Triggers / Emotional Response / Physical Action Ep 7 ANL Podcast with Pamela Jean

Welcome to A New Life podcast with Pamela Jean, where it's all about empowering women to empower more women. Get ready, friends, to create a new life. And here is your host, Pamela Jean.

Hello, friends, and welcome to a New Life podcast. This is episode number seven. So today I want to talk about triggers. Things that trigger you in your life that ultimately are holding you back from living the life of your dreams. Triggers that feed into fear, triggers that feed into anxiety, panic attacks. We've had so many challenges in the past several months. We've had the pandemic. Covid has triggered fear for many people. It has triggered anxiety for many adults, children alike. There's so many things that are different from this year alone that I think many people find themselves in a place of overwhelm. You're just overwhelmed with all that is happening in our world right now. You know, let's just be honest. Life is hard. Life is hard. If anyone tells you that their life is easy and it's a walk in the park, you know they're not being honest with you, because life is hard. And I think to a certain degree, it's supposed to be. That's how you learn. That's how you grow. That's how you are moved to the next level. That's how you improve yourself, is by going through hard times. And I think part of what we all could use some help with right now is navigating through some of those difficult times and practicing some good habits and some exercises on dealing with some of those things that trigger you, spiral you into a negative emotional response and will require you to do some type of physical reaction. Now, let me explain, because I know that probably didn't make any sense to you. So we all have things in our life that we get triggered by that we are triggered by. And when we're triggered by something that is negative in your life, a natural emotional response reveals itself to us. And then to help you cope with that negative trigger and that negative emotional response, we are required to assign a physical reaction to that emotional response for us to work through it in the most positive way possible. So let me give you an example I think that you'll be able to understand with some of these examples. So the first example is, let's say you work in an office and you have a very volatile employer. So your boss comes in, they are having a really bad day. They come in volatile, slamming the door, complaining, yelling about this not being done, that not being done. Your emotional response is anxiety. You can feel the heat rising through your body. And your emotional response is fear, anxiety. What type of physical action or reaction can you put to that trigger that will help that situation? So the physical reaction might be if you are allowed to take a 15 minute break, take your break, go take your break, get up from your desk, go for a walk, remove yourself from that situation. As you're walking down the hall away from that toxic environment, you're saying, that's not about me, it's not about me, it's not about me. But you're physically walking away from that situation. Let's talk about another possibility trigger. So maybe you're in a relationship where you are in a bad marriage. Let's just call it that, you're in a bad marriage. Your husband comes home, he's had a bad day, he's griping and yelling at you. Your emotional response is anger. Your normal physical reaction would be to grab a glass of wine. The problem is you don't stop at one glass of wine. You keep going to the next glass and the next glass and by the end of the night you have drank the whole bottle. Now, a lot of times our physical reactions do not serve our. They don't, they just simply don't serve ourselves. Your physical reaction is kind of like an opportunity to reset the situation, an opportunity to diffuse a situation. How you physically reset, physically react. So instead of opening up that bottle of wine or, you know, pouring yourself that, that stiff drink, instead of doing that, what, what could your physical reaction be that would serve you and serve that situation more positively? So instead of allowing the shutdown to happen in yourself, which leads you to self loathing, and then I'm just going to drink wine because then I don't have to think about it. Maybe you physical reaction is to go for a run, you go to the gym, you go for a run, you go outside, walk around the block, go walk the dog, you remove yourself from that situation physically and go do something positive. Now, through my coaching, one of the things that I have my clients do is write down what, what is the trigger that sends you into your emotional abyss. Because many people will get sucked down into that black hole of your emotions and you're not able to get out of it. And you stay there. And instead of being able to pass over the anxiety or the fear or whatever that looks like for you, you stay stuck. You stay stuck in that vicious cycle of a trigger of something negative and your emotional response and you get stuck. Like a whirlpool. You can't get out of it. It's a spiral effect. That you simply cannot get out of. Oftentimes when you are in that really, really bad emotional state, that's when the self talk, the negative self talk comes in. That is when you would rather just bury your head in the sand, shut down, believe that you're not worthy, think that you're not worthy, listen to all the negative things that you tell yourself. You're not smart, you're not pretty, you're stupid, you're not good at anything. No wonder he's mad at you. No wonder she's mad at you. You start taking the blame for other people's actions. And honestly, friends, other people's actions are theirs. They're not yours. Don't own theirs. Let them have them. Their