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The difference between reacting and responding
💡 When your reaction is bigger than the moment deserves, the surplus emotion is the past surfacing — a signpost, not a flaw.
Brown draws a sharp line between a reaction and a response. A reaction is automatic, disproportionate, and driven by unintegrated past emotion. A response is measured, chosen, and rooted in present awareness.
The telltale sign of a reaction is intensity that doesn't match the situation — the small comment that ruins your whole day, the minor setback that fills you with rage or dread. That excess charge, Brown says, is the past speaking through the present.
Rather than treating reactions as problems to suppress, Brown reframes them as signposts. Each disproportionate reaction points directly at an emotional imprint asking to be felt and integrated. Learning to notice the gap between reaction and response is the first practical skill of the process.
Source: The Present Process — Michael Brown