Certain people, things or situations can automatically set us off, whereby our usual composed self goes out the window and we (over) react. We might then say our feathers got ruffled, we were rubbed the wrong way, or we 'saw red'.

We all have these triggers, and when those buttons are pushed we seemingly cannot help ourselves. It's like when a reflex hammer hits just below the knee. Kick! Such knee jerk reactions are often associated with strong emotions and are more likely to happen if we are taken by surprise, caught on our wrong foot. These reactions tend to follow similar patterns over and over again, until we decide to do something about it.

So what to do? We can pay more attention to when and under which circumstances we react. What our buttons are. Once we become more aware of this, we can look for any underlying patterns of thinking and behaviour. And I bet you there are underlying themes! We might need to examine the theme more closely, question the truth of our thoughts, and decide if our actions really serve us well? Easier said than done, after all we have years of experience in thinking and acting in familiar (even if un-useful) patterns, we are creatures of habit, and we tend to have some blind spots. So engaging a trusted person to bring in a bit more objectivity can help. And, once we do start questioning some of our automatic assumptions and behaviours we can start shaping and practicing a different response, one that might suit us better. It's a process, it takes time, but we will have started moving away from reacting towards proactively taking control.