Identifying Your Triggers as a Parent with a History of Trauma: Part 5 of 6 {EP 254}

Robyn: The third episode was how to nurture your own window of tolerance as a parent with a history of trauma. The fourth episode was about caring for your own watchdog and possum parts as a parent with a history of trauma today. The fifth episode we're going to explore identifying your own triggers, specifically as a parent with a history of your own trauma, and then next week, we're going to talk about grief. We cannot talk about trauma without talking about grief. One of my earliest mentors in the field said to me, once we can't do trauma work without doing grief work. They are one in the same. Trauma work is grief work, and I have found that to be so true. We talk about grief a lot on the podcast. Next week, we're going to talk about it specifically to this journey of parenting a child with a vulnerable nervous system when you have your own history of trauma. Today, though, we're going to talk about identifying triggers. Why are we doing this? Why are we dedicating a whole episode to identifying triggers? Let's start with the truth that we're not going to be eliminating everything that activates us. Okay, a trigger isn't something that activates us. That's not the definition of all at all. And of course, we aren't going to eliminate the parts of our parenting journey that leads to distress or causes activation or shifts us into protection mode. We can't do that. We wouldn't want to do that. We're not even going to try to do that. That's not what we talk about here. We talk about having a stress response that matches the stressor. And without question, there's plenty of things that our kids do that should definitely activate a stress response in us. I mean, our stress response is the signal inside our nervous system that says, Hey, pay attention. Something's going on here that we need to address or set a boundary around or shift into protection mode for so we are not trying to eliminate a stress response. 

Robyn: We are not trying to eliminate shifting into protection mode. What we want to try to tend to are those moments when we shift far, far, far down the protection mode path. Way when the actual circumstance, the situation we're responding to, doesn't technically need the intensity of that response. When we respond to stressors with a stress response that's disproportionate, like with a stress response that is significantly larger than what we really need in order to manage or navigate that stress when, when the stress response that we have is very disproportionate. It's exhausting on our body. It's a lot of really, really hard work, and it prevents us from responding to the situation in a way that could be actually helpful for our kid in the long run, if our child is having a behavior that's eliciting a stress response from us, especially if it's a triggering stress response, the reality is, is that there is probably something happening in our child that really needs to be met with safety, connection and co-regulation. Now, we're not going to do that all the time. We're not aiming for that at all, but when our child is really dysregulated, and that's often what's happening when we are triggered by them, right? When our child is really dysregulated. What they need more than anything, is for us to respond with, again, safety, connection, co-regulation. That doesn't mean calm. That doesn't mean, oh, no, big deal. That doesn't mean not reacting to it. It means reacting to it with, you know, having a response that matches the intensity of the behavior, that could mean a shift into a slight protection mode, but with enough safety and connection modes still on board that we can respond with thoughtfulness, that We can use our owl brain, we can have like a measured response that allows us to offer safety and co-regulation, that is the ideal way that we would respond to our child's dysregulation. Again, we're not going to do that all or even most of the time. 

Robyn: We're just going to aim to do it more often than we already do, at least that's my personal goal. Can I do it more often than I already do? So today's episode will be about how do we identify some of those triggers? We're not going to dive deep into memory processing. I have other episodes for that. I want you to leave this episode with just enough kind of traction on how you could connect with and explore some of your own triggers in a way that would be helpful, and again, not in a way where we would be aiming at eliminating all stress responses. That isn't the point at all. I'll probably say that over and over and over again, because it's so important to me that I emphasize that. Okay, well, let's define we're going to start by defining what a trigger even is. Now I had a podcast episode that was dedicated to talking about what a trigger is. I'll get that down in the show notes so that you can listen to that episode if you want to, and you can listen to it through the lens of your own experience, as opposed to through the lens of thinking about your child and their triggers. So being triggered is really about having a reaction in the present moment, and usually it's a big reaction, although don't forget that possum reactions are technically big reactions from a nervous system perspective, even though they don't look big, right? Okay, so a trigger is having a reaction in the present moment. That's actually a reaction more to something that has happened in the past. So a reaction is more related to not what's happening in the here and now, but something that has happened in the past. Again, you can explore the idea of trigger more thoroughly in the episode I have that's all about, like, what is a trigger?

