"Over Reaction"

o·ver·re·act

 [oh-ver-ree-akt] 

verb (used without object)

to react or respond more strongly than is necessary or appropriate.

I have mixed feeling on this even being a word. In my opinion it takes a lot of festering for something to be a true over reaction and a lot of people miss use the phrase too often.

In my opinion a gut reaction is NEVER an over reaction because it is a quick calculation of your experiences by your brain and your intuition. It may seem like someone is making too big a deal out of something than they should but there will always be a reason for it. 

It isn't your job to convince someone they are over reacting or blame them for doing it. It is your job to find out what experiences and perceptions and feelings are making their reaction different than expected. 

My best friend tells me "every feeling is valid because someone is experiencing it" and I really agree with her. We can't get mad at someone for feeling something because they can't control it anymore than you can.

Please don't tell people they are crazy or get affronted if someone seems to be over reacting to something you did. There is always a reason. If you try to come at it from a compassionate side you can see that the person's internal experience led them to feel that way.

Past experiences, pains, traumas and other factors make everything look different to different people.

If you are sitting at a restaurant and a women nearby gets mad at her husband for texting on his phone and ends up leaving you might think she is over reacting. You don't know that he has cheated on her in the past and that he never pays attention to her. You don't know that she hasn't felt loved since their honeymoon. You don't know that her dad never said "I love you" and you certainly don't realize that every man she has ever loved has left her for someone else.

This is just an example about how much you don't know about a person.

It's worse with people you know. We think we know everything about our significant others, about our friends, about our family. We don't. There are things they don't tell us. There are things they wouldn't even know how to express if they wanted to.

We can't get into someone's head. We can't see the world as they do. And such we shouldn't judge their reactions too harshly. Understanding and compassion plays a huge roll in defusing situations.

Try to see it from their side, try to understand why.

I dare you.

You'll probably be surprised by what you find out.

Carly