What a Trigger REALLY Is {EP 223}

Robyn: Now, I think, and maybe you might agree with me that the word trigger has become kind of overused, and oftentimes people use the word trigger when what they're communicating is something more like, hey, what you're saying is making me feel uncomfortable. Now the idea of being okay, being uncomfortable, is maybe another topic for another podcast, but being uncomfortable with something or in response to something, isn't the same as being triggered. So what does it mean to be triggered? Well, the shortest answer is that a trigger is responding and reacting to something that isn't happening right now, but it feels like it's happening right now. A trigger is when something in the present moment, something that's happening right now, activates an unprocessed implicit memory from the past in your brain reacts to the current experience what's happening in the now, as if it is the past, not as if it's something that's similar to or like something that happened in the past, but the body has the sensation that, oh no, actually, this is the past. But the tricky thing is, is that we don't have that thought. We don't have the oh, this is the past thought. It just feels like the now.    

Robyn: So I'm gonna go over this just a touch, but then I'm also going to refer you back to a previous podcast episode, but as well as my trauma memory and behavior video series and ebook that is probably one of my most popular topics, it's a rewrite from an old old topic I did a long time ago that we called trauma doesn't tell time, and you can find that over on my website and the free resources page the Trauma, Memory, and Behavior webinar and video series, but our very short summary is that there's essentially two different types of memory, implicit memory and explicit memory. And hopefully y'all this goes without saying that this is a very high level, simplified overview of memory processing and the idea of being triggered. Okay, so there's these two types of memory, implicit memory, explicit memory. Explicit memory, are memories that feel like conscious memories. We have this thought of I remember this thing that happened. I remember yesterday I went to- or last Christmas, I went to my grandma's house, or three years ago I went on vacation. Explicit memories have this sense of remembering. There is this felt sense of recall. It's typically what we're referring to when we say, Do you remember when? Or I remember, right? We use just kind of the basic word, remember, to really mean explicit memory. It's bringing to mind a conscious memory, whereas implicit memory is things like body memory, emotion memory, nervous system states.    

Robyn: Implicit memory is all of the things that we're not really aware of. It's the stuff that's always happening and we're making meaning out of it, and we're processing it, but we're not having this conscious thought about being aware of something, perceptions, things like that is implicit memory now in regular memory processing, like when memory processing goes according to plan, and memory Processing is kind of the process of having an experience, you know, storing it, encoding it, and then retrieving it later, okay, so typical memory processing when it all goes according to plan. There's this way that, like the implicit parts of the data of a of an experience and the explicit parts of an experience, they get processed together into one memory network. Now, implicit bits of data in a memory network don't have a sense of time and place. We can't really orient to it. There isn't that sense of remembering. Whereas explicit data does have that timestamp. Essentially, the explicit gives us that sense of, Oh yeah, that thing happened in the past. And if you pause for a second, if you thought about something that happened 20 years ago versus something that happened 20 days ago, there's even a difference in the felt sense of like, what that memory feels like in your body, right? The one from 20 years ago has the sense of like, Oh yeah, that was a long time ago, whereas 20 days ago It feels different, right?    

Robyn: You know, you've probably said at some point something like, gosh, it just feels like that was so long ago. Yeah, explicit memory is helping us have that timestamp and that felt sense of how long ago something was. So when memory processing goes according to planned, which tends to happen when the experience wasn't traumatic. All of the implicit in the explicit get stored together, and the way they get stored, the implicit data gets kind of connected to the explicit data and and the explicit therefore kind of helps the implicit have a timestamp, and you can have that memory of I really remember that vacation I went on 20 years ago, and it was so fun, and I remember this part of it and that part of it, and and you can even have the felt sense of like the fun and the happiness arises in your body as you're thinking about that vacation. But you know that the fun and happiness that's arising in your body now isn't about what's happening right? Now, it's about that memory, right? That's because the implicit and the explicit pieces of that memory all got stored together, and the implicit pieces have access to the timestamp.    

Robyn: Now, many things can disrupt normal memory processing, including trauma and when an experience is traumatic, and the physiological response of the body and what happens in the body in response to something overwhelming, dangerous, life threatening happening, part of that process disrupts kind of typical memory processing, and sometimes then memories get stored as like memory fragments. And you can kind of think about these puzzle pieces that want to find each other, but are kind of floating around. They're the ones that go together aren't connected. And that's kind of what happens when memory processing gets disrupted, is that some of those implicit pieces are like looking for their explicit puzzle piece to get connected to so it can have a timestamp, but they can't find each other. So there's these memory fragments that are left without a timestamp. Now, a trigger is what happens when a memory fragment gets retrieved, when something happens in the here and now that activates a memory from the past. But the part that gets memory gets activated is a memory fragment that isn't connected to a timestamp, okay? And so that fragment, if it's connected to something that was bad or scary and traumatic, traumatic. That fragment contains emotions like, this is terrible, this is terrifying. This is super, super scary. This warrants a significant Watchdog or Possum reaction, right? Like those, those things from the past are stored in that memory fragment. That memory fragment gets reactivated in the here and now, but because it's not connected to a time stamp, that sensation happens now, and it feels like it's related to what's happening now. It doesn't feel like it's about a memory.    