Robyn: If you've listened to the podcast or read my book, you might be familiar with the idea of how we create our own experience in reality by bringing together what I call the stream of the now and merging it with the stream of the past. So the way that our mind is taking in information that's happening in the here and now and making sense of it is that it's taking in, of course, all the literal things that are happening right now, but But it's making sense. Sense of it by bringing it together with our memories, with our history, with things that have happened in the past, we are always making sense of what's happening in the here and now based on all the things that have happened to us in the past. That's normal. That is normal memory processing, that is normal way for our minds and our brains to work being triggered means that we are reacting more to the stream of the past than we are to the stream of the now. It doesn't mean that what's happening in the here and now isn't activating, or that you shouldn't have a reaction to it. It could be very true that what's in your stream of the now, having a stress response is completely valid. Being triggered means that you're having more of a reaction to everything that's happening, everything that's flooding in in that stream of the past. So instead of having a reaction that's only based on what's happening in the here and now, it's really taken over by not just informed by our minds are always making sense of everything that's happening by being informed by things that have happened in the past. 

Robyn: That's normal. We couldn't get rid of that. We don't want to get rid of that. But being triggered means we're not just having a reaction that's informed by what's happened in the past. Being triggered means I'm reacting to what happened in the past, as opposed to what's happening in the here and now. Now. The reason that this happens is because of how trauma, toxic stress, the neurochemical experience that happens when there's a traumatic moment, how all of that impacts memory processing. And the very short, very, very short version is that it impacts memory processing by essentially, kind of removing the timestamp. So when that memory gets reactivated, brought up, triggered in the here and now, there are the sensations that are included in that memory, the fear, the terror, right those the feelings that are included in that memory. They feel like they're related to right now. They don't feel like they're happening in the past. That's technically the neurobiological definition of trigger. That's the definition of trigger that I use in my work. So in addition to the episode I have about triggers, you could also check out the episode that I have about trauma memory and behavior, and I'll make sure that episode gets in the show notes. I also have a free video series, an ebook about trauma memory and behaviors. It's looking at, you know, trauma and memory and behaviors through the lens of our kids, but we can take the information and apply it to ourselves. This is the exact same experience, how our own memories are impacted, how it removes the timestamp, and so now, when that memory gets activated, right now, there isn't this sense of like, oh, this scary bad thing happened to me in the past, and I remember what it felt like, and it felt bad, right? 

Robyn: That's not the experience that happens. Instead, what happens is that memory just comes alive. It feels like it's related to what's happening in the here and now. It doesn't feel like it's a memory at all. Let me give you a really quick example that is something almost all of you listening will be able to relate to when your child lies to you. Now, nobody likes to be lied to. It makes a lot of sense that when somebody lies to us, or when we realize we've been lied to, it makes perfect sense that would offer us enough cues of danger that we would have a slight protection mode reaction. That slight protection mode reaction is a way that your mind says, hey, something's going on here that I need to pay attention to. I need to set a boundary. I need to be aware of the fact that something's happening that my child finds worthy of lying about, right? Like that might be, there might be a safety issue underneath that. You know, there's all sorts of things that might be going on that your child's lying in order to kind of prevent you from knowing what's happening. That the truth is, it's your owl brain probably needs to know about those things. So it makes perfect sense that your child lying to you, would give you enough cues of danger that you'd have a slight protection mode reaction. It makes you go, Hey, what's going on? Pushes you a little into that what's up place. So you. Mind actually says, Hey, what's up? What do I need to pay attention to? What do I need to deal with? That protection mode. Reaction isn't bad. What gets tricky is when we have a huge like tsunami from the stream of the past, of all the times we've been lied to in the past, all of the bad things that have happened because we've been lied to, all the times that we lied to someone else and got in trouble for it, right? When all of those memories live in the stream of the past in a, what I'm going to call unintegrated way. They can get activated when we're lied to in the present, and then all those unintegrated memories in the stream of the past become like this tsunami. 

