56 | How to Stop Reacting and Start Responding: The Relationship Reset You’ve Been Needing

Ever catch yourself saying, “Why did I react like that… again?”

In this episode of The Empower Work Podcast, I share the truth about emotional responsibility—how to break the reactive patterns that keep you stuck and start building real peace from the inside out.

You’ll learn why reactivity happens, how to calm it in real time, and what it means to create safety within yourself even when life feels messy.

This is your reminder that peace doesn’t come from control—it comes from truth, trust, and a little faith.

🌿 Ready to take the next step? Join The Relationship Reset Bootcamp—three short, powerful days to help you stay connected without losing yourself.
→ lisacovert.com/bootcamp

The Empower Work Podcast — for women breaking the cycles of reactivity through truth, trust, and a little faith.

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🎶 Instrumental Acoustic Guitar Music by Viacheslav Starostin (original_soundtrack),

W E B S I T E - LisaCovert.com

I N S T A G R A M - @lisamcovert

Transcript

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We can't fix what we don't face. In this episode, I help you uncover the hidden emotions driving your reactivity and how naming the truth can finally begin your healing. Welcome to episode 56. You don't heal what you hide. Hey, I'm Lisa Covert. Welcome to the Empower Work Podcast for women breaking the cycles of reactivity through truth, trust, and a little faith. No perfection here, just real talk, real tools, and the reset your heart's been asking for. Let's get into it. If you've ever wondered why the same fights or the same frustrations, the same burnout moments just keep happening in your life. You're not crazy. You're just an emotional autopilot. And here's what I mean by that. Autopilot is what lets us survive the everyday. Like when you drive a car and realize you barely remember the turns you made. Or when you unload the dishwasher while answering your kid's question. You're not even fully there. It's what your brain does to conserve energy. There are times autopilot is good. You don't have to think about every breath or how to put one foot in front of the other. But emotional autopilot, that's totally different. That's when your nervous system starts running your life instead of your truth. It's when you find yourself reacting before thinking, snapping at your kids, shutting down when your husband gets short, over-explaining to your friend because you can't stand feeling misunderstood. You're not choosing these reactions. They're choosing you. Emotional autopilot is what happens when your body and your mind learned a long ago that it wasn't safe to slow down. It's a protective pattern that once served you, maybe even kept you alive, but now it's keeping you stuck. And here's the truth: you can't heal what you refuse to name. That quote comes from a book that changed my life. It was called Rid of My Disgrace by Justin and Lindsay Holcomb. It's not an easy read at all, but it's a healing one. That book helped me confront the parts of my story I'd buried under religion and silence. The parts that told me my body was the disgrace. But grace doesn't erase your story, is what it taught me. It defines it. That book taught me that hiding pain doesn't protect you. It just keeps you bonded to it. And maybe that's where you are right now. Maybe you're tired of pretending you're fine while your insides are screaming. Maybe you've built a life that looks peaceful, but feels like you're walking on eggshells. Maybe the thing you most want healed is the thing you've never said out loud. And here's another truth: hiding never brings healing. You can't complain about what you won't confront. You can't ask God to heal what you keep performing as fine. But the beautiful thing is the moment you name it, even quietly, even trembling, you take your power back. Naming it doesn't make it worse, it makes it real. And anything real can finally be restored. You know, it might have been when I first read The Rid of Your Disgrace that I started to really understand this idea of healing, what you name. And this is the part I need to describe. The title itself is powerful. The word, they say rid of your disgrace. And it literally crosses out in red, rid of, I'm sorry, it's rid of my disgrace. So and in red, it actually crosses out rid of my discs, and it leaves the word grace. That visual hit me like the truth straight to my gut. I saw it. I was like, grace. We give our kids grace, we give everybody else grace, but we never give ourselves grace. And if we don't say anything, there is no healing. Because that's what healing really is. Not erasing the past, but uncovering grace beneath it. When I read that book, I was facing some really, really deep old pain. It was childhood level, deep pain. And for some of you, maybe that's what your naming season looks like too right now. But for others, and honestly, for most of us, it's not always something that heavy or hidden. Sometimes it's smaller patterns. Right here in our everyday lives that keep us stuck on emotional autopilot. I might have had that big childhood, but I didn't know how many times I was an autopilot in my daily life. I'll give you two examples in my own life to show you what I'm talking about. The first one, I thought about with my oldest son. He's got big feelings, he's got big ideas, he is a big personality, and I absolutely love him and love his personality. He brings out so much good in