21st June 2021

Your first reaction is always emotional…
Your first reaction to anything is always an emotional response – it is just human nature, we cannot hide our true initial feelings about anything when we are caught off-guard and not expecting something to happen. We need to realise that this is the same for every one.
Some people’s initial reactions to things (even just after a few milliseconds), especially when they are upset or angry, is often to try to be a bit ‘passive/aggressive’ and therefore try to look as though they are fine with things that have happened or been said. However, even though their response might at first seem alright to you or others, their body language, or the deeper and true meaning behind their words, usually gives them away; if you look close enough and pay proper attention to things.
If you are really good, you will then be able to see their true and immediate reaction, even if it is very fleeting (called a ‘micro-expression’), before they try to cover-up how they truly feel, using the words that they say. And remember, on some rare occasions, you come across people who may be ‘passive/passive’, but more often you will come across people who seem ‘aggressive/aggressive’!
But the real reason for me wanting to tell you all of this, is to try and highlight for you that it is our own reactions to things immediately that are also our emotional ones. We can try as best we can to hide them from others, but we should note how we immediately respond to things. We then might find ourselves blaming somebody else for something, only to realise a few seconds later that it was actually our fault, or we may find ourselves criticising somebody or something else, when really we should be the one being criticised, or what we are criticising is just plain wrong!
Interesting isn’t it? It is fascinating how much insight we can have about others, but how we often don’t develop that same level of insight into ourselves and our own reactions to things.
So go on, try and catch your own true first reaction to something emotionally – you may be surprised at what you find!




