3 Step Process To Regulate Triggers

Hey beautiful people! Welcome to the Good Vanilla podcast. Thank you so much for coming to hang out with me today. It is a pleasure to have you here with me.

Today I'm going to talk about the process I use for working through a trigger moment. If you have not yet listened to episode 5 and 6, I highly recommend that you go back and listen to those before you listen to this episode because this episode really builds on the last two episodes. It will make way more sense and you’ll get way more out of it if you go back and listen to episodes 5 and 6.

With that said I want to hop right in and continue our conversation around triggers. I’m gonna bring you into my simple process for working through a trigger moment. A little bit of background around this is, I have done so much internal work around my limiting beliefs and the lies that I tell myself, that now when the internal dialog in my head turns critical and it's fear driven, it becomes obvious to me that I'm dealing with an anxiety or a trigger. It’s like a major red flag starts whipping in the wind so intensely it smacks me in the face. That's how obvious these sneaky inner workings are for me now.

I really do feel like triggers start small. Like you'll have these little warnings or or these little things that are happening around you and you're slowly walking into a moment or into a situation that is going to affect you. I feel like it's pretty sneaky and then all of a sudden, bam, it hits you and then it’s too late or something. Just so you know, it does take work to identify those triggers and kind of get to know yourself better and know how you are going to respond and react in particular situations or in particular stressful scenarios. That is something that is extremely beneficial for helping first off, identifying the triggers.

To illustrate my process, I’m going to share a story. Recently I was backing out of the driveway and I was just feeling a sense of urgency with being busy juggling my kids’ activities along with my own. And out of nowhere, I began reciting out loud the food I had eaten so far that day. And this is something that I used to do very often. Back when I was in deep with my eating disorder. It was almost like it was an anxious rambling. I had to run through what I had eaten. I had to keep track of it. I had to say it out loud. To almost feel like everything was gonna be OK. I don't know why but that is something, hopefully I’m not the only one that does this or did that, but it is something that I did everyday.

I think when you have that food obsession, I think most people with eating disorders, I think with that food obsession, they will run through it over and over. And that’s what I had done too. Once I started doing that it didn't take me long to realize that this was not at all helpful but rather hurtful to my mental state. I now know that when I start reciting food that I’ve eaten that day, I know I'm falling back into those old habits and those old ways. It’s just one of those things where, with me, if I feel a little out of control, if I feel like there's some chaos going on around me, it's like a fall back on repeating what I've eaten so that I can almost look for some kind of control. So if I know what I've eaten then I can maybe restrict what I eat for the rest of the day or something. Just to give me some kind of false sense of security in a way. But I know that's not true.

So in this moment when I was backing out of my driveway and these thoughts were running through my mind, that's like a panic anxiety, like it just struck me. And my breathing becomes short and my heart races and any type of critical thought can course through my mind. That is the red flag for me now, like I know something's not right and I realize that what I'm thinking is not helpful but rather it is hurtful to my mental state.

The next thing I do is, I tell myself to stop, right in the moment. If I'm alone, I will say out loud, “stop.” You have to have a very firm “stop”. I use the same firmness as when I’m telling my kid to stop doing something that's dangerous. Because that's basically what's happening. You have to treat yourself as a child doing something extremely dangerous. The way you're talking to yourself, the way you're working yourself up in this moment, this trigger moment.

I tell myself to stop and that gives me that second to start breathing 'cause I actually found out that during these moments when I'm being triggered, I don't breathe. I'm holding my breath and it's really hard to think clearly and it's really hard to function when you are not breathing. Your heart rate increases. You have to tell yourself to stop and then I take long deep breaths. I do at least three and it's the really deep, yoga breathing. Once I do at least three, then there's a stillness and this calm. Studies show deep breathing helps lower your blood pressure, it helps calm you down.

Once I get that stillness, my logical mind enters the ball game. Finally my logical mind can enter the ball game and it's out there and it's fighting for me. With my logical mind, I can then identify the red flag and label it for what it is so I can identify what it was or what's going on that I believe triggered me.