me. However, there were seasons when I kept trying to manage his emotions, his ideas, instead of guiding him through them. He'd say he wants something and I would jump through hoops to make it happen, thinking that if I could help keep him from getting upset, we'd have peace. But here's the truth: I wasn't creating peace. I was performing for it. When the thing I did still didn't make him happy, I'd feel defeated, resentful, exhausted. All that effort, all that tiptoeing was just me trying to avoid discomfort. And it wasn't helping either of us. Because peace built on silence is just control in disguise. I must say that one again. Because peace built on silence is just control in disguise. I've seen that come to my life so many times, and bo do I dislike that feeling of me trying to control others, because I surely don't love it to me. So when I repeat that statement and I know that peace built on silence is just control in disguise. So I said two examples. Here's another one. In real life, the pattern I had around family trips. Every fall break, every spring break, Christmas, whatever break it was, you name it, I was the one making sure we traveled to see everyone, keeping the peace. But deep down, I was exhausted. I wanted rest. To wake up in my own bed to breathe. But I didn't say it out loud. I told myself, it's fine. This is what a good daughter does. This is what a good wife does. But the silence of not speaking my truth didn't make anyone happier because I was miserable. I was there completing the to-do list and I was out. It made me bitter, made me unhappy to be around. And every unspoken no turned into another quiet resentment. That's not going to build relationships. That's not going to heal relationships. I was so afraid of being seen as selfish or ungrateful that I kept punishing myself with overgiving. And that's when I realized silence doesn't create peace, it creates pressure. So here's what I've learned from all that. When I don't name what's really hurting me, I keep reacting from it. And that's the same for all of us. When you don't name what's hurting you, you keep reacting from it. Saying I heard once in a group therapy session, and someone said, What do I do when they keep pushing my buttons? When they know how to push my buttons and they do it on purpose. What am I supposed to do then? You know what she said? Remove the button. When you remove that button, people can't push the button. It's not there to push. I swear it's like emotional autopilot. You think you're choosing peace, but what you're really choosing is avoidance. You're not responding. You're reenacting. Unspoken emotions do not disappear. They just find new ways to leak out. They show up as irritability, cranky, sarcastic, snapping at the kids for no reason, or at least it looks like no reason. And that constant tension in your chest, your stomach, oh those shoulders. When you walk into a room, you can just feel the tension in your body. Or maybe you don't, but it's there if you live if you pay attention to it, it is there. They show up in that overfunctioning, doing too much, saying yes when you mean no, because it feels safer to control the chaos than to confront the truth. And that's what I want you to hear today. Avoidance is a pattern. Reactivity is a pattern, and both are born from silence. But peace, and I'm talking real peace, is built on presence. In the moment you stop performing calm, stop performing like it's peaceful, and start practicing honestly. It's when you stop trying to keep peace and you start learning how to create it. When you choose to tell the truth, even the small and trembling truths, your nervous system finally realizes it doesn't have to live in defense anymore. That's when your reactivity starts to quiet down. That's when your peace becomes a pattern. That's when you stop jumping because someone sneezes or drops something. You're not hiding anything from your body. Your body knows. Alright, real talk for a second. Maybe you've heard me mention the relationship reset boot camp. And you've already thought, yeah, right, I don't have time for that. Trust me, I get it. You're juggling a lot, and your peace always ends up last on the list. But here's the truth: this isn't another thing to do. It's the pause that helps you finally breathe again, calm your reactions, and find peace in the relationships that matter most. Or maybe you're thinking, Lisa, I can't spend money on myself right now. Things are tight. I hear you. But be honest, how often do we spend the same amount on a random dress on Amazon or something that our kids want? Definitely don't need. Or a dinner out. Or a girls' night that we barely remember the next day. We don't even think twice about it. This isn't that. This is the one thing that actually gives you something back. It's three short, powerful days that will help you stop reacting, start responding, and finally feel grounded again. Without burning your life down, you're worth investing in. Your peace is worth protecting. And the people you love deserve the calm, present version of you. Not the one just trying to hold it all together. So if you're done repeating the same emotional loops and you're ready to finally feel different, join me inside the Relationship Reset Bootcamp. Head to LisaCovert.com slash bootcamp. I'll meet you there. Here's where faith meets psychology. Because this isn't just a mindset work, it's a soul work. I think we all have different understanding of what is a soul work. I love the song I Am Light by India Airy. I'm not 100% sure