I too struggle very often with the pause and the recognition of emotion before acting on it.
Something that has been somewhat helpful to me is a meditation method called mental noting. Please note no method will work for everyone but in case it's useful to you, here goes.
Basically, my version, please do search for more qualified people's version of mental noting on the internet:
1) Rest attention on my breathing
2) Notice (I don't always notice, I don't often notice, but sometimes I do) that I'm distracted
3) Note and label the distraction (mentally say "I'm thinking" or "I'm itching" or "I'm worrying" or "I'm replaying conversation" etc)
4) Thank the distraction for allowing me to flex the mental "noticing muscle"
4.5) Remind myself not to beat myself up about how long I was distracted, haha
5) GOTO 1
This practice has helped me in slowly building up a mental observer that can pause from time to time. But, as I said, I still struggle with the pause.
Something that has been somewhat helpful to me is a meditation method called mental noting. Please note no method will work for everyone but in case it's useful to you, here goes.
Basically, my version, please do search for more qualified people's version of mental noting on the internet:
1) Rest attention on my breathing
2) Notice (I don't always notice, I don't often notice, but sometimes I do) that I'm distracted
3) Note and label the distraction (mentally say "I'm thinking" or "I'm itching" or "I'm worrying" or "I'm replaying conversation" etc)
4) Thank the distraction for allowing me to flex the mental "noticing muscle"
4.5) Remind myself not to beat myself up about how long I was distracted, haha
5) GOTO 1
This practice has helped me in slowly building up a mental observer that can pause from time to time. But, as I said, I still struggle with the pause.