When You Feel Triggered, Do This

Triggers can stir emotions of sadness, loneliness, feeling alone or unloved, and to avoid these unpleasant emotions, you may find yourself resorting to behaviours that are self-soothing, numbing, and avoidance.

Here I share my tailored list of 5 'Do's and Don'ts' to help you masterfully notice and identify trigger moments and the best strategies for intervening early.

Transcript

As we begin,

I want to say that we all feel triggered at times.

You may not be able to eradicate all of the past from your memories,

And yet you can change the feelings and your reaction to those past situations through the important work of therapy,

Forgiveness,

Understanding,

And the acceptance of what already is.

Acceptance,

Not because you agree nor condone what has happened,

Rather acceptance of what you cannot change.

It is the past already experienced.

Throughout,

You'll hear me repeat some of the most important and helpful tips and strategies.

The repetition is deliberate to remind you of what is so very important.

We begin with a question.

What is a trigger experience?

It's highly probable that you've had this experience at least once.

I'm going to take you through the steps for what to do when you feel triggered,

How you can best navigate your emotions without creating further unnecessary drama,

Fear,

Anxiety,

Anger,

Or other unpleasant emotions,

And I'm going to share with you my tailored list of things to do and not do when you feel a trigger response.

Living a human experience,

It's more probable that you feel triggered in certain situations and because of certain people's words and actions,

Especially when others are deliberately unkind,

Hurtful,

And of course,

Physically threatening.

When you experience a trigger,

And a trigger is a stimulus that evokes a strong emotional and or physiological response,

The central nervous system becomes activated,

Particularly the sympathetic nervous system,

Which triggers a stress response or otherwise known as fight,

Flight,

Or freeze response.

This is because your brain comprehends an event or experience in the present as similar to typically what is a negative or traumatic real event or experience of the past.

I'm going to give you a list of five things not to do when you're triggered,

And of course,

What to do instead.

I'd love for you to make this your go-to guide for how you can effectively manage and alleviate a trigger expression.

It's important first and before you are able to implement any and all of these guiding rules to first be aware when what you are feeling is a trigger.

Because these emotions surface and seem to come out of nowhere and certainly unexpectedly,

It's important to be present to recognize what you are feeling when you feel it.

The first strategy comes out of the first do's and don'ts rule on my tailored list.

Number one,

Don't shut out the trigger by ignoring or suppressing it.

Keeping it bottled up,

Disavowing it,

Ignoring your emotions doesn't make the feelings go away.

Often that emotion that you attempted to ignore and bury comes out in other ways and equally as unhealthy.

What you want to do instead is be accepting of what you are feeling.

However,

Whether now or at a later time,

You also need to have the tools to properly assess whether your perceptions are accurate and to understand from where your trigger truly originates.

For example,

Was it the question you were asked that you judged as someone being critical of you when actually it was a question needed to help clarify a problem you were having?

Or was this question triggering for you because you felt as though someone was being critical when really what you experienced was a trigger response based on an originating much earlier time when you did receive negative and critical words as a child that caused you to doubt your ability to communicate effectively?

And as a result,

You never quite got over the thinking that this in some way made you flawed and not good enough.

People form opinions based on emotions such as fear,

Contempt,

And anger rather than relying on facts.

New facts often do not change their minds.

There is a cognitive bias that can get in the way of changing your mind.

It's called confirmation bias.

It's the natural tendency to seek out information or interpret things in a way that supports your existing beliefs.

Interacting with like-minded people and the media often reinforces confirmation bias.

The problem with confirmation bias is that it can lead to errors in judgment because it keeps you from looking at a situation objectively and from multiple angles.

When you experience a trigger,

It is because the brain is interpreting a current event and classifying or organizing it into a category that has a label based on a past sensitive,

Difficult,

Or traumatic event.

There may be something in the present that you sense,

Interpret,

Or perceive as similar to what has happened in your past.

It's important to know that as soon as you do this,

You are already beginning to experience the same or similar emotions as you did previously.

When you determine that a present situation or event is whatever the label is that you have given it,

Whether unjust,

Threatening,

Judgmental,

You are no longer wholly present to whatever is happening in this moment.

