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Your Reaction Might Not Be About What Just Happened #addictionrecovery #addictionawareness

23 Sept 2026 · 1 min

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In this short didactic monologue, Amber Hollingsworth explains that our emotional reactions are often driven not by the immediate event itself but by the brain's interpretation, which is colored by past experiences and memories. She illustrates this with a marital scenario where a husband’s ten‑minute lateness triggers a wife’s intense anxiety and anger. The delay is a trivial trigger; the disproportionate reaction signals unresolved history—previous instances of uncertainty and fear—that the brain attaches meaning to. Hollingsworth concludes that when a reaction feels larger than the situation, it likely signals an underlying connection to past emotional wounds.

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The point is, is that we don't just react to what happens. We react to what our brain says it means. And it works in both ways. A husband is 10 minutes late getting home and his wife immediately gets anxious and angry. 10 minutes isn't the problem here, right? 10 minutes means, here we go again. I remember all those times I had no idea where you were or what I was going to walk into. The thing happening right now may look tiny, but it's dragging a whole bunch of history behind it. That's why sometimes the reaction looks way bigger than the situation. I usually say if the problem is this big and the reaction is this big, it means it's connected to something from the past.