You know the feeling. Something happened, or something did not happen, and now there is a message half written in your head. You need to know where you stand. You need them to respond. The urge is not casual, it is physical, and it will not quiet down until you hit send.

Wait twenty minutes.

Not forever. Not to suppress it, and not because your feelings are wrong. Twenty minutes, because the message you would send in the next two is not being written by you. It is being written by a nervous system that has decided this is an emergency.

What to do with the gap

The waiting is not the whole practice. What you do inside it matters more.

Set an actual timer. Not a vague intention to hold off. A timer, so your body knows the wait has an end and stops arguing with you about it.

Regulate first. Breathe in for four counts and out for six. Drink water. Move, even if it is only to the other side of the room. You cannot think clearly through a body that is still braced.

Bring it to God before you bring it to them. Out loud if you can. Lord, I am feeling this, and what I need is this. Then be quiet for a moment and let Him have the first response instead of the last.

Write only the facts. No story, no interpretation, no imagined motive. What actually happened, in plain sentences. Most of what is hurting is usually in the interpretation, and this is where you find that out.

Then decide. Ask for what you need once, clearly and directly. Then release what they do with it.

Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.Jeremiah 17:7

Why the gap works

Sometimes you get to the end of twenty minutes and you still send the message, and it is a better message. Clearer, kinder, and asking for something real instead of fishing for reassurance. That is a good outcome.

Other times you get to the end and realize you did not need an answer from them at all. You needed to not feel alone for a minute, and you have already stopped feeling that way. That is a good outcome too.

This one comes straight out of The Secure Girl, where it lives as a full tool with space to write. If you find yourself reaching for reassurance more often than you want to admit, start there.

With you on the journey,
Autumn