Robyn: So there's this sensation of this bad, dangerous, scary thing is happening right now. But again, the most disorienting part about that is that there's no felt sense of any part of this now, experience being related to a memory. It just feels like it's about now. And even if that kind of doesn't make sense, even if, objectively speaking, we could be like, Whoa, that was a big overreaction. In the moment, it doesn't feel like an overreaction. And in fact, our minds will actually create a story or a narrative to go along with it that will help to justify why it wasn't an overreaction. So when we're having a trigger, what's happening is that we're reacting to the past as if it is the now. Our neuroception thinks, oh my gosh, there's a huge, huge, huge problem now, and it needs a huge, huge, huge response now, and so our Owl brain flies away. Our prefrontal cortex is what's happening is, obviously, there's no Owls in our brains that fly away. But what's happening is our prefrontal cortex becomes disconnected from the lower regions of the brain, and this happens because of the way hormones and neurochemicals essentially tell the brain like, hey, stop communicating with the prefrontal cortex. Let's shut down that highway, because involving the prefrontal cortex right now is going to be too slow. It's going to make us stop and think and ponder, and we don't got time for that, right? And so the neurochemistry of a, you know, fight-flight reaction, basically shuts down access to the Owl brain, to the prefrontal cortex.    

Robyn: So we have this Watchdog response, or this Possum response, and it feels super justified. It feels like, of course, I'm having this reaction to this problem right now, but later, we might be able to look back on it and objectively say, like, Hmm, I think it's possible I was triggered. So being triggered means that we're not reacting to the now. We're reacting to a then, to a past, that's intruding into the now. Now, you may have heard my previous episode that was called All Behavior Makes Sense, in which I really give you a breakdown in how our minds are constructing reality, and you may remember from that episode that our minds are always taking the past and helping using it to help us make sense of the now. We're always using the past to process the now, and in many ways, it's accurate to say we're always kind of reacting to the past, but being triggered is different. Being triggered isn't about using past experiences to help kind of make sense of what's happening in the here and now, which we're all always doing. It's a really important part of just regular existence being triggered is when. The past floods the here and now, it takes over, and so we really lose our grounding to what is actually happening right now, and are instead reacting to something that's happening in the past, while not being aware that that's happening. We think we're reacting to the here and now.   

Robyn: Parenting is ripe with triggers. Parenting is fertile ground for triggers, and a big reason for that is that raising children, parenting being in a caregiver role with our kids and with our partners. You know, if we're parenting with somebody, our relationships that inherently tug at and awaken our earliest attachment experiences, and most of our early attachment experiences are stored implicitly, and many of us had early attachment experiences that had, you know, danger, fear, aloneness, shame, overwhelm, right? Those sensations and experiences are kind of tied into those early attachment experiences. So our most intimate family relationships, parenting, our partners, those earliest attachment experiences, are really ripe to be awakened, and because so much of that is stored implicitly, those memories are awakened. But we don't really realize we're having a memory. We think that that sensation, that felt sense, that belief is truly about this relationship, either they're with my child, or, again, maybe with my partner, or really, really close, intimate relationships. And so our nervous systems have this way that they remember. They don't necessarily recall, but they remember sensations of disconnection, shame, fear, chaos, and then our most intimate relationships that are happening in the here and now with our kids or our partners can awaken those implicit memories from our past.    

Robyn: It's also true that we tend to have, let's say, smaller windows of tolerance when we're in our most intimate relationships, because we tend to relax more when we're around the meaning. We tend to not work as hard to stay regulated when we are inside our most intimate relationships, right? I know I work hardest to be my best self and to be my most regulated when I'm in relationship with people outside my family, whereas once I'm, you know, kind of more in my family relationships, we tend to, I mean, frankly, just not work as hard. We kind of let ourselves off the hook a little bit. This is why we can have kind of a hard, maybe a hard day at work, keep it together at work, not be rude to our coworkers or the folks we interact with at work, but then we get home and we're snappy and grouchy, and this isn't because we don't care about our closest intimate family relationships. This isn't a conscious choice. We don't walk in the door and be like, well, I guess I'm home. I don't have to work hard to be nice anymore. It's just a phenomenon of being human. We're all at risk of this, and so our most intimate relationships, our closest relationships, are much more likely to awaken our implicit memories that hold fragments of shame, disconnection, chaos, fear, things like that.    