In this situation when I was backing out of the driveway in my car, I told myself to stop, I took my long deep breaths and I was still. Then my logical mind identified, “whoa, you feel rushed, you feel busy, you feel scattered because you're running from one activity to the next. And that chaos made me feel out of control, so obviously to grasp for that control you are listing off things that you have eaten today.

I label it for what it is. It’s just me trying to regain that control. It’s not something true or what I need to be focused on. It doesn't matter. It's not important what I ate today. I mean, as long as I'm eating, that's important and it's food that gives me the nutrition and fuel to keep going. And when I can logically identify that, “wait a minute. The food is not the issue. I do not need to be thinking about that. I need to be calming down. I’m rushing and I just need to settle down. Everything's gonna be OK.”

That's the next step. I tell myself I'm going to be OK. I'm safe. And I'll even say that. I'll be like, “you're OK. Everything's gonna be fine and I know everything's gonna be fine because God is in control. I don't have to be in control. I surrender my control. I surrender it to God and I willI just really embrace the idea that God is in my healing. God is in my day-to-day life. God is my strength. I surrender to His will. He is in control. I’m in God's hands. And if He is for me, who can be against me?”

I love saying these things to myself. It's the ultimate pep talk anyone can share with themselves in moments of just complete and utter breakdown and hopelessness and despair. It's the greatest pep talk. Because every one of my triggers is fear based and it's because even though I know I'm grasping for control, I ask myself, “hey, why do you think you need control?” Because it always stems from some kind of fear. I feel if I can't control this, then this is going to happen, this is going to happen and the over catastrophizing starts and suddenly it's a snowball and I'm rolling down a hill. And it just goes on and on and on.

But no, that is not how it is because God is in control. I don't need to fight that fight. I don't need to go there 'cause He's gone before me. God has already gone before me in those moments and He is going to make sure I'm gonna be OK. And that is the faith I have. And that is the ultimate pep talk I share with myself to get me through the worst moments that I have when I'm feeling triggered, super anxious or just panicked.

There are even times when I go straight to this piece. I’ll go right to God. I’ll bypass all the previous steps and I’ll just go right to God because there are times when it's too hard to do it on your own. And when you go straight to God you're not alone. You're not meant to do this alone. You don't have to. You don't even have to feel like you're alone. And realistically, when you go straight to God in those moments of panic, He can do all the previous steps for you or do them with you. It's almost like you go straight to God and then you can work backwards. With His help, then you can go backwards and then you can tell yourself you're gonna be OK and you're safe. And then you’ll have the capacity to think, “oh yeah, OK, oh yeah the red flag. What was the red flag? That's right, I was all worked up because the control and the fear and the doubt, that was just seeping in because I'm really busy right now and when I get busy, my wheels start spinning and sometimes I spin out of control. Yes that's right. Thank you logical mind. There you are. Welcome back.”

Then you have this stillness and think “I’m glad I figured that out. I’m glad that's over with.” And you start breathing. You can work yourself through these steps from the very top from when you're feeling panic. First, you tell yourself to stop and then work yourself down to the last piece of God. Or if you go straight to God and then you need Him to calm you down first, and then you can work back from that place. It works either way.

I guess that it's something I do rely on and I hope it’s information that can be helpful for you. If you can use one or two of these steps, just start with one of them, don’t overwhelm yourself with all of them. Just pick one. If you pick one, I would pick straight to God. Just call out to God in those moments because He'll direct you through what you need, what you need to get through that moment.

I hope this was helpful for you. There is one more episode I am going to share specifically about triggers. The next episode I am going to actually speak on how I have reframed a trigger moment and how I have reframed it so I no longer feel panicked or I go back and relive that traumatic event. I'm going to be talking about that next week so come back and hang out with me. Let me know what you thought of this episode. Send me an email. DM me on Instagram. I will see you guys next week. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I really appreciate it, bye.