Taking time to process hard news before responding

If there’s one life lesson I’m thankful to have received over and again through the past ten years, it’s to delay my judgement and response in the highly emotive and cognitively fluid processing time.

Many times I’ve made ill-considered decisions that have often wrought dire consequences.

It’s like when you get feedback that is negative or unexpected that throws you for a loop.  That usually takes me 1-2 days to process.  When I’ve waited, I’ve responded better.

Or when you’re called upon to make a crucial life decision.  That can take me 1-2 months to process.  When I’ve waited, I’ve responded better.

Or when you’ve experienced life-paralysing loss.  That grief, experience has shown me, can take 1-3 years to process.

Without processing time, we tend to fall into the trap of thinking incorrectly and doing wrongly. Instead, we need to respect our and others’ processes.

We need to give certain situations the time and space they need.

“Processing” is probably the best word to describe that nebulous, liminal space where prejudgement is both folly and potentially harmful.

You don’t have all the information to hand, so making an adjudication is both unfair and perilous.

“Processing” is an utterly mysterious thing.  We don’t know what we’re truly dealing with until the processing is done, and we can say with confidence, “Ah, I’m finally there, finally in a place where there is peace and perspective and purpose for what came that I had no answer for.”

Prejudging is attitudinal and responding is behavioural, and behaviours of punishment are predicated on attitudes of judgement.  When attitudes of judgement are foiled, behaviours of punishment are nullified.

This is a place of safety for ourselves and others.

It’s okay to feel overwhelmed and not know how to respond.  It’s okay because that’s life.  

Which of us hasn’t had news that sent us absolutely reeling for hours or days or longer?  Processing what comes in takes time because trauma responses are often involved.

Whenever I’ve prejudged—as if I’ve known (yet I didn’t)—and responded—as if I thought I was capable (but wasn’t)—in the processing time, I’ve inevitably discovered later on that I either harmed myself or others or both, especially in important working and familial relationships.

Sometimes we trust our judgement and responses too much, and in that triggering time of fight, flight, freeze and fawn we may THINK we’ve got all the information at our disposal, but it’s a fact that anxiety is what drives the reaction.  And it is so often a REACTION, and not the more ordered, considered response the situation called for.

It’s different, of course, when there’s no time to pray through or consider the information at hand and we MUST decide.  But so often we’re actually not under that kind of time pressure.

It’s like the email that fires us up.  Written communication is the worst.  Come back and read it again tomorrow.  Chances are it’ll read different when we’ve calmed down.  Do we really need to call the person back when either they or we (or both of us) are upset?

Wisdom delays that situation, if possible, for the sake of space to reflect.

One of the wisest things any of us can do is be aware of the role of anxiety in a pressure-cooker moment.  Strategically withdraw.  Only re-engage when you’re sure you’re back in your reasonable, reliable, realistic, logical and responsible adult space once more.

Your processing time is to be respected.  Everyone else’s processing time is also to be respected.  When people take this responsibility seriously—to take their emotions and cognitions seriously enough to delay judging and responding—less harm is done.

People who place you under pressure to respond may be satisfied with any reaction, and worse, you may feel goaded.  It’s better to resist pressure as well as not put others under such pressure.

As much as we can, we need to ensure we don’t fold to others’ pressure for us to react out of emotion. We also need to give others that space.  A good boundary to enforce is allowing the time required to consider and respond appropriately.

Image by kevin-turcios on unsplash