Robyn: So a small thing can happen while we're parenting, or our child can do something that, in the grand scheme of things, isn't that big of a deal, or actually isn't even about us. In fact, it's all about them. Has nothing to do with us, but it awakens a memory network that holds beliefs about things being our fault, or us being bad, or bad things always happen, or things like that. And then all of a sudden, we're reacting to that felt sense, and that's us being triggered. We have a big, big, big reaction. So what do we do about this? What do we do about being triggered? Well, number one, I do think it's really important we continue to hold the difference between being uncomfortable and being triggered. People are uncomfortable. People do things that make us uncomfortable. People do things that frustrate us, irritate us, annoy us. It's not all about being triggered, and it doesn't mean that we're triggered and it's unjustified, but it also doesn't mean that that other person should change what they're doing. Right? Sometimes, when we feel like we've been triggered, we want other people to change their behavior, like, please stop doing that. That triggers me. And the reality is is, number one, we can only control our own behavior anyway. But number two, we want to think about, was I really triggered, or did I just not really like that? Was I uncomfortable with that?   

Robyn: So if we think about, well, what should we do when we are triggered? I mean, the hardest part abou that question is that when we're triggered, we don't usually know that we're triggered, right? I mean, when we fall down, when we fall far down the Watchdog or the Possum pathway, inherent is that, is that we lose self awareness. The further we go down the watchdog or the possum pathway, the further we get from having that Owl brain, self-reflection and self_awareness, and this is by design. We're supposed to do this. So it's not bad that this happens, but if we want to do something about being triggered, it means having at least a teeny, tiny bit of awareness that we are triggered, right? And that means finding a way to hold on to our Owl brains even the tiniest little bit. And yes, this is possible. With practice, you can become more aware earlier on of your own cues and clues that you've fallen down the Watchdog or the Possum pathway. I have lots of podcasts about that, about becoming more aware of your own Owl and Watchdog brain, feeling, sensations, thoughts, those kinds of things. So keep doing that. Keep building that awareness, because you need that in order to to have the thought or have the awareness. Oh, I'm triggered. My brain thinks that this is an emergency right now. But is it? Is this an emergency now, or is this an awakening of something that happened in the past that was an emergency back then, right?    

Robyn: And actually, what I just verbalized noticing, oh, I'm triggered. My brain thinks this is an emergency. This is a really, really important step in what you want to work towards doing. When you are triggered, think about Dr. Siegel's idea of name it, to tame it. Oh, I'm triggered. And when we give language to something like that sensation, we actually start, we kind of jump start, in a way, the memory integration process. So we start to create an opportunity, in a sense, for the implicit and for the explicit pieces, those pieces that are wanting to find each other but are disconnected. That's why there there was a trigger naming. It is one step towards helping those puzzle pieces find each other, to starting the integration process. Also notice that part of being triggered is that we get flooded by the past. We lose connection to the here and now. So a very helpful thing to do when we're triggered is to really get oriented in the now, really pay attention to the now. And so I think the easiest way to do that is think about your five senses, things you can hear, touch, see, smell and taste and notice that. And so maybe even as right now, as you're listening to me, ask yourself, What can I hear right now? While you're hearing my voice, I'm also hearing my voice. I have headphones on, and I also can hear my sound machine. I just pause to notice that. And what can I feel right now? Well, I can feel my feet on the floor, and I can feel my headphones on my ears. What can I smell? Hmm, I'm actually not noticing any obvious smell right now, but you kind of are getting the point right. You can go through those five the five sensations, five senses, and because noticing something in the here and now helps anchor our mind to the now and slow down the flooding of the stream of the past. And that's going to help your mind notice, oh, actually, right now I am safe in this moment, I'm safe.    

Robyn: Now, ideally, you would find an opportunity to get some co-regulation. But I also know that a lot of us can't always immediately turn to external co-regulation, and so we kind of have to turn to our internalized co-regulation, right? And we've talked about internalized co-regulation A lot on this podcast, I'll make sure some links to some episodes about internalized co-regulation get put in the show notes, if that's feeling like a new word to you, but internalized co-regulation is where we are holding the co-regulation that someone has offered us in the past, where we're holding that in our memory networks, and we can turn to that. And in fact, in many, many, many ways, this thing we call self regulation is actually just a lot of internalized co-regulation. So you can turn to the internal places where you hold regulation and offer some soothing care and connection to yourself.    