actions are theirs. So when you're in a situation where something or someone has triggered you, it's so important that you identify those emotional reactions and responses, those emotional responses before things go out of control, before you get into that vicious cycle and that spiral to that black hole that you simply cannot get out of. And if you feel like just going to bury my head in the sand and I'm going to live there for a while and shut down, friends, I'm telling you, that's not serving you. That's definitely not living your best life. And I want that for you. You deserve that. You deserve to live your very best life. So I want you to try a little exercise with me. The next time you start feeling that anxiety or fear or that pit in your stomach emotionally, I want you to identify what was the trigger. Sometimes that's the hardest thing to figure out, is all of a sudden you're in this black hole, you're facing depression, you don't even know how you got there. But what this exercise will do is help you identify the triggers. So when you feel yourself going dark, and I know if you've dealt with anxiety and fear and depression, you know what I mean when I say feel yourself going dark? Feel yourself pulling back into you. When you feel that happening, I want you to look around and with your eyes wide open and identify what was the trigger that sent you there? What was that trigger? And then write it down. Write a list of all of the triggers in your life that put you in that negative emotional response. Once you've identified triggers and once you have identified your personal emotional response, because that will be different for everyone. Not everyone is going to react the same way. One person's anxiety is much different than the next person's anxiety. My fear is different than your fear. My depression is different than Your depression. So identify what emotional response attaches itself to a specific trigger. Once you have written down your triggers and you have identified the emotional response that goes with that trigger, friends, this is where we get to take our power back. This is where you get to take your power. When you've identified your trigger attach to which emotional response, this is where you get to determine what your physical reaction is. Your physical reaction might be, I'm just going to open up the bottle of wine and drink the whole thing. By nine o' clock you might get that stress where you feel it in your shoulders, where you get a headache, where you binge eat, that might be a physical reaction that you have seen yourself cycle into. But friends, if you identify again that trigger the emotional response that is attached to that trigger and redefine what your physical reactions are and what your physical reaction will be to a given trigger, my goodness, you have taken some incredible power back in your life. So instead of having your trigger feed your emotional response of anxiety and fear, self loathing, instead of that being your physical reaction of stress, drinking alcohol, binge eating, change that, change your physical reaction, friends, change that reaction to be. I'll go for a run, I'm going to get in my car and go for a drive. I'm going to go to the lake and skip rocks on the water. I'm going to walk around the block, I'm going to go pet my dog, I'm going to go call my girlfriend. I'm going to go. Change your physical reaction friends to something positive. We've all been in that situation where something triggers you into a negative emotional response and you physically react to it by overeating, making bad food choices for yourself, self sabotaging the good health plan that you had already started for yourself. When you can identify all of those triggers and link it to a particular emotional response, then this is where you take your power back. Friends, change your physical reaction to that trigger. When you make this a habit, when you make this a change in your life, not just once, not just one time, but when you make this a consistent change in your life, you are going to take the power back from all of those negative triggers that happen in your life. We all have them. We all have had them. Because the beautiful thing is, is when you make this a daily practice, a life change, you will start to take power back in your life. You will set yourself up for success every single day. You will stop self sabotaging yourself. And friends, you will get to live the life of your dreams. When you start taking your power back. I hope this was helpful. I know in my life when I did the hard work to understand what triggered me into those emotional responses that did not serve me and I reacted to them physically in ways that were not healthy for me. When I took control over all of those aspects, that is when I got to start living my dream life. That's when my future was defined consciously and precisely by me. And I want that for you as well. If you would like my worksheet on triggers, emotional responses and physical reactions, send me an email and I will absolutely get that out to you. Pamela jean.anew lifemail.com I would be happy to send that out to you if you would like some coaching on understanding your triggers, defining your emotional responses and reestablishing a healthy physical reaction. Again, that email address is pamela jean.anew lifemail.com I would be happy to talk to you about some one on one coaching to work through this process. This is a process that is worth doing the work. I hope you make it an incredible day friends. Have a great day. Have fun doing whatever it is you've got planned and scheduled today. Make sure you laugh a lot, love a lot and be kind and do something good for someone else today. Thanks friends.

Thank you for joining us today on a New Life podcast. We will see you next time.