Recalibrating Your Trauma Triggers: A Guided Exercise

This guided exercise is for anyone who may be experiencing the effects of trauma or PTSD. As part of our response to trauma, we begin to over-process information coming in as being dangerous and perceiving more situations as a threat. This creates triggers. Triggers lead us to respond to these situations inappropriately. You'll need a pen and paper as Dr. Traci teaches you how to more accurately recalibrate your perception and response to trauma.

Transcript

Hi,

This is Dr.

Tracy Moreno,

Psychologist,

And this is a guided exercise for anyone who may be experiencing the effects of trauma or PTSD.

Please make sure you have a pen and paper as I'm going to walk you through an exercise and be asking you to write answers to questions.

So if you don't have one right now,

Please stop the recording and come back when you're ready.

As part of our response to trauma,

Our limbic system becomes hyperactive and begins to over process information coming into it as being dangerous.

Then,

In an effort to protect itself,

Our body throws itself into survival mode and puts us in a state of fight,

Flight,

Or freeze.

Meanwhile,

The parts of our brain responsible for the ability to think rationally and logically shuts down.

We're now functioning in our day-to-day life purely by our emotions and our own perception of things.

We're not able to assess things accurately.

For instance,

We lose our ability to view things objectively,

See things from someone else's point of view,

Or imagine what it's like in someone else's shoes.

So if we were to put problems and threats on a scale of 1 to 10,

10 being a life or death threat,

With trauma we start assessing everything,

No matter how big or small,

As a 10.

In addition,

We begin to respond to that threat as a 10 as well.

So if our survival mode response is generally to freeze,

We are now freezing and in a state of shock,

Whether we spill our coffee in the morning or we're getting chased by a tiger.

One of these reactions is highly inappropriate.

As part of the recovery process,

We must begin to recalibrate how we perceive threats and how we respond to threats.

Appropriate responses should match the level of threat.

So a level of 3 threat should have a level of 3 response,

And a level of 7 threat should have a 7 response.

Let's begin the exercise.

I want you to draw a vertical line,

And we're going to use this like a thermometer.

So on the top,

Put a horizontal line and mark it with the number 10.

And then on the bottom,

Draw another horizontal line and put the number 1.

That is for a threat level of 1 and a threat level of 10.

Level of 10 is going to be an actual life or death threat.

In the middle of your vertical line or thermometer,

Draw a little horizontal line and put the number 5 by it.

And then just fill in the numbers above and below the number 5.

So you'll have 1 through 10 starting at the bottom.

Now we're going to come up with examples for these threat levels,

Because not everything is that of a 10.

In fact,

Most things are not a 10 and will never be a 10.

Write down next to the number 10 an actual real life example,

If possible,

Of a level 10 threat.

And remember,

This is life or death.

This exercise will work best if you can come up with examples from your day-to-day life,

Something you may be scared of that could happen in the future,

Or something that has happened in the past.

Some examples of a level 10 threat would be being chased,

Being attacked,

Being the victim of a crime or a witness to a crime,

Being in a car accident.

But you can use your own.

Next to your example,

Write down what you think an appropriate response would be to that particular threat.

So this is an actual life or death threat where we need to respond in any way that will save our life,

Which would be to fight back,

Run away,

Or freeze and don't move until it's over.

This survival response is completely appropriate at this point.

So what are some examples of an eight or nine threat level?

Try to think and write down next to the eight and nine examples of what you think those would be.

Some examples that I came up with is maybe somebody threatening us with physical harm,

Someone pointing a weapon at us,

Someone seemingly wanting to attack us.

The subtle difference between an eight and nine and a 10 is that the eight and nine is the threat of a life and death situation,

And a 10 is actually being in a life and death situation.

Although the fight,

Flight,

And freeze response would still be appropriate in an effort to avoid the threat from happening.

However,

It's important to make this differentiation in our mind afterwards.

When processing trauma,

There's a big difference between something almost happening and something happening.

Making this differentiation is important in the recovery process.

For example,

There's a huge difference between somebody who was worried about something bad happening,

Almost had something bad happen,

And then someone who did have something bad happen.

Right now,

We're in the almost stage.

Let's move down on that scale to a six and seven.

This would be when we have what I call a reality-based fear.

It's a fear,

Concern,

Or worry that something bad will happen.

Next to numbers seven and six,

Write down an example of what you think this threat level would be.

My examples are maybe being taken to the hospital,

Being arrested,

Somebody yelling,

Cursing at us,

Really putting us down and hurting us emotionally.

Maybe even finding out our spouse or partner has been cheating on us,

Being fired from a job,

Failing out of school.

