How do you handle it when your triggers fire? It’s like you’re right there in the middle of it all over again. The match has been struck and you are reminded of an incident, trauma or difficult memory from your past. Your body reacts. Your thoughts are stuck. And damn, girl your brain is feeling like a mess, searching for ways to keep you safe. Why is this happening? What should you do? How do you get yourself out of it?
A better understanding of what is happening to you can help. One of the key factors in working through a trigger is to understand what is happening to you. As you are better able to understand it, and apply strategies to get you through it, a sense of safety and calm will come much quicker. Just understanding that triggers can be and usually are a part of trauma can help ease the fear often associated with the way your body and mind responds in current situations to your past.
What are Triggers?
Let’s talk about what triggers are. Triggers are more than just being rubbed the wrong way, or feeling offended by something or someone. They are actually a reaction of your fight, flight or freeze system to an experience that relates to something painful in your past. They are a reaction to something current that your brain associates with a past trauma.
It can make you feel like you are experiencing it all over again. It’s a way your brain is actually trying to help you to stay safe and survive. It is a common reaction for many folks with a history of trauma.
At this point, many experts don’t know exactly how triggers are formed in the brain itself, but we do know they cause an emotional and physical reaction. Understanding that your brain is reacting with physical symptoms to something it views as similar to pain in the past, is key to managing what is currently happening.
There are symptoms that many people commonly experience when they get triggered.
Common Symptoms of Triggers
- Racing Heartbeat
- Difficulty sleeping
- Intrusive memories and thoughts
- Shakiness or dizziness
- Anxiety and/or panic attacks
- Intrusive sadness and/or grief
- Disconnection
- Intense Fear and/or anger
Find the Why and Trace the Root
Emotions change the chemistry of your brain and your body. It takes time to unravel the why’s of your reactions. Remember that triggers are less about the people and circumstances you currently find yourself in, and more about situations and traumas from the past. Be open to understand that this is a process that takes time and a lot of work. The work you do to heal the difficult things in the past comes with rewards. Each time you choose to find the root of a trigger and clear the emotions associated with that event, you will have an emotional breakthrough. That breakthrough will lead to new neural pathways and new behaviors.
Questions to Ask Yourself to Get to the Root of Triggers
If you can, try to track the triggered feelings. Look back to where they may have originated from. For example, think about a time previously in the past when you felt a similar way to how you are currently feeling. Then, with this purpose in mind, ask yourself some questions, such as:
- Was there another time in your life you felt this way?
- Do you feel, emotionally, in a younger state of mind? How old do you feel?
- Are specific traumatic memories coming back to your mind?
- Is it the same time of year that something difficult happened in the past?
- How is the situation you are currently in, similar to something in the past?
- Was there a smell, taste, noise or touch that reminded my brain of a traumatic event?
Having some understanding of where the trigger may be coming from, can help you to work through it. However, sometimes the connection isn’t quite as clear, and you may have to do a bit more digging to figure out where the response is originating from.
If you can’t place the connection, you may need some help to figure it out. Integrative Processing (IPT) can help you to find those connections and find relief from the symptoms and behaviors associated with the past.
Find the Why and Trace the Root
Sometimes you might avoid situations that are triggering. Although this may be one way of dealing with them, avoidance can lead to isolation over time and reduce your ability to function in daily life. If triggers are currently invasive or something you want more understanding about you should seek help.
Learning to deal with triggers you can’t anticipate or need to avoid, requires emotional processing. Looking at the deeper cause of your triggers can often alleviate the charge associated with those memories and give you relief.
Strategies to Cope With Triggers
In the meantime, there are proven strategies that can help you deal with these reactions when they come forward.
- Own It: They are your feelings. Remember it’s totally ok to feel what you are feeling in the moment. In order to work through your feelings, you first have to acknowledge they exist then you can begin to unravel them.
- Get Some Space: Physically leaving the space can help minimize overwhelm. Go for a walk, sit outside, do something that changes your environment.
- Connect: Call on your social support. Reach out to an understanding person for support. Let family or friends know what is happening for you. Ask for what you need from them.
- Find Flow: Write about it in your journal, draw with crayons or other artistic modalities. Dance, sing, listen to music; do something that you are naturally drawn to that helps your brain calm. Creating a feeling of flow interrupts triggers. See Finding Flow*.
- The Intensity Won’t Last: Triggered emotions, their physical reaction and the intensity you feel them will not last as long as it feels they will in the moment. As you work through the trauma of the past the intensity will lessen and your brain will learn to see things in a new way.
Use Grounding Techniques
- Get Grounded: Using any of your five senses can all help to calm your fight or flight system. Sight, smell, touch, sound and taste help the mind stop reacting. For example, putting a strong taste in your mouth like mint or clove can stop the fight or flight message the brain is sending. Other ideas include holding a rock or listening to calming music. See 20 Grounding Techniques on our blog for more ideas on this technique.
- Breathe: Usually, when people are anxious, they tend to take rapid, shallow breaths. Shallow breathing increases anxiety. To reduce anxiety, take a deep breath through the nose. Hold the breath for four counts. Release the breath from the mouth slowly for four counts. Continue several times.
- Clear: To clear out those emotions use a practice learned in coaching called clearing. This is a process of releasing those emotions out of the body and mind, giving them to a higher power and allowing them to be replaced with new ways of thinking.
How Triggers Can Actually Help You
Triggers can actually help you. They are trying to keep you safe. It’s part of your survival mechanism. Bottom line, your mind wants to keep you safe. It will send comparisons of past trauma to your mind as a reminder of pain that you experienced in the past. It is trying to warn you that there is something similar to past pain in your current situation. It’s a chance for you to evaluate your life.
One of the greatest gifts of triggers is they can help you understand where healing still needs to take place in your life. It can give you the courage to look back, resolve and find ways to have greater calm in your life.
Integrative Processing (IPT) can help you to reduce your triggers and help you to live a fuller life. It promotes feelings of calm and provides the brain with new ways of thinking and reacting to past events.
No information given in this blog is intended as a substitute for medical advice, therapy or any other mental health crisis intervention. It’s for education purposes only. See Terms and Conditions at www.RayOfLightMentoring.com
Sources: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-triggered-4175432