Robyn: They flood the stream of the now, so that instead of our memories of being lied to, informing how we might want to respond to our child, lying to us now, instead of all those memories doing that, which is exactly what we want them to do, instead, they're so flooding that we have, you know, we stumble really far down. We fall. Don't stumble really far down that protection mode pathway and have an enormous stress response that almost certainly means we are going to end up parenting from a pretty dysregulated place, and it's a trigger if we are if We end up parenting from a place that is more dysregulated than what the situation really calls for or needs, and in many, many, many circumstances, when we're being lied to, when we discover we've been lied to, we might not truly need a terror level, you know, or attack level watchdog response. I mean by all means, if your child is lying to you, and this is putting you in a true like life threatening situation, then have an attack watchdog response. But a lot of times when we're being lied to, we are not in a situation that really needs us to respond with an attack-level or a shutdown-level response. So we end up parenting out of a place of extreme dysregulation and okay, what's the problem with that? Well, oftentimes I'm not parenting my best when I'm super dysregulated, that's when I end up parenting in ways that I later regret. Additionally, the reality is, is that if my child is behaving in a way that is triggering me, they really need co-regulation, right? They really need safety, and I cannot offer that if I have fallen completely down the protection mode pathway. Now again, I'm going to just say this over and over and over again. I'm not saying that you're going to ever feel good about being lied to, or that being lied to isn't a big deal or that you should ignore it or not have a reaction to it. That is, of course, not true. We can have a regulated response, which means we keep our X-ray vision goggles on. It means we still have the capacity to parent in a way that is safe and co-regulating and sets a really clear boundary. When we parent from a regulated place, we're much more likely to be able to set a really clear boundary. 

Robyn: So if you're if faced with a problem that would really benefit from a What's up or maybe a ready-for-action watchdog response, and you end up having an attack, watchdog response. That's a situation where it's very possible that what happened is something was triggered. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be angry. Sometimes anger is completely righteous. Sometimes anger is the completely appropriate response to have it when facing a situation. I want to say one quick little thing about being quote-unquote triggered before we move on to looking at like, okay, so how do we actually identify triggers? I hear parents use the word I got triggered when really what I think they're saying is something like, I'm done tolerating this behavior that isn't okay, and I finally responded with an. Intense reaction, because I'm sick of it, and a lot of times, what that means is that this parent has been probably not consciously, kind of repressing their very authentic reaction in an attempt to be, you know, regulated in an attempt to be calm, in an attempt to be, you know, parenting through this brain based kind of paradigm. And sometimes we can kind of let that pendulum swing a little bit too far, and what we end up doing is parenting with inauthenticity. We end up parenting in a way that means we're, you know, kind of tolerating behavior that we are absolutely not okay with. And I just, I hear parents use the word trigger to describe that response a lot. 

Robyn: So I just wanted to kind of highlight that a second, it's okay to notice that you had a reaction and then label it as you know, I think I finally just had enough. I couldn't tolerate it anymore. I couldn't regulate through it anymore. That's not the same thing as being triggered. I think when we say that we were triggered, we're unintentionally implying that our reaction wasn't justified. And that's not always true, like sometimes our reaction, even an intense reaction, even an angry reaction, is absolutely justified. So just kind of pay attention to that in your own life, and notice Are you ever using the word trigger to when you really are attempting to communicate? I'm just done tolerating this behavior. Okay, let's look at how we actually then identify some triggers. So we've established that a trigger is about an unintegrated memory network. And memory networks contain a lot of things that they hold, the sensations, the feelings, the movements that accompanied that experience, and they also hold the thought that accompanied the that experience. And oftentimes, when a memory, when an experience is unintegrated, the thought, the belief that is connected to that unintegrated memory are beliefs that aren't grounded in reality. And those beliefs, the common parent beliefs that I've seen that are really based on unintegrated memories, and then they contribute to triggers. Are things like, I'm a terrible parent, or even, I'm a terrible person.

