Blog Posts

Hey friends, welcome to the blog this week. Today I wanted to talk about triggering moments and how to walk through them.  A lot of times we are quick to look at how a person behaves and then judge them based on this behavior.  Triggers are usually referred to as some sort of stressor that can lead to an adverse emotional reaction.  Triggers can range from boredom for a person in early recovery, a tantrum by our child as a parent, feeling sad as a person who has experienced depression, or any other stressors that causes an emotional reaction.  Triggers are individualized experiences that vary from person to person. 

Usually a goal in therapy is to explore individual stressors to be able to understand, identify, and work to prevent emotional reactions to triggers moving forward.  Coping strategies seek to eliminate, avoid and reduce the impact of triggers and emotional reactions.  Let‘s talk about ways to work on these coping strategies.  

1. Self awareness. I have included this in several other blogs because it’s a game changer.  The goal of self awareness regarding walking through triggers is to increase your awareness on your reactions, this makes it easier to change the reaction.  Increasing self awareness of triggers includes learning to identify the emotion you are feeling and learning what physical sensations you experience and then finding ways to improve your physical sensations.  For example when I get overwhelmed sometimes my body freezes and I don’t deep breath.  Being aware of this helps me know I need to take deep breaths.                                             

2. Take a break, in my experience trying to respond immediately after being triggered isn’t very effective.  If possible take a break to manage feelings and process prior to responding after a triggering situation.                          

3. Learn to understand your feelings.  By being able to explore your feelings in a non-judgmental way can help make sense of why a situation was a trigger.  For example, a person may be become sad unexpectedly and later realize it is around a time when they experienced a loss.  Being able to explore these feelings without judging them helps people better understand triggers.  Getting to a place of understanding helps me to be able say “it makes sense that a feeling like that came up.”             

4. Talk through them.  It can help to talk to someone else if you find yourself routinely triggered.  It can be helpful to do this with a professional if you feel you need more than loved ones may be able to offer.  EMDR therapy can be helpful to work through triggers and reprocess better responses for the future.  CBT can also be helpful to challenge thought processes and reduce reactions.   

5. Take care of yourself.  Triggers can be emotionally exhausting.  They can also take a physical toll with the stress of the reaction.  Finding ways to address basic needs as well as improve self care is crucial.  It is a good idea to yet familiar with self care practices that can be a go to for you when you need to calm yourself down.  

Thanks for reading, until next time.  

Emilie Barragan, LCSW    “Tackling physical and emotional pain” – Therapeuo Health