Rather,

You are reacting to the present as you have labeled it.

Because the brain has now categorized this new moment as the same type of stressor or trauma as which you lived,

The body mobilizes itself and you feel all of the same or similar emotions.

This could be anxiety,

Panic,

Fear,

Anger,

Rage,

Sadness,

Just to name a few.

In this example,

The body begins to experience symptoms as it did in response to the original event or trauma.

At the very least,

The automatic fight,

Flight,

Or freeze response occurs.

That is,

Your heart rate increases,

Perhaps you lose your ability to focus on what is really happening in the present,

So you stop listening and taking in the new experience,

And now you are reacting as if you are reliving that initial negative or traumatic experience,

Often without realizing what is even happening.

Whether or not your perceptions of the current situation is accurate,

Your body is reacting both to this current experience and simultaneously to the events of the past,

And doing so in the present,

Thereby making your reaction heightened and far more debilitating than if you were simply reacting to only the moments in front of you.

When you stay present to a trigger,

You have the ability to understand better what is really happening for you,

And to assess the present moments as a new experience and not necessarily the same as what has happened in the past.

The second strategy in my do's and don'ts rule when you feel triggered,

Don't spiral out.

Please don't remain stuck in your head,

Replaying the trigger thoughts without a healthy means of processing your feelings and having positive outlets.

Ruminating digs the hole deeper,

It also fuels unnecessary anger,

Bitterness and critical thoughts,

Whether of yourself or others,

That are all avoidable.

If you are interpreting a present event to be similar to a past trauma,

You will relive those similar feelings and sensations again each time you think about what just happened.

A far better strategy is to first calm yourself and your central nervous system.

This could mean taking deep breaths,

Going out for a walk in nature,

Feeling relief from your ruminating through meditation,

Prayer,

Journaling,

As an expression of your feelings.

And also noting the trigger moments and your thoughts in order to validate this experience for you.

Most of all,

Seeking to accurately assess a situation,

Both as to the true facts of what was really happening and also how you were perceiving the triggering events.

There are ways to obtain the facts of what the experience was.

One of the best,

Of course,

Is to ask questions,

To clarify,

To seek a better understanding rather than rely solely on your biased perspective.

Other reflective assessments include,

For example,

Were you tired and sleep deprived?

Were you distracted by your inner narratives once you became triggered?

And did you blank out on much of the rest of the conversation or experience?

Were you sober?

Did you have critical thoughts that predated the situation,

Making you vulnerable to feeling criticism or judgment?

Did you seek to understand everything by first asking questions and getting clarification?

In cases where you recalled factual information,

That is,

Real evidence for your feelings,

It's also important,

Especially if this is someone you do not know,

To ask yourself,

Were they purposefully trying to be harmful,

Disrespectful,

Unkind?

And how would you know this?

There are a lot of factors that influence how we perceive a situation.

It is natural if someone has lived in an abusive relationship and has past traumas to be more sensitive in general to all of life,

Including benign experiences,

Because everything is witnessed through the perceptual cues of what has previously happened to them.

If you are constantly being triggered,

This is symptomatic of unresolved past issues,

Including conflicts,

Hurts and wounds,

And of course trauma.

It would benefit you greatly from seeking therapy and emotional healing,

Together with the tools that can be specifically curated for you and for what you need.

The third strategy in my do's and don'ts rule when you feel triggered.

Don't lash out.

Reacting impulsively,

Yelling,

Blaming,

Fuels the fire.

It fuels your fire,

Because you are potentially creating conflict,

Drama,

Your accusations and blame can be aggressive and abusive,

And it prevents you from really understanding why you became triggered,

And learning about yourself,

Including helpful strategies,

So you can self-regulate in the present and begin working on healing the past.

If you are not aware that you are being triggered,

It's far easier to lose your ability to remain present.

Your mind begins to interlayer the present situation with a past negative and traumatic event,

And you can wrongly misjudge and thus label and categorize the present as negative,

Threatening,

Critical,

And judging others based on your experiences of the past,

And without carefully understanding if the present is indeed threatening as you have perceived it to be.

I explain to clients that when they are judging a situation,

Regardless of whether they are triggered,

They are creating a series of feelings and inevitably a behavioral response that is typically harmful to them.