how to pronounce her name, but when she sings that song and she says, I am light, there's other parts of it, though, it's not just I am light. She says, I am not the color of my hair. I am not my eye color. I'm not the color of my skin. I'm not the mistakes that my parents have made. I'm not the mistakes I have made. I'm not my thoughts. I am me. I am a soul within and I am there. And the more we connect with who we are and not those outside things, that's when it really changes. Because I do believe God can't heal what we hide. He can't rewrite the story we're still pretending isn't real. When we keep things buried, the resentment, the fear, the exhaustion we're ashamed to name, we're not protecting ourselves. We're blocking healing. Truth isn't meant to shame you, it's meant to free you. There's a verse I come back to all the time. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. The truth has been such an asset to me. It's not always what I want to hear, but I value the truth. And here's the part that most of us miss. Truth isn't just information, it's a revelation. It's the moment you finally say, I am not okay. And you stop trying to convince yourself that you are. When you bring something into light, it loses its power over you. That's not weakness, that is courage. That's choosing a partnership with God instead of performance for people. And the beautiful thing about grace is that it never asks you to have it all figured out. It just asks you to stop hiding. So maybe this week, instead of running from that truth, you sit with it. You say, God, here it is. I'm tired of carrying this myself. That's not quitting, that's healing. Let's make this practical for just a moment. If you can, you can grab a notebook or even open the notes app on your phone. Take two minutes. Once this podcast is done, just do it. Or you can pause it now and do that. Yes, I'm talking literally two minutes. That's it. And just write without editing or overthinking. And you can even pause this episode again right after I say this. And you know, another, sometimes I even create my notes by speaking in. Maybe you can get it out easier that way. And I want to have two prompts for you. Number one, where do I feel resentment right now? Don't judge, don't filter, just right. Do I feel it in my gut? Do I feel that tightness? Do I feel my shoulders tight? Do I feel it in my arms? Do I feel it? Where do you feel it? Because I'm telling you, that is the biggest key right there. You'll know when you're off. You'll know there's that feeling again. You can't deny it. You're literally asking where you feel resentment. And again, your body knows it. You're not lying to your body. It knows. Number two, what pattern do I notice when I overgive or stay silent? Maybe it's, you know, people pleasing. Maybe it's the fear of conflict. Maybe it's guilt. Just name it. Because the moment you write it, you speak it, you're you've broken the silence. You've taken something that's been living in the dark, and you give it language. And that is literally the first step to peace. Not perfection, not perfect circumstances, but an honest heart. If that exercise felt heavy but freeing, then you're doing it right. That's the work. It's not always being comfortable. Growth isn't supposed to feel comfortable. Because the moment you start to get uncomfortable, that's when truth starts moving. That's when the walls come down. That's how peace is built. Not by controlling it, but by allowing it. You don't have to keep forcing peace anymore. When you face the truth, peace becomes something that's created on repeat from the inside out. If this conversation hit home at all, and you're ready to take this work deeper, check out the Relationship Reset Bootcamp. It's at LisaCovert.com/slash bootcamp. Enrollment for the first round is now closed. But the next round is open for early bird registration through November 23rd. That means you can still grab your spa at a limited time, early bird rate before it goes to full price. It's a three-day, short, powerful lesson to help you recognize emotional autopilot. Stop carrying what's not yours and start creating peace without burning everything down. We don't want to burn it down. We don't want to remove everybody from our lives. I don't know about you, but I've done that, and that does not change anything. I'm still the same person. The pattern's still repeated. Letting go of that all or nothing has created such amazing growth in my life. Because peace doesn't come from just pretending, it comes from presence, from sitting with what's real and letting go of what's not. Go check it out and remember this. Naming the truth doesn't make you weak. Okay, I'll see you in the next episode.

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If this episode made you pause, reflect, or even breathe a little deeper, would you do me a favor? Take 30 seconds and leave a quick review for the show. It helps more women who are stuck in the same overwhelm we've talked about today actually find this podcast. I'm not here for everyone, but I am here for the woman who's tired of holding it all together and ready to live a life that finally feels like her own. And hey, if you're feeling brave, take a screenshot of your comment and email it to me at Lisa at LisaCovert.com. Every month I do a little giveaway drawing for listeners who share or review the show. You never know, you might get something special. Thanks for listening, thanks for being here, and most of all, thanks for choosing to keep showing up for you.