Robyn: Of course, of course, whenever possible, we don't want to parent from a place of being triggered because we aren't parenting the child right in front of us, if we're parenting from a place of being triggered, we're not parenting the child that's right in front of us. We're parenting a child and all this baggage from the past that's intruding on us in the here and now, and most of it has nothing even to do with our child. Okay, so when you notice that you're overwhelmed or triggered or far down your Watchdog or your Possum pathway, you don't have to keep doing whatever it is you're doing. With regards to responding, reacting, parenting your child. It's okay to take a pause. It's okay to allow your own nervous system to regulate, to come back into being grounded in the here and now, and then return to a relationship with your child, whatever that be about. I mean, maybe you do have to, like, set a limit, right? Have a boundary, have a tough conversation. That's fine. You can return to that, but you're going to want to do that. You know, from your most Owl brain place possible, right? And then, you know, what I would invite you to do next is, later just reflect back on the experience.    

Robyn: And I talk about this a lot in Chapter 10 of Raising Kids With Big, Baffling Big Baffling Behaviors, noticing those tender spots where we're still holding some unprocessed kind of like trauma residue, and how we can tend to ourselves and tend to those parts of ourselves and to those parts of ourselves that are still holding those very painful memories. We can tend to those parts. We can bring some soothing, and we can bring some healing, and we can bring some compassion to those parts of us that were triggered, that were overwhelmed, that got pushed far down the Watchdog or Possum pathway. And we talk about that, oodles and oodles on this show, right? We talk about bringing compassion to those moments and to those parts of ourselves and all of that. Part of what's happening when we bring compassion to those awakened, triggered memory networks is that we're prompting a moment of integration, so you are not a bad person if you are getting triggered, you're not a bad person if you're parenting out of being triggered. Because the very neurobiology of a trigger is that we think our sensations and what we're experiencing is based in reality. So of course, we're gonna keep kind of parenting out of that trigger, we don't even realize we are being triggered. But the more we do this process, the more we reflect back on it, the more we get to know our Watchdog and our Possum parts so we can become more aware and they're activated, the more we'll be aware that we're triggered, and the more we'll be able to take a pause and so doing this work, being reflective, building compassion. This isn't about giving us a free pass or letting ourselves off the hook, right? It's about bringing healing and integration to the parts of ourselves that really, really, really deserve that so that we can be with hard things that are happening in the here and now, we can be fully present, instead of getting awakened by so many memory fragments from the past.    

Robyn: Of course, of course, of course. We're never aiming for perfection, and we are never going to reach a place where we are never kind of acting out of your memory fragments. It's just not possible. We're going to all be working on integrating memory from now until forever and ever and ever, so have lots of grace, lots of compassion for yourself, and lots of invitations to just notice, to be curious, and to bring connection to our triggered states, bring connection to the here and now, bring healing moments of it wasn't safe then, but it is safe now.    

Robyn: So like I previously mentioned, I do have a much deeper dive into the actual science of memory, memory processing and what happens during traumatic, overwhelming, scary experiences that's over at RobynGobbel.com/VideoSeries. It's a three part video series and a short little ebook that gives you some visuals that's helpful as well. Now y'all this video series and ebook are a couple years old, so they're maybe not as beautiful as the things that I produce and create now, and maybe we need to do a little update, and maybe not, because the information is still accurate, but that's at RobynGobbel.com/VideoSeries, and I do Have another podcast episode about trauma, memory and behavior, so I'll get that linked down in the show notes as well as always.    

Robyn: Y'all thank you. Thank you for pressing play. Thank you for being somebody who is doing the work, doing the work, to show up for yourselves, for a child with big, baffling behaviors and a vulnerable nervous system. And really, for a world, right? We're living in a world full of big, baffling behaviors and vulnerable nervous systems and and I know you're here not to save the world. You're here because things are hard in your family, and I get that, but I think it's maybe sometimes nice to consider that this hard work that we didn't ask to do, that this hard work that we're really, in a way, kind of being forced to do because of what's happening in our own families, it actually makes an impact far, far, far beyond our own personal families. I sometimes really enjoy considering that truth. So thank you. Thank you for the work that you're doing for yourself and for kids, and for sharing this information far and wide. The more folks that we can get connected to the neuroscience of behavior, the better. So send folks to the podcast. Y'all send folks to get their own copy of Raising Kids With Big, Baffling Behaviors. And actually, one of the best ways you can spread the word is to go to Raising Kids With Big, Baffling Behaviors on Amazon and leave a review if you've read the book, even if you haven't bought it on Amazon, if you read the book, you can review it on Amazon, and that is probably the number one way to help the book reach more and more and more people. And y'all, the more people this information reaches, the less hard that we're gonna have to work in our everyday lives, and the less hard that our kids are gonna have to work as they become adults. All right, y'all It was awesome to be with you again. Today. I will be back with you again next week!