Whether in how they will react in turn,

Or in their continued and future thoughts about this person or event that then has a detrimental effect,

Not only on themselves,

For it continues to harbor negative emotions that cause them to suffer,

But their negatively charged assessment of a person or a situation often has a way of fueling what can become a passive-aggressive action or a direct,

Unkind,

And hurtful action toward another.

Rather,

What if you remained present to what is really happening for you,

And if you used your communication skills to ask questions and clarify so that you have the right understanding in order to properly categorize this event,

Which may not be as you initially and automatically perceived it?

And then,

Of course,

Life no longer feels to be so difficult and threatening.

There is another cognitive bias that can occur instinctively when someone encounters evidence that runs counter to their beliefs,

Making it difficult to examine what is really true.

Instead of re-evaluating what they've believed up until now,

We tend to what's called reject the incompatible evidence.

That is,

Even when someone explains,

Based on your questions of their honorable intentions,

And that they were not judging nor being critical of you,

Rather,

They were and they explained this,

Although you didn't hear them,

For you were already reacting to the experience as what triggered you,

You find it difficult to believe them.

This is a phenomenon known as belief perseverance,

And it means that everyone can fall prey to their ingrained way of thinking.

Here's how belief perseverance works.

Being presented with the facts,

Let's say that it was explained that the person asking questions needed to understand better what you were looking for and needed help with.

And if you were aware of feeling triggered and able to check out your presumptions directly in that moment or at a later time,

And if doing so suggests that your current perceptions and beliefs were wrong,

The cognitive bias of belief perseverance can have the undesired effect of causing you as the triggered person to feel threatened.

This threatened reaction is particularly strong when the beliefs in question are aligned with a personal identity.

Let's say you believe you're a victim or that you often get criticized.

It can feel like an attack on you if one of your strongly held beliefs is challenged.

Backfire effect,

It's called,

Can end up strengthening your original position and beliefs.

Sadly,

You never learn how to see and believe something different and beyond what you continue to tell yourself.

Another reason why it can be difficult to stay present and accurately assess a situation in which you feel triggered.

In situations of high stress or distrust,

Your body releases the hormone cortisol.

Cortisol can and does hijack your advanced thought processes,

That is,

Reason and logic,

Or what we call the executive functions of your brain.

Your brain's amygdala,

Which controls your innate fight,

Flight,

Or freeze reaction,

Becomes more active when you feel a threat.

Once your cognitive functions have been hijacked,

It's hard to hear another viewpoint.

The desire to be right,

Combined with the brain's protective mechanisms,

Makes it that much harder to change your opinions and beliefs,

Even in the presence of new information.

If you are more prone to a freeze response when triggered,

You may indeed say nothing.

Your well-practiced social skills may take over,

And you present as enjoying the conversation,

Asking questions,

Being engaged,

Even thanking the other person for their help and time.

And yet,

If you have not done the work to properly assess and understand your trigger experience,

You might then continue to build up more of the narrative in your mind based on your belief-perseverance bias,

Only to then lash out,

Attacking the other person,

Making untrue and unfounded claims,

And all because you became triggered.

When we interpret a present moment experience to be similar or the same as something bad that's happened,

We could be losing out on the opportunity to learn about ourselves and some very important and helpful experiences that are not the same as what we lived in the past.

Our reactions,

If they are over-reactions,

And if we lash out at others in that moment or at a later time,

Cause us to create more trauma,

This time self-induced because we have wrongly perceived the present.

Have you ever become hurt or saddened by an experience that was actually not hurtful at all?

Many of us have.

Understanding why you feel triggered is so very valuable in order to gain the insight and the knowledge you need in order to best help yourself.

The tools and strategies you learn and that I can help with,

You'll use in other occasions where you feel triggered,

Because you will.

We all do.

Fourth on my tailored list of do's and don'ts,

Don't judge yourself.

Blaming yourself adds weight to the moment.

Besides the already destructive effects of reliving negative and traumatic emotions,

Judging yourself only causes you to feel badly and as a victim,

And certainly any other number of narratives that can keep you mired in your inadequate,

Anxious,

Hurt,

And angered feelings.

