By Lenni Ferren, NLC
What Are Triggers?
A trigger is something related to a past trauma that happens externally or internally or both that affects your emotional state, often causing feelings of overwhelm and/or distress. When you are triggered, it affects your ability to remain present in the moment, and you may notice specific behavior or thought patterns come up. Words, phrases, tones, sounds, smells, people, and places can all be triggers for people who have experienced trauma.
The two main categories for trauma are Big “T” and little “t.” Big “T” traumas are events related to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD. Events like sexual violence, domestic violence, neglect, major injury, or life-threatening experiences.
Little “t” traumas are highly distressing events that affect on a personal level but don’t fall into the big “T” category. Examples of little “t” trauma include non-life-threatening injuries, emotional abuse, harassment, and loss of significant relationships with humans and pets.
When you experience a trauma, that experience gets stored in your body by way of your neurobiology. The past experience is triggered by anything that seems familiar to that past event. This is sometimes conscious but is often unconscious.
Triggers have nothing to do with being too sensitive; they are physiological. When you experience a trigger, your body goes into a protective state of fight, flight, or freeze. To help you survive this perceived threat, adrenaline and stress hormones course through your body and brain. When this happens, the rational part of your brain goes offline along with your coping skills.
Contributing Factors: What Did or Did Not Happen
When you were a child, you ideally had a primary caregiver who you trusted to mirror your emotional state to you, to say, “I see you are upset," “I understand you are angry,” “It's ok to feel sad.” By doing this, you learned to cope with your emotions and self-soothe. If you did not learn this process as a child, when you are triggered you may struggle to cope with overwhelming thoughts and emotions as well as find it difficult to self-soothe. Self-soothing is the experience of regulating an emotional state in ways that allow you to feel calm and safe. When this happens, you may have maladaptive coping mechanisms like using substances to soothe, lashing out at those around you, isolating and shutting down, and shame spiraling.
Triggers can happen to us all to varying degrees. Sometimes triggers run amock or become a consistent experience because you were not taught how to self-soothe constructively and/or you experienced a trauma that could not be processed fully on your own and for whatever reason did not have help from someone else to help you through the emotional experience/impact. In either case, learning what to do when you are in a heightened emotional state is the path to resolution and calm.
What To Do When You Are Triggered
The good news is that you can work through your triggers once you have a better understanding of them, which will allow you to access healthier ways to cope and self-soothe. The following are some steps to work through triggers.
The first step is to become aware of what your triggers are and bring any unconscious triggers into your conscious awareness. A therapist can support you in doing this.
The next step is to bring awareness to your body sensations and notice what is happening in your body when you are triggered. Is your heart beating fast? Are you sweating? Do you feel nauseous? Do you feel like you want to cry?
Then PAUSE. This is the moment when stress hormones are racing through your body and brain, and your rational brain may be offline. You may notice this is when you want to REACT impulsively and your emotions feel most intense. It takes 15-20 minutes for your body to process stress hormones and your rational brain to come back online. The pause helps you distinguish what is real and true in the moment from what has been triggered from the past.
During this time of pause, use the powerful tool of curiosity and ask, "What about this is upsetting,” “Why do I feel ___,” and “What is familiar about this?”. It is important to understand your beliefs about triggers, why they are there, and where they come from. Finding a trauma-informed therapist to help guide and support you through this process can be incredibly helpful.
The final step is to self-soothe. Self-soothing is a skill, and if you did not learn it as a child, it takes some practice. It may feel strange at first, but just like any skill, you will get better the more you do it. Self-soothing can look and sound like self-validation, compassion, and self-love, turning off shame and judgment, and finding outlets that are supportive to your life that feel energy-giving.
By understanding your triggers and learning new ways to cope and soothe, you will feel more empowered to handle difficult situations. How might it affect your relationships and the way you move around in the world if you feel like you can cope with triggers more effectively?
If you feel triggered often, if you feel like your triggers are affecting your work and/or relationships, or if you are unable to cope with various thoughts or feelings that arise in your mind or body, please reach out to a therapist at Evolve in Nature. We would love to support you!