The Space Between Feeling & Responding...

What’s Good Friend!

I truly hope this entry finds you well, and if it doesn’t, I pray you find a little something in it that helps you feel a bit more grounded before we head into another week.

I’ve been thinking a lot about tension lately. Not necessarily the kind that comes with some big, life-altering disagreement, but the everyday tension that finds its way into our workplaces, friendships, romantic relationships, and even our neighborhoods. You know, the moments when somebody says something that rubs you the wrong way, doesn’t follow through on something they said they would do, or does something so completely unnecessary that you find yourself questioning whether they have lost their entire mind.

And baby, sometimes it’s something as simple as a trash can.

Now, I’m not here to discuss anybody’s business, but I will say that watching how quickly certain situations escalate has made me think about how we navigate tension, especially when we believe we’re right.

Because here’s the thing, friend: thinking we’re right doesn’t automatically mean we’re responding well.

I’ve had to learn that for myself… Sometimes the facts of a situation can be on your side, your feelings can be completely valid, and you can still choose a response that makes the situation worse. Other times, we’re so concerned about keeping the peace that we convince ourselves the most mature thing to do is say nothing at all.

And I’ve been questioning both actually…

What does it actually mean to remain calm when something bothers us? Is it the ability to keep our voices at a low tone? Is it knowing when to walk away? Is it being able to communicate what we’re feeling without making the other person responsible for managing every emotion we’re experiencing?

Or is it something deeper?

I feel as though I’ve come to believe that remaining calm isn’t necessarily about how little emotion we show. It’s about whether we can remain connected to ourselves long enough to make a conscious decision about what happens next.

Because tension is inevitable… Conflict is inevitable... Disappointment is inevitable... But how we choose to communicate in those moments can determine whether we’re building understanding, creating distance, or making an already difficult situation harder than it needs to be.

And sometimes the most intentional thing we can do is give ourselves enough room between what we feel and what we say to make sure the two are actually communicating the same thing.

Calm Doesn’t Mean Unbothered

I think we’ve developed an interesting relationship with the idea of being unbothered.

Somewhere along the way, remaining calm became synonymous with not caring, not responding, or making sure nobody could tell that something affected us. AND while there is absolutely value in learning not to react to everything, I wonder how often we’re confusing emotional regulation with emotional avoidance.

Because I can be calm and still be hurt. I can be understanding and still be disappointed. I can love someone deeply and still need to tell them that something they did didn’t sit well with me.

And none of those things make me difficult.

I think the challenge comes when we have to decide what to do with those feelings. Do we communicate them honestly? Do we sit with them long enough to understand what we’re actually experiencing? Or do we start building entire narratives in our minds about what another person’s actions must mean without ever giving the relationship an opportunity for clarity?

I’ve been thinking about how differently tension shows up depending on the environment.

At work, we might hesitate to address something because we don’t want to be perceived as difficult, emotional, or unable to work with others, hell or loose our jobs. In friendships, we might convince ourselves that a person should already know what we need because they’ve known us for years. In romantic relationships, we might find ourselves hoping someone will recognize a need we haven’t actually communicated. And with neighbors? Well, apparently sometimes we’re one misplaced trash can away from a neighborhood documentary.

But underneath all of these situations is something worth examining:

Are we communicating to be understood, or are we communicating to prove a point?

Those are two very different intentions.

I feel like when our goal is to prove a point, we can become so invested in defending our position that we stop listening to what the other person or trashcan is actually saying, lol. We prepare our response while they’re still speaking. We interpret questions as challenges. We treat disagreement as disrespect.

And sometimes, because we’re already carrying frustration from something else, the person standing in front of us ends up receiving a reaction that belongs to several situations they weren’t even part of.

That doesn’t mean we should excuse harmful behavior or tolerate disrespect. There are circumstances where distance, firm boundaries, or ending a conversation are necessary for our well-being and safety. But in relationships where communication is possible and safe, I think there’s something powerful about learning to address tension without turning every difficult conversation into a battle.

We can be direct without being cruel. We can disagree without dismissing someone else’s humanity. We can express disappointment without assigning intentions we haven’t confirmed.

And maybe perhaps most importantly, we can listen without automatically agreeing. I think that’s a skill we don’t discuss enough.

Listening doesn’t require surrendering your perspective. It requires being willing to understand a perspective that isn’t your own.

But there’s another part of this conversation that has been sitting with me, and I think it might be the more uncomfortable one.

What happens when the person we aren’t listening to is ourselves?

MY INTERNAL AUDIT

Okay friend… bare with me here! I’ve been asking myself a question lately: Am I communicating my needs to myself as clearly as I expect myself to communicate them to other people?

Because sometimes we spend so much time thinking about whether somebody else understands us that we forget to ask whether we’ve taken the time to understand ourselves.

We know when something doesn’t feel good. We know when we’re disappointed. We know when a situation leaves us feeling unsettled, frustrated, or emotionally exhausted. But do we always take the time to identify what we’re actually needing in those moments?

Or do we jump straight to what somebody else should have done?

Maybe we needed reassurance, but instead of acknowledging that, we convinced ourselves we were upset because someone didn’t respond quickly enough. Maybe we needed rest, but we kept saying yes to things because we didn’t want to disappoint anybody. Maybe we needed clarity, but we avoided asking the question because we were afraid the answer might require us to make a decision we weren’t ready to make.

And THEN sometimes, friend, the need itself is the hard thing to admit.

Let me say that again… THE NEED ITSELF IS THE HARD THING TO ADMIT.