I'll mention another practice here that anchors you in the experience of now and with the perspective that it is most helpful for you to be present so that you can witness with greater accuracy what is truly happening when you feel triggered.

And you can also decide if you need to pause yourself,

Whether to self-regulate,

To remove yourself temporarily from a situation,

Or to use your communication skills effectively.

To ask questions and even share your feelings of anxiety or anything else if it is an environment in which you feel comfortable and safe to do so.

I would focus on clarifying your experience first,

Which helps you to remain present,

And this clarification,

If you remain open-minded and accepting of what you hear and see,

Can either help to change what happens next in your exchange with someone for the better,

Or you can,

If you deem from their feedback that your perceptions are accurate,

You can make a well-informed decision that keeps you safe,

Doing so with kindness and respect.

It's important to isolate the moment as you begin to feel a trigger response.

This can happen as you practice being self-aware of your emotions and thoughts.

One question to ask yourself whenever you feel triggered,

To help you understand from where your triggers originate,

Is what messages and beliefs do I hold about myself that limit me?

Writing your answers will give you good information as to why you are triggered and what can trigger you.

The biggest step to help you understand your triggers is to be willing to look at your internal and spoken thoughts in the moments when you feel unnerved,

Anxious,

Perhaps scared,

Angered,

And whatever the trigger emotion may be.

And remember,

A trigger emotion is whatever emotion moves you out of a state of self-control.

What I encourage of you if you feel triggered,

Again,

Is to pay greater attention to how you can calm yourself with breathing to help self-regulate the instinctive stress response,

And so that you can remain present and attentive rather than distracted and absent to what is truly happening.

This is a practice that can be so difficult when you are already feeling your defenses built.

Breathing to stay present,

Asking questions to get clarification rather than assume that you are being mistreated or judged,

And being mindful that feeling triggered is above all else an opportunity to practice calming and regulating yourself,

As this is how you best navigate the moments that occur for all of us.

When you are able to give more attention to your trigger experience,

It's important to have all of the facts.

This will include knowing the actual intentions and words spoken to you by another person so that you are not creating a narrative that is untrue and that causes you to feel like a victim.

You can have a more heightened sensitivity to the mannerisms and behaviors of others,

Especially if you are empathic,

If you have experienced traumas,

If you are in that subcategory of what is called a highly sensitive being,

If you are highly stressed,

If you are generally untrusting of others' intentions,

If you are self-critical,

And if you view the world with this critical lens,

You will become triggered more easily and more frequently.

And it goes without saying,

If you have a poor sense of self and low self-esteem,

You're going to feel the harshness of the world deeper and much more easily,

And perhaps unnecessarily.

If you fail to seek the facts,

If you do not choose to understand better your reactions and how you might have chosen to react,

If you are not able to adequately calm and self-soothe and to accurately learn the truth,

Triggering moments will then continue to impact the quality of your life.

And without helping you learn the power of self-control,

Self-dignity,

And kindness to yourself and others in all moments,

In those instantaneous moments when you lose yourself,

You lose your cool,

Your ground,

And certainly your ability to have self-control.

It is a practice to stay calm,

To be in control,

And to use your voice calmly,

Kindly,

And to do your best to be honest with yourself about whether you are indeed,

Again,

Seeing the situation accurately and honestly.

It's up to you to express how you are feeling,

To acknowledge to yourself this experience,

So that you can find your calm and also respond from calm and authenticity rather than lame or anger or in what becomes an unfounded retaliation on another.

You formulate a roadmap of how others see you through the learned and real experiences of your family of origin.

If you do not ever adjust this roadmap for what new experiences you encounter that are different,

That is,

Not every person you meet is going to criticize or belittle you,

Not every person will find fault with you,

And especially if you are sitting across from me in a session and I am wanting to help you.

If you are unable to be present to the situation and your experiences and to perceive these accurately,

And accurately includes asking questions and receiving helpful interventions and feedback,

Then you may continue to feel triggered,

Activated in ways that cause you to reignite some or all of your old conditioned responses.