Robyn: That is a belief that comes from an unintegrated memory, because it's not true, right? You're not a terrible person. You're not a terrible parent. You're doing the very best that you can. Sometimes an unintegrated memory. Belief that I hear is, my child is inherently bad. Now very few parents actually use those words, my child is inherently bad. But that's essentially what that belief is holding like at their core, my child is a bad person. Sometimes triggered belief, an unintegrated belief in a memory network can sound something like this will never, ever end. And I get that that feels true, but also that it's not true, that hard moments always come to an end. Sometimes an unintegrated memory belief can sound like I am unsafe. Now again, y'all, the reason these are unintegrated is because they may have been true in the past. That's why they are living in the stream of the past. They also may not have been true in the past, and they may have developed as a result of that experience, being unintegrated. But they may have been true in the past. It certainly may be true that in the past, when you were in a situation with your child, you were truly, literally, physically unsafe. The reason we would know that some unintegrated memory network has been activated, and therefore this is a trigger, is if we could look at the situation in the here and now and know, I feel like I'm unsafe, but I'm actually not unsafe in this exact moment. That's the distinction. 

Robyn: I'm definitely not saying that you couldn't be unsafe in a situation with your child. You might have a situation with your child and you might have the belief I am unsafe, and that might be true, but if you're in a situation with your child. And you have the belief I am unsafe, and if you could grab onto your owl brain, and your owl brain could say that feels true, but it's actually not true. In this moment, you actually technically are still safe, even though you feel unsafe. That's how we know that there's a trigger alive, that an unintegrated memory network has come alive. Now, there are a lot of common kind of parent triggered beliefs. I'm just going to offer up those four right now, but, but ultimately, we know it's a triggered belief, if it feels true right now, but if we could kind of objectively look at the situation which I get that we can't because we're triggered. But if we could, we would look at it and say, well, that feels true, but actually, in the moment, it's not true. Now, I'm not saying in any way that we're going to be approaching ourselves with like beliefs of you're wrong, right? We're not criticizing ourselves. We're not shaming ourselves. We're noticing with curiosity. We want to notice with curiosity something like, wow, when this thing happens with my child, when they lie to me, for example, I end up with a bodily sensation that feels totally true, that I'm literally, physically unsafe in the moment, but I can objectively look at that moment and be like, Well, I don't like being lied to, that's for sure. And well, the thing my kid is lying about actually is unsafe. And if we can't solve this problem, we are going to continue to have some unsafe moments in the future, but in this exact moment, I am not unsafe. Okay, so hopefully that makes sense. That's a part of what I would call, like the trigger hunting problem. Reflecting back on a moment, noticing, Oh, I did have a reaction that was a mismatch to the situation, and I maybe you can even notice that, that you had a belief could get activated that felt true in the moment, but now that you're not in the moment anymore, you can look back and be like it felt true, but I'm not sure it was true. 

Robyn: Okay, those are the moments that we want to reflect on when we start going on this journey of identifying triggers, or in the club, we talk about going trigger hunting. And I have a whole master class in the club all about going trigger hunting. And so the first step about with identifying triggers or going trigger hunting is to identify an experience that happened for you where you had a mismatch and missed and mass intensity of reaction to a problem. My friend Marshall Isles used to say having a $5 reaction to a 50 Cent problem. So identify one of those situations, bring it to mind and bring When. When you're doing this exercise, it's important, especially when you're first learning the exercise that you bring to mind something that was like a three or a four out of 10. Intensity, not like a nine out of 10 or a 10 out of 10. We're not going to start there. We're not going to start with an experience you had where you were nine out of 10 intensely having a reaction. Okay, let's start with like a three or a four, and you could think of something that was happened related to parenting, or you could think of something that happened that was unrelated to parenting. So for example, remembering a moment your kid you you realized your kid was lying to you, and you had a reaction to that. And now, in retrospect, you can look back and think, oh, yeah, I had a really big reaction to that, or to a kid being like, disrespectful, mouthy, sassy, sassy. So often, in me too, we have reactions that are bigger than what's really needed in the moment in order to return to safety. Remember, that's the point of the stress response system, right? To return to safety. Okay, so when my kid is mouthy, do I need a back off level watchdog reaction to help the situation return to safety? Probably not. I mean, if I do, it's because there's something else going on, right? Like mouthiness, in and of itself, isn't something that I need to have a back-off or an attack-level watchdog response to, right? Okay, so that's what we're doing. 

