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What are triggers & coping strategies?
What are some effective coping strategies?
What should I do if I'm triggered?
- Name it. In the well-known fairy tale about Rumpelstiltskin, discovering his name means being free of his threats. Likewise, we can keep a written list with the names of our familiar, often-repeated triggers.
- Seek the source. Identifying the source of a trigger reaction — a specific event or trauma — is central to freeing ourselves from it. Triggers based on past trauma show us where the past invades the present.
- Be aware of projection. Trigger reactions are about projection. For example, if one of your parents was angrily violent toward you, you might be triggered by anger in others today.
- Notice hyperarousal signs. When we’re triggered, cortisol and adrenaline course through us — so we might feel fragile, disorganized, and disoriented.
- Recognize that your brain functions on an unconscious level relatively easily because it requires less work and brain capacity. However, when you seek to understand and name what triggers and activates you, you want to act with conscious awareness so you mindfully process and strategize to ensure your behaviors align with your values and who you strive to be.
- Gain more understanding and familiarity around your projections (i.e., someone unconsciously attributes their thoughts, feelings, or behaviors to another person), negative core beliefs, narratives, impulses, and values.
- Get keenly familiar with your adaptations to understand your triggers better. Seek to understand what accommodations you made to “survive” what was challenging or difficult for you.
- Understand the utility of your thoughts and feelings to understand your triggers better. Thoughts and feelings ebb and flow, which could be from moment to moment, contingent on perceptions, experiences, coping skills, and many other factors.
Mar 25, 2022 · Key points. When an individual says they are "triggered," they typically mean that stimuli brought on or worsened symptoms related to their mental health. To find peace with these stressors, you...
- What it is
- What it can do
- How it works
- What is triggering?
- Where do triggers come from?
- What can we do about getting triggered?
- ASSIGNMENT #1 – Listing My Triggers
- ASSIGNMENT #2 – MAPPING MY TRIGGERS
- The Map
- Someone says I did something wrong.
- The 4-step Practice of State-Shifting
- Step 1. Name it.
- Step 2. Take space appropriately.
- Step 3. Shift your state.
- Step 4. Deal with the situation.
- Does this mean that I’m never supposed to get emotional?
- “Will I ever stop getting triggered?
- Step 1. Name it.
- Step 2. Take space appropriately.
- Step 3. Shift your state.
- Sign #1. Physical sensations
- Sign #2. Judging thoughts
- Sign #4. Defensiveness
- Sign #5. Obsessively repeating thought patterns
- Sign #6. Emotional outbursts
- Sign #7. Sudden intensive engagement in addictive behaviors
- Study yourself and your reactions.
- Tool #1. Breathing
- Tool #2. Move energy
- Tool #3. Feel your feelings
- Tool #4. Self-soothing
- Tool #5. Meditation/prayer
- Tool #6. Mind-Body Practices
- Tool #7. Connect to purpose
- Tool #8. Self-humor
- Tool #9. Change your physical environment
- Tool #10. Deep relaxation
- Tool #11. Self-reflection/inquiry
- Tool #12. Anchoring
- The Art of State-Shifting
- Tool #13. Drop It
- How to Stay Centered in Triggering Situations
- What Do I Do When Others Are Triggered?
- Recognizing when others are triggered
- What not to do
- How to deal with someone who’s triggered
- a. Move energy
- b. Express deeper feelings
- c. Connect to purpose
- Preventing Triggers
- When you’re the trigger
- Group triggering
A series of articles, practical tools and suggestions for managing one’s emotional triggers
This tool can help leaders, consultants and coaches: Understand the phenomenon of emotional triggering and its negative impact on their effectiveness Gain greater understanding about their own emotional sensitivities Develop capacity to more quickly recognize when they’re been triggered Learn a powerful practice for skillful self-management when tr...
The Managing Your Triggers Toolkit includes the following articles, best practices and tools: How Triggers Hijack Our Sanity Getting To Know Your Triggers What To Do When Triggered: The 4-Step Practice of State-Shifting How To Know You’re Triggered The Art of State-Shifting: 13 Tools for Recovering Your Sanity Meshing: How To Stay Centered in Trigg...
Most of the time, our neo-cortex – the seat of reasoning in our brain – can help monitor our reactions and choices of how we speak and act. Triggering is sometimes called emotional hijacking because, when triggered, control of our reactions is seized by a part of the brain called the amygdala. The amygdala is an almond-shaped group of neurons locat...
Our triggers are very personal – what triggers us may not trigger someone else at all. They arise out of our life history. Remember, the amygdala not only initiates the fight/flight response; it forms and stores memories associated with emotional events. Our responses seem out of proportion with the triggering incident because of the stored memori...
We don’t choose to have the reactions we have. Triggering happens too quickly for our rational mind to intercept the amygdala’s command to activate the fight/flight response. But we do have choice about what happens next. Even though we’re triggered, we can undertake a discipline of learning how to manage our own state of being. Understanding the p...
On the page that follows, make a list of all the things in your life that tend to trigger you, both at work and at home. These are the external events that cause you to have instan-taneous, strong emotional reactions seemingly out of proportion to the triggering event. VERY IMPORTANT: The list should be of the actual events – not your interpretatio...