You,

Like many others,

Will re-experience the same feelings,

Whether that is hurt,

Sadness,

Anger,

Hostility,

Rage,

Because your amygdala,

That part of the brain that has been hardwired for processing emotions,

Particularly fear and anxiety,

And of which plays a critical role in forming emotional memories and initiating that fight,

Flight,

Or freeze response,

Is going to take you right back to that early,

Often traumatic episode of when the criticism or danger or threat was real.

Because when you were nine and got in trouble for doing poorly on a test,

Or if you were told you should do better,

And you felt the disappointment of your caregiver or the consequences that meant that you couldn't see your friend on the weekend,

This experience holds a memory and a hurt that you carry,

Until and unless you have the tools to be able to process this in its entire accuracy.

Its accuracy may be that your parent and caregiver had only good intentions to want to motivate you,

Knowing that you had an enormous amount of intelligence and ability to do even better,

And that they were certainly not wanting you to feel badly.

The problem is that you can continue in your life being triggered daily and reacting in a way that is defensive,

Aggressive,

And angrily,

Or you could feel anxiety and duress for feeling shame and badly about yourself,

And all of which may be based on instances of the past that were never intended to be hurtful.

All to which give you the messaging that you are somehow not good enough or undeserving,

Which causes feelings of sadness and vulnerability.

Your reactions can cause conflict,

And you may find it difficult to make friends,

To keep friends,

As your suddenness to react when triggering makes it difficult for you to get along with people,

And of course it difficult to accomplish your goals,

Because these early life traumatic memories and the negative core beliefs continue to cause you to self-sabotage both relationships and experiences,

And certainly not to mention yourself.

You can become triggered without realizing what is happening,

And it becomes an integral part of this work we do together to help you identify these moments,

And also the thoughts and perceptions that have caused you to feel triggered,

Because you see there are two parts,

A situation and your perception of that situation.

See the situation accurately,

And you don't engage the amygdala nor the stress response.

You also have an opportunity to use your emotional intelligence skills and become someone who approaches life with a deep sense of equanimity.

Finally,

Number five in my tailored list of do's and don'ts,

Don't numb out,

Reaching for alcohol,

Food,

Mindless social media scrolling.

You might think you can dodge a trigger reaction,

But denying or avoiding the feelings won't fix them,

And it's certainly a lot of effort in likely unhealthy and self-sabotaging ways to attempt to numb your feelings.

Triggers can stir emotions of sadness,

Loneliness,

Feeling alone,

Or unloved,

And to avoid these unpleasant emotions,

You may find yourself resorting to behaviors that are self-soothing,

Numbing,

And avoiding,

And of an unhealthy nature.

Here as we begin to wrap up,

I'd like to give you some questions that will help you become better at noticing and identifying trigger moments,

And as well,

Your perceptions and reactions as some first steps in intervening early.

Here are the questions.

What typically is my trigger emotion?

That is,

What is the most common emotion you feel when you become triggered?

Is it anxiety,

Fear,

Anger?

Next,

How do I react typically when I feel triggered?

Do you become quiet and go inwards?

Feeling the intensity of anxiety grow to a state in which it feels overwhelming?

Do you engage and react with an aggressive tone of voice or in blame of another as the cause of your triggered state?

Think about from where you learned this reaction,

And of course,

How do you want to react when a trigger moment happens?

Because they will.

You can become triggered in moments when others are unkind or threatening,

And a trigger can occur when you perceive others to be unkind or threatening,

When they are really not so.

Your perceptions in these moments are based upon an earlier time and place that likely repeated and without resolution and healing.

And of course,

If you would like my help to develop the skills to master your ability to understand a trigger moment and to calmly remain in control without allowing a trigger to negatively impact your present-day life,

Please reach out to me.

Let me help.

In the meantime,

I know you're going to glean all of this valuable information,

My tailored list of five do's and don'ts,

And as well the inherent skills and strategies I've laid out here for you.

And do get the PDF.

It's a great tool to work from.

I thank you so much for listening.

I hope you found this so very helpful.

And remember,

Feeling triggered is number one,

A reminder that there are unresolved feelings of hurt and or wounds that really do need your healing.

So let me help you with that.

Again,

Thank you so much for listening.

This is Dorothy Sanori Echuno.

Namaste.