Tuesday Reset, July 7, 2026
My chest got tight in a meeting yesterday. Someone questioned a decision I’d made, and I felt the heat climb up my neck before I’d decided a single thing about how to respond.
Old me would’ve fired back. Calm on the outside, defensive underneath. The words would’ve been fine. The energy would’ve told on me.
Here’s a reset that costs nothing and works better than it has any right to. Name what you’re feeling.
Out loud if you can, in your head if you can’t. “This is frustration.” “I’m embarrassed, and it’s leaking out as anger.” Put the feeling into actual words.
A UCLA researcher named Matthew Lieberman scanned people’s brains while they did this. When they labeled an emotion, activity in the amygdala, the brain’s alarm system, dropped, and the thinking part of the brain came back online. Naming the feeling doesn’t make it disappear. The intensity comes down enough that you get to pick your next move, instead of the feeling picking it for you.
That’s the whole game. The gap between what happens and how you respond. It’s tiny. But you can widen it, and naming what’s going on inside you is one of the fastest ways I’ve found.
So in that meeting, I did the dorky thing. In my head: “that stung, and I’m getting defensive.” Two seconds. My shoulders came down half an inch. I asked a question instead of defending myself, and the whole conversation got better from there.
You don’t have to be a monk. You just have to tell yourself the truth about what you’re feeling before it grabs the wheel.
What’s the feeling that hijacks you most, and would you recognize it if you had to name it right now? Tell me, I read every reply.
Tomorrow’s Reps is about the small daily work that makes all of this easier to reach when you actually need it.
A few free tools if you want them:
Take our FREE Awareness Self Assessment
Get our FREE Focus App (Mobile only)
Get Jon’s book, DIAL In Your Leadership, FREE (just pay shipping)
Take our Awareness to Action Course
One breath at a time,
Jon Macaskill and Will Schneider
Men Talking Mindfulness Podcast and Focus Now Training