Robyn: We're thinking of those moments where a What's up or a ready for action response would have been sufficient. It would have helped you address the problem without having a very dysregulated moment, right, without going all the way to back off or attack and again, y'all, we're doing this after the fact. You're reflecting on the moment. So allow something to come to mind, to come. Of mind. You know, they kind of bring up a memory of an experience. And of course, the very first thing you're going to do is just pause and notice that this memory you're having, the you in your memory, is having a hard time, right? This is a very, very, very stressful moment that you're remembering brings us bring some compassion to mind. Notice that was a really hard moment. I was really suffering. Then I was really in pain. Of course, I had such a huge reaction because I was having a very painful experience. Okay, so bring to mind self compassion first. If we can't bring that compassion in, we're probably going to stay stuck in protection mode when we're looking at this memory, and that protection mode state of the nervous system is going to prevent us from doing the rest of the process. Okay, so we're going to bring the memory to mind. 

Robyn: We're going to identify that we were probably reacting more to the past than we were to the here and now. We're going to have a moment of self compassion, and then we're going to return to that moment in our memory, in our mind, and ask ourselves, okay, so what was the real problem there? And we're going to wait to see what happens. Well, they were lying, and I don't like being lied to. Okay, well, what's the problem with that? What's the problem with not liking being lied to? Well, it makes me worry that they're always going to respond to stressful situations with lying. Okay, then we're going to ask the question again, what's the problem with that? Well, if they handle all situations with lying, that this is really going to impact their relationships in the future, or they're going to become a pathological liar, or they're going to end up getting in trouble with the law. Okay, so we're going to just keep asking ourselves the question, and what's the problem with that, and what's the problem with that, and what's the problem with that? And we're going to ask that question until we come to what feels like the base of it, the foundation of that belief.

Robyn: So for some of us with lying, you know it could. We're gonna chase this path of like, well, it feels disrespectful. So what's the problem with that? Well, disrespect means I'm not totally in charge as a parent. Okay, well, what's the problem with that? Well, when I'm not totally in charge as a parent, it means that my kid's in control and they're gonna grow up to be a terrible person. Okay, so if I'm not in control of parenting, if I'm not in control of my child, my kid's going to grow up to be a terrible person that is curious, that is curious. Now we can ask ourselves the question, huh, when and where did I learn that? When and where did we learn that when parents aren't in control, when a grown up isn't control of a child, that they will grow up to be terrible people, and if we believe that, of course, we're having a huge reaction when we're not in control of our kids, or when our kids are lying to us because we can't control what's coming out of our kids mouths, right? If we believe that not being in control of our kid means that our kid will grow up to be a terrible person. Of course, of course, we're going to have a big reaction to that, because that's terrifying. Now we have gotten just a little bit closer, if not all the way, to identifying what the real problem is now we can have a moment of compassion for ourselves again, because how painful is it to have the belief that if I'm not in control of my kid, they're going to grow up to be a terrible person? 

Robyn: Well, number one, that means we're having that belief a whole heck of a lot, because we are not in control of our kids, and it's very painful to have that belief a lot of the time. It also means something about what we believe to be true about kids and people, right that they need somebody else to be in control of them, or they're terrible people, like when we kind of get down to the these foundational beliefs. Two things happen. One, it makes sense that we're having huge reactions, because these are scary beliefs. Number two, it helps us get some clarity around huh? Is that actually true? Do I really believe that if I'm not in control? All of my kid, they're going to grow up to be a terrible person. My guess, if you're listening to this podcast, is that you don't believe that when we discover these kind of core beliefs, that is what's really tied up into these triggered reactions. Now we can one have some compassion for ourselves. Two, we might be able to start doing some work to shift those beliefs, or to shift them more on a foundational level, and really truly, y'all, the number one step in doing that is finding some compassion for the part of yourself or the memory network that holds that belief shifting those unintegrated memories is outside what we're talking about in this episode. Right in this episode, we were talking about identifying them, but identifying them is this, you know, an important step and ultimately being able to shift them but identifying them again. It brings us back into coherence. It brings us back into making sense of something. It brings us back into a place where we can access compassion for ourselves now we can stay more regulated, not calm, and respond to our child's behavior with a measured, thoughtful owl brain response, which could might still mean angry, and it certainly could still set a boundary, but it's an owl brained, measured, thoughtful, intentional response, not a reaction to something that's based more in the past than it is in the now. So I'm hoping that makes sense now I mentioned that I have a full master class on this idea on identifying triggers. We call it trigger hunting over in the club. 

