Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Trigger Management (Trigger Happy Series)
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Trigger Management (Trigger Happy Series)
Show Notes:
Today we are getting really practical as we get further into our Trigger Happy series and talk about tools and strategies for trigger management. If you’ve missed the last two episodes, make sure you go back and check them out. Today’s topic really builds on what we’ve been learning about the last two weeks, and references pieces from the last two episodes that may not make the same amount of sense if you haven’t been following along, so I would encourage you to go back and start at Season 2 Episode 22 so that you get all you can out of this. Through this series, we’ve been talking about triggering – the experience that happens when we have a knee-jerk, psychological and physiological reaction in the present to something that reminds us of a stress-inducing or traumatic event that happened in the past. We’ve talked about how triggers can be really sneaky, subconscious and nuanced. We’ve also identified that the reactions they evoke in us can feel really automatic and outside of our control. And last week we talked about how the discomfort of triggering can lead us to get really crafty at avoiding triggers, but that this can create a series of new problems and that what we really need to do is tackle our triggers head on, but in a way that keeps safety intact. And that’s where we’re picking up today. When we face a trigger, we need some tools in our toolbelt to help us hold on to safety, and to support our brain in keeping the prefrontal cortex online. Today’s topic is going to equip you with the tools you need in that toolbelt.
So let’s jump right in. We’re going to talk about two main types of trigger management categories and I’m breaking them down based on the part of the brain we’re trying to help. So, we’re going to talk about limbic system regulatory tools and we’re going to talk about pre-frontal cortex activating tools. Again, if you skipped the first couple of episodes from this series, you’ll want to go back and start there so you know what I’m talking about here. As a super quick recap for those who have a memory like mine and need it – let’s remember that triggering is what happens when our stress/trauma centre is provoked by a reminder to something it has previously encoded and identified as a warning connected to a prior lived experience. When this happens, your brain thinks that this trigger represents the possibility that the bad thing that happened before COULD be happening again and activates your stress centre in order to get you ready to deal with it and prevent it from being like it was before. Your limbic system is the part of your brain most responsible for your stress survival responses and it gets all fired up really quickly. As we identified at the start of this series, your limbic system is also a fuel hog and it shuts down many of the other systems in your brain in an effort to give it all of your resources to help it do its job. When we’re triggered in a situation where a survival response is not needed to keep us safe, we need to regulate the limbic system to help is slow its roll; and we need to get the other parts of our brain back online to keep us present and anchored to our higher-level resources and capacities.
Alright, so let’s start with limbic system regulatory tools. If you remember back to the first episode in this series, two weeks ago, I told you that your stress centre has a huge influence on your physiology. It can change your heart rate, breathing, circulation, and so much more and all in an instant once something threatening is perceived. Fascinatingly, your body is among the most incredible feedback loop and this is no different when it comes to your stress response. What do I mean by feedback loop? Well, think about it like this. I’m laying in my bed relaxed and ready to fall asleep when I hear a startling noise. My limbic system quickly interprets that noise as a potential threat and starts having an effects on my physiology to prepare me for what might come next. Part of the physiological changes my stress centre is putting in place allows me to have heightened awareness, a highly attuned sensory system helping me to be extra-on guard and able to perceive additional indicators of risk. So I get out of bed and I creep down the stairs and I see something move from the corner of my eye, and that new information gets fed into my system acting as confirmation that yes, something’s up. As I move toward what I saw, my brain now has me even more highly aware of what is around me in preparation for how I might need to be able to grab something to fight with or know where an escape route is if I need to run away. As additional bits of information get fed into my system, it offers feedback to my brain that either confirms or denies the need for this stress response; and as my brain receives that feedback, it determines whether and how to amp up or slow my response. That’s the loop. And that’s what we need to take advantage of.
