In this special episode, I interview my co-founder Denise "Circlemamma" Holliday, and I sit down for a special segment called Restorative Real Life Moments. Denise and I had a conversation about an incident where another dog attacked her dog in the neighborhood by her mom's house, and we started talking about how she reacted vs. responded. We also talked about what she needs to repair hard, what some of those conversations look like, how did she pause along the way to even get to the point where the story ended. We are trying to do this Restorative Real Life Moments as frequently as we can to share who we are as human beings and the work we are trying to do and how it’s working and transforming us, but yet we are still humans.

Let’s dig in and learn more about reacting vs. responding.

[00:01 – 11:14] Opening Segment

• I share a brief introduction to today’s special segment. 
• Restorative Real-Life Moments.
• Let’s welcome Denise "Circlemamma" Holiday to the show. 
• Denise shares the 4 Fs and back story surrounding what happened to her and her dog-brother ‘Powder.’ 
• Denise talks about her reaction and responds when the incident occurred.
• The pause and moment of reflection when she got to the right state of mind.

[11:15 – 24:10] Reacting Vs. Responding

• We can get it wrong all day long, and we make decisions based on emotions that we call reacting vs. responding.
• Reacting from an emotional space.
• It would be up to us to find out how to make it right.
• Denise talks about the transformation trigger to her thought pattern and process of realization.
• The pause of clarity and reflection moment.
• The absence of rational thinking.
• Denise shares how her neighbor responded that helped her to get into her rational thinking and empathy.
• Patient and empathy.

[24:11 – 29:10] The Fix that Was Needed

• Denise shares about the fix and what needed to happen to make this right as possible.
• The plan of making sure it will never happen again.
• Denise talks about how her neighbor fixed the problem and stayed true to what he said he would do.
• We are all human; we do not have to be perfect and always be the right ones. But it’s about trying to make it right when the opportunity is there.

[ 29:11 – 36:02] Closing Segment

• Denise talks about the takeaways that she had grown and going from this event.
• I share my takeaways from the story.
• Self-growth and self-understanding.
• Responding more to things than react out of emotion
• Final thoughts and words of advice

Tweetable Quotes:

“We can get it wrong all day long, and we make decisions based on emotions that we call reacting vs. responding.” –  Denise "Circlemamma" Holliday.

“We are all human; we do not have to be perfect and always be the right one. But it’s about trying to make it right when the opportunity is there.” –   Denise "Circlemamma" Holliday.

“I am going to live my best life when I can respond more to things than I react to them out of emotion.” –  Denise "Circlemamma" Holliday.

Connect with Denise via email to [email protected]. 

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