THE SPACE BETWEEN

By Elisheva Fisher

The dreaded ‘blurt-it-out’ disease. We’ve all been there. One of your kids annoys you, or your spouse comments on something… and before you know it, you blurt out words that you regret the minute you hear yourself say them. When this happens to me I’m always left wondering… what just happened?! How could I have said that? It felt like my thought process was totally short-circuited - I didn’t even get to think about how I felt, let alone choose what I said! What just happened was that it wasn’t actually ‘me’ who responded - it was my fight or flight response. The part of my brain called the amygdala detected danger in my environment, manifested in my spouse or children, and therefore cut off the thinking part of my brain and responded with what it considered an appropriate reaction, in order to subdue the danger. This response could manifest in all sorts of ways – it could look like me running out of the room, me yelling and shouting, or me going into a sulk and withdrawing. These immediate, instinctive acts of self-protection are the reason why ‘I’ don’t get a chance to respond to what my brain considers a ‘dangerous’ situation. The idea that we aren’t in control of our reactions is uncomfortable to say the least, especially when we consider the hurt it could cause to those we love the most. So how do we access the real ‘me’ to respond in these difficult moments? Because I really do know what the right response would look like – I’m just not getting the chance to access this wisdom before the fight or flight response kicks in. The first step to accessing this wisdom and being able to respond the way we want to is to create something I call ‘The Space Between’.

Mrs Elisheva Fisher is both a Seed educator and a trained and practising psychotherapist. She loves teaching and learning and is in her element interacting and socialising with people.

‘The Space Between’ means creating time between the trigger (my kids fighting, my spouse saying something I don’t like…) and my response to the trigger. Because when ‘The Space Between’ isn’t there, all we have is reaction. When we can create ‘The Space Between’, what we get instead is response. A reaction is an instinct – it’s saying or doing whatever the first feeling that comes up tells me to do. A response is what ‘I’ want to say or do. So how do I create ‘The Space Between’, to enable the real, wise me to respond rather than react? There are three stages – Notice, Breathe and Respond. First, notice what is going on inside you. This isn’t always easy when we are busy with life! But it is essential in order to be able to breathe - to allow yourself to remember what the real you wants to say or do. Then, you can respond in a way that you will be proud to look back on. When you notice and acknowledge your emotions, you are creating ‘The Space Between’ the events unfolding around you and the emotional turmoil it brings about inside you, and how you really want to respond to the situation. Noticing gives you the distance you need to be able to re-assess rather than react. Breathing gives you the ability to bring objectivity back into play and allow the long-term picture to take the lead. Once you have all of this in place, you can then respond. As you are reading this, try to imagine a scenario involving those close to you that you know generally doesn’t go the way you hope or plan. Then notice what feelings and thoughts are coming up for you, acknowledge them, and then imagine yourself breathing and responding in a new way - a way that you want to respond.

Now feel that sense of pride and accomplishment: this is creating ‘The Space Between’.

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