How, you might ask? Well, first, we need to get intentional to feed the loop SOMETHING. Once the stress centre has been provoked, your brain is itching to find confirmation of risk and threat. To help it detach from the sense of intense need to engage in risk scanning and threat assessment, we need to give it something that offers the opposite kind of feedback. So instead of giving it data that enhances its sense of confirmation around risk, we need to feed it pieces that strongly indicate the opposite of threat: safety. I’ll get to what that looks like in just a sec, but I want to make it really clear that when we get triggered and the stress centre gets activated and cascades into all of the physiological responses connected to this, it’s a bit like hitting the gas on a train going full steam ahead. To stop it, we can’t just let it coast its way to a stop, we need to actively pump the breaks. What this means is that we shouldn’t just ride out our stress reaction, because of a piece we identified last week, which is that it leaves the connection between the trigger and the reaction as is. So, for example, let’s imagine that I have been exposed to some stress-inducing situations that have involved loud noises before, and then I have this experience of a startling noise as I am trying to fall asleep. The noise is startling in its own right, but it’s also triggering times that have previously felt unsafe for me. The noise yields a disproportionate reaction in me. If I just leave that as is and try to ride it out, I am further conditioning this response that loud noise yields uncontrollable, disproportionate stress reactions, and the feeling of powerlessness that goes with it. Every time we are confronted with a trigger, we are being given an opportunity to teach our bodies something different, and we need to get really intentional in using these opportunities for all they’re worth.
Ok, so what do we feed into the feedback loop? Well, we’ve already talked about how the limbic system exerts a lot of influence over your physiology, and that it is keenly attuned to feedback from your physiological sensory systems to help it in doing its job of assessing and reacting, so we’re going to get crafty and use this to our advantage. Sensory input is a key way we can work to regulate the limbic system and help bridge our brain to a new potential connection. Smell, sight, sound, taste, touch…I know it might sound simple, but that’s exactly why it works. Here’s what you’re going to do – when triggering happens in situations where your risk of actual harm is low but your brain and body are having a hard time agreeing with you, you are going to input sensory pieces that affirm your safety or act as reminders of good, fine, ok, calm times. Here are some ideas:
...
View all episodes
By Lindsay Faas
5
55 ratings
Show Notes:
Today we are getting really practical as we get further into our Trigger Happy series and talk about tools and strategies for trigger management. If you’ve missed the last two episodes, make sure you go back and check them out. Today’s topic really builds on what we’ve been learning about the last two weeks, and references pieces from the last two episodes that may not make the same amount of sense if you haven’t been following along, so I would encourage you to go back and start at Season 2 Episode 22 so that you get all you can out of this. Through this series, we’ve been talking about triggering – the experience that happens when we have a knee-jerk, psychological and physiological reaction in the present to something that reminds us of a stress-inducing or traumatic event that happened in the past. We’ve talked about how triggers can be really sneaky, subconscious and nuanced. We’ve also identified that the reactions they evoke in us can feel really automatic and outside of our control. And last week we talked about how the discomfort of triggering can lead us to get really crafty at avoiding triggers, but that this can create a series of new problems and that what we really need to do is tackle our triggers head on, but in a way that keeps safety intact. And that’s where we’re picking up today. When we face a trigger, we need some tools in our toolbelt to help us hold on to safety, and to support our brain in keeping the prefrontal cortex online. Today’s topic is going to equip you with the tools you need in that toolbelt.
So let’s jump right in. We’re going to talk about two main types of trigger management categories and I’m breaking them down based on the part of the brain we’re trying to help. So, we’re going to talk about limbic system regulatory tools and we’re going to talk about pre-frontal cortex activating tools. Again, if you skipped the first couple of episodes from this series, you’ll want to go back and start there so you know what I’m talking about here. As a super quick recap for those who have a memory like mine and need it – let’s remember that triggering is what happens when our stress/trauma centre is provoked by a reminder to something it has previously encoded and identified as a warning connected to a prior lived experience. When this happens, your brain thinks that this trigger represents the possibility that the bad thing that happened before COULD be happening again and activates your stress centre in order to get you ready to deal with it and prevent it from being like it was before. Your limbic system is the part of your brain most responsible for your stress survival responses and it gets all fired up really quickly. As we identified at the start of this series, your limbic system is also a fuel hog and it shuts down many of the other systems in your brain in an effort to give it all of your resources to help it do its job. When we’re triggered in a situation where a survival response is not needed to keep us safe, we need to regulate the limbic system to help is slow its roll; and we need to get the other parts of our brain back online to keep us present and anchored to our higher-level resources and capacities.
