Blog for
Chris Lauzon - Therapist, LICSW

There’s a quiet moment most of us recognize—though we don’t always name it. It’s the pause after something small stings. A comment, a tone, a forgotten gesture. In that moment, we have a choice: speak, or store. Too often, we store it, and that’s where the snowball begins.

In many of my previous posts, we’ve talked about the importance of self-awareness, recognizing our needs, and learning to pause before we react. When we do this well, we give ourselves the opportunity to choose intention rather than simply operating on emotional autopilot. But, let’s be honest, even when we know the tools, certain environments can still catch us off guard. Here is a tool for this, I call it The Visual Mantra.

Open your spice rack. Notice what’s there. Not just the garlic powder and sea salt, but the jars tied to chapters of your life. The cumin from the relationship where you learned to cook for two. The chili flakes from the season of intensity. The specialty blend you bought because they liked it. Some of those spices are years old. If you unscrew the lid, the aroma is faint. The color is dull. The potency is gone, yet we keep them.