Robyn: So maybe you've listened to this episode and what you got from this episode, or maybe reading the transcript will be enough for you, and you'll be able to take this information and integrate it, and it can be meaningful and useful in your life. And maybe you're thinking, Well, that makes sense, but I don't know how to actually do the things that you just suggested. And maybe what could be helpful for you is being able to watch the master class over in the club, or look at trying to identify some of your own triggers in community, doing that with other people who have already done this work you know, who could help support you or guide you, or give you suggestions, or just kind of hold your dysregulation through it. So just know that we have a full master class all about identifying triggers. Over in the club, we also have a session that was recorded where that we call putting it into practice. We always have these putting it into practice sessions at a company master classes, and it's, it's where we take the theory and put it into real life. I always say, like the theory in real life, they don't, they don't really match up. So we learn the theory first, and then we look at, okay, so what does this really mean in real life? And we call those putting it into practice. It into practice sessions. And so we have one of those about trigger hunting as well. And this is something we are kind of continuously doing together in the forum or in our Ask anything sessions, our group coaching sessions. We don't always call it trigger hunting, but so often that is what we're doing. We're getting really curious about what's happening for us that

Robyn: activated this really big stress response, and what can we do to de-escalate, de-intensify that trigger and strengthen our stress response system so that we can have a more measured stress response to the stressor. I also talk about this over in chapter 10 of Raising Kids With Big, Baffling Behaviors, and there is a trigger hunting section of the upcoming guided journal for Raising Kids With Big, Baffling Behaviors, which is unfortunately not coming out until September, but just kind of maybe put a pin in it. Just know that this idea about trigger hunting and identifying triggers, I've addressed in the guided journal that's going to come out in September, if you want to explore this, if you want to explore that before then you can consider coming to join us over in the club. So many of us are triggered by our kids' behaviors, not only because of the history we have with our child and the history of these behaviors, but because of our own history. Yeah, right, because of what happened to us when someone lied to us or when we lied what happened to us when we were disrespectful, right, those traumatic past experiences that happened unrelated to parenting, can now live in our stream of the past and get activated while we're parenting our child with a vulnerable nervous system. 

Robyn: And of course, our window of tolerance has been depleted, so we have much more vulnerability in our own nervous system, and these triggers are being activated more often, a reminder that this is part five of a six-part series. So if this is the first episode you're hearing, you might want to go back and listen to episodes one through four of the series on parenting, when you have a history of trauma, and then you're definitely going to want to tune in next week for part six of six, in which we talk about the grief when we have our own history of trauma. Because I do think there is a unique element to the grief of connecting to the truth that our own traumatic experiences that we had before we were parenting are impacting our kids. They're impacting and influencing our parenting that doesn't make us bad. And believe it or not, we don't have to fall into shame around that. And one of the ways that we can avoid falling into shame around that while still recognizing the truth in it is if we can do some of the grief around it. So definitely tune in next week for part six of six in this series on parenting, when you yourself have a history of trauma. And if you would love to have some more support from me, from my team and from hundreds of parents all around the world, I'm inviting you to come and join us in the club. All you have to do is go to RobynGobbel.com/theclub, and if we're open for new members, you can come on in. And if we're not open for new members, you can put yourself on the waiting list, which will help you get notified when we are open for new members. All right, y'all I'll be back with you again next week. We'll finish up this series by talking about grief. All right, bye, bye.