The U-Turn: Use It When You Lose It

“Your breathing is your greatest friend. Return to it in all your troubles and you will find comfort and guidance.” — Anthony de Mello. Indian Jesuit Priest, psychotherapist

A friend and mentor, Dr. Frank Rogers, Jr. once told a story that is both sobering and, if we are honest, a little funny (It’s in his book, Practicing Compassion; I have his permission to share it with you.).

After 9/11, during the invasion of Iraq, a small Quaker group organized a silent peace vigil at a busy intersection. The purpose was simple: create an oasis of calm in the fever of war. No arguing. No debating. Just quiet presence. Embody peace, don’t shout about it.

Nick, a longtime contemplative practitioner, joined them. An elderly Quaker woman explained the ground rules: remain silent, extend courtesy, do not engage. He felt confident. He taught contemplative practice, after all.

He made a sign: Peace For Our Children.

Within minutes a pickup truck stopped at the red light. Talk radio blared. The driver leaned out the window and yelled, “Your children would be dead if we lived in Iraq.”

Nick—seasoned contemplative—yelled back, “Your children will be dead if we keep bombing innocent people.”

“Don’t talk about my children!”

“Don’t talk about mine! I want peace for them all!”

“I’ll show you peace!”

“Show me! I’m right here!”

The oasis of peace had become a shouting match at a stoplight.

If it weren’t so human, it would be tragic. But it is so perfectly human that we almost have to smile. Even contemplatives get hooked. Even teachers of silence lose their silence. Our nervous systems light up fast. Mention children. Threaten safety. Challenge dignity. The ancient wiring takes over.

A gentle arm wrapped around Nick’s shoulder. The elderly Quaker woman whispered, “That’s okay. Just take a deep breath. Why don’t we go for a little walk?”

And they walked. She literally turned him around. And he let her.

That is what Rogers calls practicing taking the U-turn…and it is often literal. Turn around. Get your bearing.

Reacting and responding are not the same thing. Reacting is when there is no space between what we feel and what we do. Emotion surges and behavior follows immediately. We feel anger and we speak sharply. We feel fear and we clamp down. We feel accused and we defend. It is like being swept into rapids. The current carries us before we have chosen a direction.

Responding requires a gap. A breath. A wedge of awareness between impulse and action. The emotion still arises. The surge still happens. But instead of being fused with it, we notice it. “Oh. I am furious.” “Oh. My attention has been hijacked.” “Oh. I have lost my focus.”

The difference is not the absence of emotion. It is the presence of awareness.

There is something gently ironic about Nick’s story because it captures us humans. We intend one thing and do another. We set out to embody peace and end up arguing at a red light. It is almost funny because it is so recognizable. But it is not hopeless. Don’t go there.

Here’s the point.

We are all playing with human emotional wiring. Certain phrases, tones, histories, and themes will trigger us. For some it is criticism. For others, injustice. For many of us, anything involving our children. The amygdala does not consult our theology nor our best self before it fires. It's left the pack and is doing its own thing.

Understanding this is not an excuse. It is a mercy. It allows us to say, “Of course I reacted. That touched something deep.” And then, “Now let me tend to myself so I can regain my intention.”

People like Martin Luther King Jr. and Diane Nash, as I wrote in an earlier blog, did not simply wake up calm under pressure. They trained. They practiced being yelled at without retaliating. They rehearsed holding focus under stress. They widened the gap between arousal and response through repeated discipline.

And still, they were human. The goal is not perfection. The goal is noticing and returning.

The U-turn is not about pretending we were never triggered. It is about recognizing when we have lost our intention and our attention. It is about saying, “I have drifted.”

And then we tend to ourselves before we continue.

I learned this the hard way one evening at our community meal.

A woman arrived with fire practically coming out of her nose. Her arms were crossed tightly against her chest. She began to spew words with an angry tone almost immediately. She was upset that the church appeared to be enabling a homeless, schizophrenic man by allowing him to eat at the meal, hang around the church, and endanger other people rather than calling the police.

The trigger came when she started telling me her husband was a preacher and the bible verses I should look up.

As she spoke, I felt my own anger rising to meet hers. I could feel it—heat in the chest, tightening in the jaw. My internal voice wanted to correct her, bible battle with my own favorite verses, defend our decision, push back. I knew this homeless guy since he was a kid.

In that moment I recognized it: I was losing my focus. My intention to be present and thoughtful was slipping. My attention had narrowed to self-protection.

I said, “I can see you are angry. I need a moment. You are a difficult person.” If I had it to do over, I might have said, “This is a challenging situation.” The wording was imperfect. But the pause was real.

Then I literally turned around, faced a different direction, and took several long breaths.

It was not dramatic. It was not elegant. But it was a U-turn.

After a few breaths, my body settled some. My mind widened. I turned back and said, “Okay. Tell me what you think I need to understand.”

She spoke. When she finished, I asked, “Anything else?”

She said no. She said thank you. And she left.

We did not become best friends. The issue did not vanish. But we did not escalate. The situation was later discussed and dealt with thoughtfully.

That small turning—those few breaths—made the difference between reacting and responding.

Sometimes a single breath recalibrates us. It steadies the heartbeat, softens muscles, clears the mind. Other times we need more space. We change location. We walk. We call a trusted friend. We journal. We pray. We let the glitter in the snow globe settle as Rogers says.

The U-turn is the act of noticing that we have lost our focus, lost our intention and our attention, and we know to tend to ourselves. It is humility. It is discipline. It is mercy toward our own wiring.

The good life is not a life without triggers. It is a life where we know what tends to ignite us and where we learn to recognize the moment the flame begins to rise.

And when we notice, we breathe. We pause. We turn. We come back.

We will sometimes argue at red lights. We will sometimes say the imperfect thing. But if we can learn to notice when our intention and attention have drifted—and gently return—we are training ourselves to allow our best selves to drive the bus.

Our breathing is our greatest friend. Our awareness is solid ground. And our humanity, with all its reactivity and tenderness, is not something to despise but something to understand.

The good life is not about never losing focus. It is about knowing how to take the U turn, pause, take breath, and get back on track.

How might we journey together to The Good Life by realizing when we have been triggered and take the U-turn to regain our intention and attention?

Book by our mentor, Dr. Frank Rogers Jr.