Here's the TEA About Reactive Behavior ☕️⚡️🧠

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Have you ever wondered why you keep falling into the same reactive patterns? The answer lies in understanding the TEA method—Thought, Emotion, Action—and how these three elements flow together when we're operating on autopilot.

When we react without awareness, there's virtually no space between our thoughts, emotions, and the actions we take. We gulp down the TEA without checking if it's too hot, metaphorically speaking, and get burned by our own reactions. This pulls our focus away from possibilities and toward pain, creating a cycle that's difficult to break. For instance, thinking "My best isn't good enough" triggers sadness or shame, leading to withdrawal or self-soothing behaviors. Similarly, thoughts like "I never get opportunities" generate resentment, manifesting as sarcasm or feigned indifference.

The good news? We can transform this reactive cycle by adding SUGAR to our TEA—a powerful acronym that creates space for intentional response. Stop to catch the thought. Unhook from reactive thinking, remembering thoughts are energy, not your identity. Ground yourself with breath. Ask what else is true beyond your initial thought. Recognize that reactions limit your access to energetic choice and possibilities. While reactive behavior becomes visible through external triggers, it originates internally from our lived experiences and limiting beliefs.

By recognizing our patterns and stirring a little SUGAR into our TEA, we create the spaciousness needed for growth—that vital space where energetic choice lives and possibility returns. This awareness helps us break free from limiting patterns and access our power to live a created life rather than a default future. Subscribe now to explore more tools for transforming reactive patterns into conscious choices!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey there.
So here's the T about reactivebehavior, and when I say T, I'm
serving it up with an acronymThought, emotion action.
You see, t-e-a thought, emotionaction.
It's something that's importantto understand about the way we

(00:23):
operate.
That's important to understandabout the way we operate.
Here's how it works A thoughtarises, and that thought
triggers an emotion, and thatemotion drives the next action
that we take.

(00:48):
When we're in reactive mode,though, there's little to no
space between the three, littleto no space between the thought,
the emotion and the action.
We act automatically, from ahabitual defensive stance.
We take the tea down in onegulp, so to speak, without
checking to see if it's too hot.
We skip the part about usingour breath to cool it down,

(01:09):
literally and figuratively, andinstead we blow our top Burned
by our own reaction.
Our focus is then pulled awayfrom possibilities and toward
what's painful.
Is that making sense?
Let me give you an example.

(01:29):
So let's say you had a thought.
Your thought is my best is notgood enough.
Well, that might cause you tofeel the emotion of sadness or
shame.
And when you feel sad or shamed.
And when you feel sad or shamed, well, the action you might
take might look like withdrawingor giving up, maybe binging

(01:50):
Netflix or eating copiousamounts of ice cream.
I'll give you another example.
Thought might be I never getthe opportunities that everybody
else does.
Well, when you say that toyourself, the associated emotion
might be anger or resentment.
And when you're feeling angryor resentful, well, the action

(02:14):
you might take could besomething like firing off a
sarcastic text, or ranting to afriend, or even pretending that
you just don't care, when it'svery likely that you do.
So you can see that when wereact without slowing down, we
limit ourselves to the samepattern behaviors over and over

(02:38):
again and shrink our capacityfor energetic choice.
Well, the good news, the goodnews is that we can sweeten the
situation by adding yet anotheracronym, by adding a little
sugar to our proverbial tea.
So here's the acronym to helpyou create space between your

(02:59):
thought, your emotion and youraction, because, as I like to
say, possibility lies in theplaces where there are spaces.
See what I did just there.
So here it is the S in sugar.
Well, it's stop, stop longenough to catch the thought.

(03:21):
Just notice, it's amazing howmuch that can help.
The you in sugar is unhookUnhook from the reactive thought
.
Remember, thoughts are energyand you are not your thoughts.
So don't let your thoughts andyour emotions drag you into

(03:45):
reactive behavior.
Unhook from that reactivethought, take the space.
Remember thoughts are energyand you are not your thoughts.
The G in sugar is ground.
Take a beat and ground yourself.

(04:09):
Breathe.
Just ground yourself, take abeat and breathe.
The A in sugar is ask.
Ask yourself what else is true.
What else is true when you saythings to yourself like I never

(04:33):
get the opportunities that mycolleagues do?
Ask yourself what else is true.
Maybe you remember, maybe youremember all the things that you
have had the opportunities todo.
Maybe you think about.
Maybe it's time to share someof the opportunities with others

(04:54):
.
There's so many different waysyou could go that would cause a
different associated emotion.
Finally, the R in sugar isrecognize, recognize that by
reacting so quickly, you arelimiting yourself and your
access, and your access not onlyto more energetic choice but to

(05:18):
endless possibilities to livinga created life rather than a
default future.
And it's important to notebefore I sign off that reactive
behavior is most visible inresponse to external triggers,
but it originates internally.

(05:39):
It stems from the influence ofour lived experience and the
assumptions, interpretations andthe limiting beliefs that we've
gathered in our journey.
We'll talk more about thoseinner blocks on another episode.
In the meantime, just rememberthis when we start to recognize

(06:01):
our patterns, when we can tracethe tea and stir in a little
sugar, we begin to create thespaciousness that we need to
grow, the space where energeticchoice lives, that space where
possibility returns.
I'm Lisa Hopkins.

(06:23):
Thanks so much for listening.
Stay safe and healthy, everyone, and remember to live in the
moment.