Triggering happens very quickly: a stimulus and then what seems like an instantaneous response. But in actuality, there is a whole chain of associations and reactions that occurs within the moment of triggering. The very first response is like an impulsive attempt to try to refute, push away or escape the triggering stimulus. Hopefully we keep ou...
To help make these connections clear, your next assignment is to literally draw a representation or map of your trigger associations. For our example, this might look like:
No, I didn’t!!! Sick feeling in stomach. Anxious. I’m not good at what I do. I’m not worthy I’m not lovable I’m not loved and all alone. Judging Father: his love conditional on my performance
All of us get triggered. Our emotional hot buttons get pushed. Our ability to think gets hijacked by the flight/fight response. The things we do and say when we’re triggered almost always make situations worse. This is a major problem for leaders and those that follow them. As leaders, when we’re triggered our potential to do damage is magnified by...
Step 1 is the key step – Name it. Identify what’s happening. Say to yourself, “I’m triggered.” Until you do this, you’re helpless. Your amygdala, a primitive part of the brain not capable of rational thought, is in control. Unfortunately, simply naming for yourself that you’re triggered doesn’t make it stop. The stress hormones will still be ra...
The key to state-shifting is to remember: Do not act when triggered. Once you’ve been able to Name It, the critical next step in state-shifting is to Take space appropriately from the triggering situation. There are two reasons: If you stay in the situation, you will keep getting retriggered. If you stay in the situation, you are likely to say or d...
Once we are no longer actively provoked by the trigger, the flight/fight response will usually subside gradually, and we begin to return to balance. But, it can take a while. Recovery time is impacted by: The intensity of the trigger and the degree of emotional reaction and/or neurological trauma How quickly you remove yourself from the triggerin...
As leaders, the purpose of taking on the practice of state-shifting is to be more effective. We learn to better manage ourselves so that we can better manage the potentially triggering situations that arise in our organizations and our work. When we are triggered, we have lost the intelligence and capacity to function well. We use the state-shiftin...
Not at all! Someone says something that moves you deeply, and your eyes start to tear. It is not necessarily the case that you’re really feeling sad about some childhood experience. You feel angry in the face of injustice or afraid when reading about the threat of climate change. Your anger or fear is not always due to some past trauma. Your authen...
Some degree of triggering seems to be part of being human. You probably won’t suddenly reach an enlightened state of being where you no longer have any triggered reactions to events that come your way. You may always get to encounter the imprints of your life history. However, there is a great deal we can learn about how we relate to our triggers. ...
The sooner you notice that you’re triggered, the quicker your recovery.
Don’t act when triggered! Find some relatively graceful way of removing yourself from the triggering situation.
Use any of a range of state-shifting tools to bring you back to a state of inner clarity and balance.
Our minds “lie” all the time. Especially when triggered, you shouldn’t trust any of your thoughts. But, our bodies tell the truth. Robert used to have trouble recognizing when he was angry. Judith would say, “I think you’re angry.” Robert would protest, “No I’m not!” Then Judith suggested, “Please look at your hands.” Robert’s fists were clenche...
For many of us, the first place our minds go when we’re triggered is to start blaming the other person or situation. We get defensive. All our years of education and life experience go into to finding fault with the person or thing that triggered us. This might be someone who we love or respect in our normal state of mind, but when we’re triggered...
You find yourself pleading your case, justifying yourself, marshaling your argument and counter-arguments. This may be out loud to a person that triggered you, or venting to a third party. A sure sign that you’re triggered is when it’s hours after the triggering event, you’re all alone and you’re still going at it, complaining how you were wronged ...
Have you ever seen a hamster running around and around in one of those little metal wheels? Have you ever experienced your mind doing this – replaying the same events over and over again, sometimes to the point of exhaustion? You’re triggered!
When we’re triggered, sometimes we just lose it. Our emotional hijacking leads right to inappropriate outbursts of feeling. There are many times when it’s completely appropriate to share what we feel. But the tell-tale sign of triggering is when feelings come bursting forth without conscious thought in ways that we are likely to later regret.
We suddenly find ourselves surfing the net, eating ice cream and thinking about a cigarette. If we have an addiction, many of us go right there when triggered.
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
Emotions tend to be contagious and spread like wildfire through groups due to limbic resonance.4 We may see entire teams mutually triggering each other. Budget discussions may degrade into struggles where rational discussion ceases, as people are triggered into primitive fears around survival and control. For more on how to manage triggers in ...
- Deep breathing: Focusing on your breath can help you calm down and regulate your emotions.
- Mindfulness: Mindfulness involves focusing your attention on the present moment and can help you stay grounded when triggered.
- Meditation: Regular meditation practice can help you manage triggers by increasing your capacity to remain calm in the face of difficult emotions.
- Exercise: Exercise can help you release pent-up emotions and boost your mood.
Coping Strategies for Triggers. Once triggers have been identified, it’s important to develop coping strategies to manage the emotional and physical responses that may be triggered. Here are some effective coping strategies for triggers: Mindfulness:
Dec 28, 2023 · We all have emotional triggers – sensitive buttons that spark immediate, intense reactions when pressed. Often stemming from past trauma, triggers unleash stress hormones before logic intervenes. Learning to defuse these reactions is essential for relationships and well-being.
