It's my birthday month, here's my big a ha moment.

How We React Matters More Than We Think
(Inspired by Rylan and Phillipa Perry’s conversation on love)

Sometimes, it’s not the grand gestures or big life decisions that show us who someone really is — it’s the tiniest, most ordinary moments.

I was listening to a podcast recently — Rylan in conversation with psychotherapist and writer Phillipa Perry — and something she said really stopped me in my tracks.

She was talking about her husband, the artist Grayson Perry, and the moment she realised he was “the one.” It wasn’t during a romantic getaway or a deep, meaningful conversation. It was when she had a fall while carrying a tray of coffee.

She said he didn’t say, “Oh you’re so clumsy,” or “What did you do that for?” — the kind of reflexive remarks that can sting more than we realise. Instead, his first response was concern. His first comment was ‘oh you poor thing!!!” helped her clean it up, made sure she was OK. He met the moment with kindness, not criticism.

That stayed with me — not just because it’s sweet, but because it made me reflect on how easy it is to get used to the opposite, and to be honest, it’s become normal for me to wait for it, I can feel my stomach tighten up, here it comes.

Listening to it, I felt something shift in me. It made me realise how often I brace for those unkind reactions. How somewhere along the way, I had learned to expect them. To absorb them. To shrink a little under them. It’s the first time I have realised that I have grown up, waiting for the put down.

Putting up with breadcrumbing behaviour, when someone is nice to me, and I get a dopamine hit, then I jump through hoops to get another fix. It was quite a shocking thing for me, to hear it put into words, I have never managed to articulate it before. So now I can fix that in myself and learn a new way of gently saying…no.

I’d become so used to brushing it off, laughing it away, or staying quiet — until, at some point, I realised I didn’t have to. That I could gently say, Could you not say that, please? That I could change the narrative — even if just a little , by naming it. By noticing.

It’s strange how much we internalise the tone others set around us. And it’s even stranger how long it can take to notice that we’re doing it, and the thing is, this is just not a personal situation, it can happen in the workplace as well.

But that moment in the podcast reminded me that care doesn’t always shout. Sometimes, it’s a quiet thing — found in how someone responds when something goes wrong. Whether they shame you or support you. Whether they rush to fix blame or quietly ask if you’re OK.

And it goes both ways, doesn’t it? The way we respond to other people’s stumbles matters just as much. It’s worth noticing — our own patterns, our tone, our instinctive reactions. Are we meeting others (and ourselves) with gentleness? Or have we, too, picked up habits that do more harm than good?

So maybe the next time something gets spilled — literally or otherwise — we can all take a breath and ask ourselves: What kind of presence do I want to be in this moment?

Because love, respect, and safety don’t always look like big declarations. Sometimes, they’re found in the smallest pauses. In what we choose to say — or not say — when it really counts.