Jul 20, 2026 · 14 min · 7 segments
Most therapists spend their days reacting. Reacting to cancellations. Reacting to client messages. Reacting to slow months, difficult conversations, and unexpected problems. In this episode of The…
Heather HammellHost
And I mean that I want to start by being like, just straightforward about this.
Most of us are reacting to everything all day long, our businesses, our clients, our kids, our spouses, our inbox, our bank account, text messages, all of it.
And once you learn the difference between reacting and responding, you cannot unsee it.
You see the text, and before you've even had your coffee, your stomach drops.
You feel irritated, maybe a little bit of panic about the hole in your schedule, and maybe some hurt that they didn't give you more notice.
And then you respond from that place, from the irritation, from the panic, and from the hurt feelings.
Maybe it looks like you send a message that's a little sharper than your policy actually requires.
Or maybe you let them off the hook entirely because you don't want to deal with the discomfort of holding your policy.
Maybe it looks like spending the next two hours stewing about it instead of filling the spot.
It's a client, a colleague, or even someone in your community, and something about it lands wrong.
And before you've even taken a breath or thought it through or even reread it, you are typing back something equally sharp, something you might regret, something that came entirely from the feeling and not from any real decision about how you want to show up.
And I mean that I want to start by being like, just straightforward about this.
Most of us are reacting to everything all day long, our businesses, our clients, our kids, our spouses, our inbox, our bank account, text messages, all of it.
And once you learn the difference between reacting and responding, you cannot unsee it.
You see the text, and before you've even had your coffee, your stomach drops.
You feel irritated, maybe a little bit of panic about the hole in your schedule, and maybe some hurt that they didn't give you more notice.
And then you respond from that place, from the irritation, from the panic, and from the hurt feelings.
Maybe it looks like you send a message that's a little sharper than your policy actually requires.
Or maybe you let them off the hook entirely because you don't want to deal with the discomfort of holding your policy.
Maybe it looks like spending the next two hours stewing about it instead of filling the spot.
It's a client, a colleague, or even someone in your community, and something about it lands wrong.
And before you've even taken a breath or thought it through or even reread it, you are typing back something equally sharp, something you might regret, something that came entirely from the feeling and not from any real decision about how you want to show up.
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