiority or emotional labor.

100% Respoinsbility™ is about restoring your own connection to yourself, to your history, to the full arc of your life experience. When you respond instead of react, you’re no longer hostage to your past, you are including and accepting the genuine, real version of you who is made up of a myriad of painful, chaotic, unseemly, intense, joyful and serene experiences. This attitude of self-reflection and self-caring curiosity . . . your response to yourself . . . becomes the ground from which you relate to and respond to others.

In the Fluid Intimacy™ model, we often say that response begins with resonance, the ability to attune to your own internal signals before reaching for someone else. That means grounding in the body. That means sensing before speaking.

If you can feel your feet, you’re less likely to throw verbal daggers. If you can feel your breath, you might catch the story you’re spinning before it hijacks your tone. If you can feel the urge to run or fix or attack and curb those impulses, even for a moment . . . That’s response.

When we reclaim the ability to respond, we reclaim a kind of personal power . . . not the power to dominate or win, but the power that comes with the freedom to choose how you want to BE in the world! The power to authentically communicate:

• “I’m noticing that I’m triggered.”

• “This reminds me of something old; let me check in before I respond.”

• “I need a moment to come back to myself before we continue.”

• “I care about you, and I don’t want to say something from a place I don’t understand yet.”

These are not performance lines. These are embodied, connected moments of choosing your self, responding to yourself, rather than neglecting or abadoning your experience and feelings the way you were dismissed or unseen as a child.

When we were young, we had no choice but to react. That’s how we survived.

But now, if we’re willing, we can learn to respond to the trembling the heat in the chest, the sharpness in the voice, the silence and the urge to flee that once kept us safe.

100% Responsibility™ doesn’t mean we never have feelings or reactivity. It means we know how to come back to ourselves, we can stay in our own skin, rather than dumping, leaking or projecting. It means we take ownership of our experience without blaming others for how we feel.

This is not easy work. But it is liberating.

And it’s the only way real intimacy can happen with our partners, children and friends . . . intimacy starts when we come home to ourselves.