How To Reframe A Trigger

Hey everyone, thank you for coming to hang out with me today on the Good Vanilla podcast. I am so happy to have you here. I kinda had a mini series going here around triggers and I am finishing up that segment with today's episode. So if you have not yet listened to episodes 5, 6 and 7, those will be very beneficial for you to hear before you listen to this episode. These past four episodes have built on each other.

Triggers are complex and there's a lot of things to pick apart on triggers. I’ve been covering different portions of that over this last month and today I'm going to finish out with specifically how I have reframed a trigger moment for me.

I have shared about when I was 17 years old, my dad had a massive heart attack. I've shared a lot about that story here. If you don't know much about it, I’ll explain really quickly. I was at home when my dad had his heart attack and I was standing out by the street waiting for the emergency response team to arrive, waiting for the ambulance.

As I stood there waiting, I could hear sirens and there were times when it sounded like they were getting closer and then all of a sudden it seemed like they were farther away. It was a very anxious moment because I knew my dad was in desperate trouble. He was really needing help and we were just relying on help to come. And I wanted them to come so soon and so fast.

First, the police car came and then the fire truck came and then the ambulance came. But as I was standing there listening and waiting, the sound of the sirens became the stimulus that my brain logged as something important to that traumatic event. For years afterward, every time I would hear a siren, it was like I time traveled, it's like I fell into a portal and I would be instantly back in that moment standing and waiting for help.

I’m from a relatively small town compared to most of you but there are a lot of sirens and each time these sirens would be blaring, it didn't matter where I was, so I could be driving in a car, I could be sitting in my house, I’d be in the backyard doing something super fun and in an instant just plummet. My mood would just plummet and I would get so sad and I would think about that day and I would think about my dad's heart attack and then all the things that came after it cuz it was so hard. It was so hard to see him go through that and all the things afterwards health wise that it took a few years to work out.

But anyway, I knew that something needed to change. I knew that I couldn't keep going through my day to day and have these sirens triggering me to that moment.

What I chose to do is say a prayer. That is what I chose to do. I don't know when or how. I don't know the day it actually dawned on me to do this but after so many years of hearing sirens and reliving that day, I said that is enough. I am tired of this emotional roller coaster. When I hear a siren I am going to say a prayer. I say a prayer.

It is something very simple. I just say, “God, help them. God help the emergency responders and God help whoever they are going to save or assist.” Sometimes just, “God help them,” because I fully understand the magnitude of what is all wrapped up in the sound of that siren. Like so many things could be going wrong and I don't even want my brain to go there because I get so sensitive to it. And that's another rollercoaster you don't want to go on. But I say a prayer.

I can honestly say, 99% of the time when I hear a siren, I don't think of that day anymore. I’m not transported back to that moment in time. I now say that prayer, “God help them,” and I just kind of take a moment of stillness and just kind of really try to project that energy and that prayer outward. I visualize it going out from my body and meeting up with those emergency responders and it's almost like I visualize the prayer kind of encompassing them and joining them and helping them. It did take me a while to get to that point though.

So how would you do this for yourself? That is the question I'm asking. How could you take a moment, a traumatic event, and how could you reframe it for yourself? One of the main keys to this is, positivity breeds positivity. So you wanna get really good at spinning alternatives and really brainstorming different ways you could view the traumatic event.

And so with mine, with the siren, I was so grateful, so appreciative of those responders that day. And I know that God was working through them. We were told later that day, by either the emergency room doctor or someone else in the hospital who actually said, “you know that EMT team today, that was the hospital's top rated EMT team.” It just so happened that it was the team that came and saved my dad's life. So if that isn't God stepping in, I don't know what it is.

So I knew that I could choose gratitude and just view it as a sign of hope. The siren is a sign of hope. That help is on its way. It will get to you. It really just comes down to choosing to be happy. Like I said, positivity breeds positivity. Start spinning happy alternatives. Brainstorm happy ideas. Get that rolling.

Another thing too is, view your experience objectively to possibly identify a potential way that you could reframe it. That's something that you would have to do after much time has passed and that is probably how I ended up carrying out mine. How it was possible that I could reframe the siren into something positive. I had so much time. There were so many years. And that space allowed me to view it objectively. So then all of a sudden I could just see it as, it's not just that moment, these firefighters, these EMT's, these police officers, they're always here. They are always serving. They're always here to protect and that is amazing and I am so grateful for them. And I really think then it was almost like a praise. Like, “thank you God. Thank you for these people that can do these things.” I think I would just lock up if I had to do the things that they do.

So it kind of came from that. I had that space which allowed me to have that objectivity and gratitude and I was able to say, “thank you God. Thank you God for these people. Thank you for those people that saved my dad's life.” And from there the next natural thing was for me to pray that they could do that for someone else. It was an opportunity. So now the siren is an opportunity for me to say a prayer for someone else. For someone else's dad. For someone else's Grandma. For someone else's brother. For someone’s child. For whoever it may be on the receiving end. Wherever those emergency response people are rushing to, whoever they are going to save, I say a prayer. “Please God, help them.”

It’s more positive and it just feels better. And it's lovely not being so vulnerable to a particular trigger, friend. This is what I wish for you. I wish that you can take some trigger, some traumatic experience in your life and if you could start looking at it in a different light. Looking at the detail. Remember how we talked about in the previous episodes about the details of that moment, your brain commits the details of that moment. The stimuli, it commits it to your memory and if you connect the details and start to understand how all of it affects one another, how it affects you then you can look at it and kinda pick it apart just like I did with the siren.

The traumatic event was my dad's heart attack but this siren, I noticed the siren was a major trigger for me. It transported me back to that time, to that actual event and once I could identify that and I had the time and space, I could start working at reframing it. How can I reframe the sound of a siren into something more positive?

So truly I pray for you that this is something you can start doing. Pick something that feels not so monumental, start with something that would feel like you could get a win from it. Ask God for help with this. Pray and ask about it cause He will show you. He really will. That is how I got to my reframing. Having a conversation with God. And it led to the prayer. It went from thankfulness. Thanking God, to realizing I will be praying for these people when I hear a siren. I will say a prayer to God. Help them.

That's what I pray God does for you,friends. I pray that He helps you. Ask Him to show you the way and He will. He will not only show you the way, He will hold your hand and walk you down that path. When God is in your healing, when God is in your day-to-day, you are never alone and as always if you ever need to reach out to talk to someone seek that professional help. Seek that support. And as always, I am here to support you if you want to chat. If you need someone to listen, I am here to listen. You have a great day, friend. I cannot wait to talk to you next week, bye.