Of course,

All of these examples would be life-changing and cause a great deal of emotion,

But they're not life-threatening.

Appropriate responses would be for us to yell,

Cry,

Shut down,

Argue,

Defend ourselves,

Question ourselves,

Be angry,

Disappointed,

Scared.

We could even be in shock,

Disbelief,

Denial.

We would be trying to scramble or panic to try to fix,

Solve,

Or avoid the problem,

Depending on what your problem-solving tendency is.

So that would be the appropriate response.

Let's take it down to four and five.

Go ahead and write down your examples of a threat level that could be at a four or five.

At this threat level,

It's like things are bad,

But they could get a lot worse if we don't do something about it.

My examples are being warned at work that we could be fired or laid off,

Maybe being suspicious that our spouse or partner is cheating or failing a class,

And then write down what would be an appropriate response at this level of threat.

At this point,

We would have a moderate level of fear,

Anxiety,

Worry,

Possibly in combination with gratitude in certain situations because we could look at this as a warning sign of something more dangerous ahead of us.

And now we need to move into problem-solving mode so things don't get worse,

Which means we need to engage our left brain hemisphere and our frontal lobe.

So now what if we allow our emotions,

Fear,

Anxiety,

Worry,

To take over?

We will end up shutting down those rational,

Logical parts of our brain,

And our emotions will be in charge of the problem-solving,

Which usually doesn't work out too well for us.

And then we'll be responding at an inappropriate threat level because now we're catastrophizing the situation,

Dramatizing it.

We are only able to see things in black and white,

All or nothing,

And we're not able to step outside of ourselves to get a whole,

Complete,

Big picture of the situation before we figure out what to do about it.

So at this stage,

At this threat level,

We need to keep our emotions in check and put our logical,

Rational,

Problem-solving hat on.

Hopefully you're starting to see how important it is to assess our threat level accurately so we can respond appropriately and not overreact and make things even worse for ourselves.

Anything under this 5 or 6 requires less of an emotional response and more of a rational,

Logical,

Problem-solving response.

So let's go down on that thermometer.

And what are some situations that would be at a 3 or 4 threat level?

Go ahead and write those down.

My examples are being lied to,

Getting into an argument,

Struggling to pass a class,

Someone disagreeing with us,

Or it could be something like getting a flat tire,

Locking our keys in the car,

Losing our purse or wallet.

Here,

In terms of a response,

We can give ourselves permission to be upset for a few minutes,

Kick the tire,

Say a few curse words to yourself,

But then move on and figure out what you're going to do about it.

And if there's a person involved,

Like being lied to,

We will have to make a decision about whether or not to address the situation with that person,

Figure out if we're going to forgive that person,

Or maybe set boundaries with that person.

These situations definitely suck,

But they're not life-threatening and need to be responded to accordingly.

If we respond to these lower threat levels with a higher level of response,

We will be the ones overreacting,

Being a drama queen or king,

And sometimes we end up being the bad guy.

Now let's move it down to a threat level of a one or two.

Go ahead and write your examples,

And these would include like those day-to-day annoyances.

My examples are accidentally spilling or breaking something,

Being stuck in traffic,

Someone disagreeing with us,

Being ignored,

Not feeling understood or appreciated,

Feeling taken advantage of.

These are things that could cause us to roll our eyes and be annoyed,

But they shouldn't cause us to scramble or shift our mood.

These are things that we need to accept,

Let go,

And move on.

In comparison to all of the other threats,

You can see that this is minor,

Trivial,

And doesn't deserve a response that would just be a waste of our emotional energy because we need to conserve that for when something at a higher threat level comes our way.

Remember,

With trauma,

Our brain doesn't allow us to perceive or react appropriately in the way we've just outlined.

So we need to use this guide as like a reality check.

The more we start to use the rational,

Logical,

Problem-solving parts of the brain,

Which is our left brain hemisphere and frontal lobe,

We are activating it,

And eventually we'll bring our whole brain back in balance.

Thank you for listening.

Hope this helps,

And happy recalibrating.

Reviews

That was really useful and helpful. Thank you so much.

Amazing thank you. Just what I needed. I over react to a particular trigger and can't get a grip. It's not life threatening but I can see it probably felt like that when I was a child. I have been working on calming my nervous system when it happens. I am struggling with whether I need to accept that this happens or set a boundary where I will not tolerate it. More work needed! Thank you 😊

Excellent lesson on dealing with trauma. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and insights about dealing with the many challenges that come our way. I will keep working on this until I can make it through anything that I encounter.
Namaste 🙏 Traci ❤️

Wonderful and simplistic approach to bring you back to a safe place vs always feeling like you live on a battlefield.