It’s one thing to say, “I don’t like how that made me feel.” It’s another to sit with yourself long enough to acknowledge, “I need consistency. I need consideration. I need reassurance. I need to feel respected. I need to know that what I’m contributing to this relationship is being reciprocated.”

And that doesn’t only apply to our relationships. Sometimes the hard need is admitting, “I need more support at work. I need clearer expectations. I need to be compensated fairly for what I’m being asked to carry. I need more rest. I need help. I need more structure. I need space to create. I need to stop saying yes to things I don’t actually have the capacity for. I need something in my life to change.”

Those are different levels of honesty.

Hear me clear, or read… Sometimes saying the need aloud forces us to confront something we’ve been able to avoid while it remained unnamed. Once I admit what I need, I also have to decide what I’m going to do about the fact that I need it.

And I’ve been wondering how often we deny ourselves that level of honesty because naming a need makes us feel vulnerable, demanding, ungrateful, or even afraid of what acknowledging it might require us to change.

There’s a certain comfort in believing we don’t need much from anybody. We can tell ourselves we’re independent, understanding, flexible, and capable of handling whatever comes our way. But being capable of managing without something doesn’t automatically mean we don’t need it.

Sometimes we’ve become so good at adjusting to what we’re given that we’ve stopped asking ourselves whether it’s actually what we want.

Whew….

Okay so… I want to be careful here because I don’t believe every need we identify automatically becomes somebody else’s responsibility to fulfill. That’s part of the internal work, too. We have to be willing to distinguish between what we can provide for ourselves, what we can reasonably ask of others, and what we may need to accept about the limitations of a particular relationship or situation.

But we can’t begin making those distinctions if we’re unwilling to tell ourselves the truth. So here’s what I want us to consider this week.

When something creates tension in your life, before you rush to respond, defend yourself, withdraw, or convince yourself you’re unbothered, give yourself an opportunity to understand what’s happening internally.

Ask yourself whether you’re responding to what actually happened or to what you’ve decided it means. Consider whether you’ve clearly communicated your expectations or simply hoped the other person would recognize them. And perhaps most importantly, ask whether you’re prepared to hear an answer that might not be the one you want.

Because effective communication isn’t just about finding the right words to say to someone else.

Sometimes it’s about having the courage to say the hard thing to yourself first.

And then being willing to listen.

MY INTENTIONAL PULSE

This week’s Simple Reminder:
You cannot effectively communicate a need you refuse to acknowledge.

As you move through this week, fall, and winter, I want you to pay attention to the moments when you feel tension rising. Not because every uncomfortable feeling needs to become a conversation, but because every uncomfortable feeling may have something worth teaching you about yourself.

Consider these three questions:

1. What am I actually feeling, and what happened that brought this feeling forward? Here try to separate the facts of the situation from the story you may be telling yourself about it. (I know I know… I’m yelling! Sorry!)

2. What do I need, and have I been honest with myself about that need? Not what you think you should need, or what would make you appear the most independent, but what you genuinely need. And honestly, maybe we start with the most gut wrenching hardest need to let come out of our mouths… (*Shrugs* Shoot for the stars!)

3. What would communicating this need with both honesty and consideration look like? Think about how you can be clear without being unkind, vulnerable without abandoning your boundaries, and open to listening without dismissing your own experience. And remembering kindness in the process…

And here’s our tiny challenge… Say one need out loud this week.

Even if you’re only saying it to yourself. Especially if you’ve been avoiding it….

Before I let you go…

Before we go friend… we do need to handle some other biznyee in my lil scrappy voice! I want to take a moment to remind my you in North Carolina and Georgia that early voting for the November 2026 General Midterm Election begins THIS DAMN WEEK!

I know we’ve got a lot going on in our personal lives, but our communities still need us to participate in the decisions that shape where we live, work, raise families, and build our futures.

Early voting begins Tuesday, October 13, and continues through Friday, October 30 for my Georgia Peaches!!! Y’all know yall still my second home! But check the website below to know everything you need to vote AND find you a voter guide and start studying them candidates!

Early voting begins Thursday, October 15, and continues through Saturday, October 31. And for my NC friends who missed the regular voter registration deadline, eligible voters can still register and vote during the early voting period at an early voting site in their county. DON’T PLAY WITH ME!!!

Please make a plan to vote, check your registration information, review your ballot, and encourage somebody else to participate.

AGAIN… GENERAL ELECTION DAY IS TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3!

Remember, voting doesn’t begin and end with an election, but elections are certainly one of the ways we make our voices heard. Also remember… Voting is our RIGHT… folks be getting ish twisted nowadays… y’all betta pull up!

Well friend… I took us through there! Here’s the thing, I don’t think the goal of intentional living is to become somebody who never experiences tension. I think the goal is to become somebody who can experience tension without immediately abandoning themselves, their values, or their ability to communicate with care.

There will be moments when we get it wrong. Moments when we speak too quickly, stay silent too long, misunderstand someone’s intentions, or struggle to find the words for something we’re still trying to understand ourselves. That’s part of being human. But I hope we continue giving ourselves room to learn how to respond differently, because the way we communicate can either create the conditions for understanding or make connection that much harder.

And if there’s one thing I hope you take from today’s letter, it’s remaining calm doesn’t mean you have to pretend something didn’t affect you. Sometimes the calmest thing you can do is acknowledge exactly how you feel, understand what you need, and communicate it without losing yourself in the process.

So this week, be intentional about what you say, how you listen, and what you’re willing to admit to yourself.

And please, y’all… remember to go V . O . T . E !

With love + intention,
Shakeyla M. Ingram

P.S. N O L A N W E L L S