Alright, so let’s start with limbic system regulatory tools. If you remember back to the first episode in this series, two weeks ago, I told you that your stress centre has a huge influence on your physiology. It can change your heart rate, breathing, circulation, and so much more and all in an instant once something threatening is perceived. Fascinatingly, your body is among the most incredible feedback loop and this is no different when it comes to your stress response. What do I mean by feedback loop? Well, think about it like this. I’m laying in my bed relaxed and ready to fall asleep when I hear a startling noise. My limbic system quickly interprets that noise as a potential threat and starts having an effects on my physiology to prepare me for what might come next. Part of the physiological changes my stress centre is putting in place allows me to have heightened awareness, a highly attuned sensory system helping me to be extra-on guard and able to perceive additional indicators of risk. So I get out of bed and I creep down the stairs and I see something move from the corner of my eye, and that new information gets fed into my system acting as confirmation that yes, something’s up. As I move toward what I saw, my brain now has me even more highly aware of what is around me in preparation for how I might need to be able to grab something to fight with or know where an escape route is if I need to run away. As additional bits of information get fed into my system, it offers feedback to my brain that either confirms or denies the need for this stress response; and as my brain receives that feedback, it determines whether and how to amp up or slow my response. That’s the loop. And that’s what we need to take advantage of.
How, you might ask? Well, first, we need to get intentional to feed the loop SOMETHING. Once the stress centre has been provoked, your brain is itching to find confirmation of risk and threat. To help it detach from the sense of intense need to engage in risk scanning and threat assessment, we need to give it something that offers the opposite kind of feedback. So instead of giving it data that enhances its sense of confirmation around risk, we need to feed it pieces that strongly indicate the opposite of threat: safety. I’ll get to what that looks like in just a sec, but I want to make it really clear that when we get triggered and the stress centre gets activated and cascades into all of the physiological responses connected to this, it’s a bit like hitting the gas on a train going full steam ahead. To stop it, we can’t just let it coast its way to a stop, we need to actively pump the breaks. What this means is that we shouldn’t just ride out our stress reaction, because of a piece we identified last week, which is that it leaves the connection between the trigger and the reaction as is. So, for example, let’s imagine that I have been exposed to some stress-inducing situations that have involved loud noises before, and then I have this experience of a startling noise as I am trying to fall asleep. The noise is startling in its own right, but it’s also triggering times that have previously felt unsafe for me. The noise yields a disproportionate reaction in me. If I just leave that as is and try to ride it out, I am further conditioning this response that loud noise yields uncontrollable, disproportionate stress reactions, and the feeling of powerlessness that goes with it. Every time we are confronted with a trigger, we are being given an opportunity to teach our bodies something different, and we need to get really intentional in using these opportunities for all they’re worth.
Ok, so what do we feed into the feedback loop? Well, we’ve already talked about how the limbic system exerts a lot of influence over your physiology, and that it is keenly attuned to feedback from your physiological sensory systems to help it in doing its job of assessing and reacting, so we’re going to get crafty and use this to our advantage. Sensory input is a key way we can work to regulate the limbic system and help bridge our brain to a new potential connection. Smell, sight, sound, taste, touch…I know it might sound simple, but that’s exactly why it works. Here’s what you’re going to do – when triggering happens in situations where your risk of actual harm is low but your brain and body are having a hard time agreeing with you, you are going to input sensory pieces that affirm your safety or act as reminders of good, fine, ok, calm times. Here are some ideas:
...