Dealing With Emotional Triggers In Recovery

Don't you just hate it when counselors say things like, feel your feelings? I mean, what the heck does that even mean anyway? Feel your feelings. Well, don't worry. I am not going to tell you something like that because that's so vague and gray and strange, right? And so today we're going to talk about emotional triggers. We're going to talk about what to do with them, but I'm going to give you a slightly more in-depth strategy. Actually, it's a 4-step strategy. It's pretty simple, but it is a specific do this, this, this, this, and that will help you manage your emotional triggers so much more effectively. For those of you who are new here, I'm Amber Hollingsworth, and this YouTube channel is all about helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction so that you can get your life and your loved ones back on track and get back to living the life that you want to live. Now, today's topic applies in general to anyone and everyone. It doesn't necessarily have to be related to addiction, but If you are struggling with addiction, if you're in early recovery, or if you have a family member who's struggling, this is definitely going to be particularly helpful for you. All right, so let's get back to our topic, emotional triggers. We all have them. Some of you may already know if you have specific emotional triggers, like certain patterns of things that always hit your button. If you already know that, then you are a step ahead because you already kind of can kind of filter or be on the lookout for that or recognize it when it happens. Others of you may not recognize or have identified exactly what your pattern or buttons are yet, but hopefully going through today's conversation will help you to do that. So I am going to give you the 4-step process, right? So I tried to make it in a way you could remember it, and so I'm going to call it READ. R E-A-D, as in read the situation, which I feel like is better than feel your feelings, right? So let's start with the R. The R stands for recognize that you're having an emotional reaction or trigger. And you may be thinking, well, that's pretty easy because I know it when I'm upset, or I know when my button's been pushed. But a lot of you out there may not have a conscious Awareness of when you are actually triggered. And it's extremely important because if you want to manage that trigger, if you want to decide how to respond to it instead of react to it, you got to recognize that it's happening to you. I'm one of those people myself that will sometimes not have an awareness of what's going on inside me. And I know you think, Amber, you're a counselor, shouldn't you be good at that? I'm not. I don't know if I should be, but I'm not that great at it. They laugh at me around here. One of the jokes in the office is that when I'm Physically sick. Like I don't know, I have the flu or something that I don't even know it until I'm so sick. Like they have to call someone to come get me. Like I can't even drive myself home. And it's funny because I'm just so present focused and into whatever it is I'm doing at any given moment that I literally don't pay enough attention about what's going on inside of me to recognize when something's going on until it is like screaming. And it can be that same way with emotions as well. So When you feel maybe uncomfortable or you feel irritable, maybe you might recognize that you feel irritable, but you can't put your finger on specifically what emotion or what's going on. That is the very first indicator that you need to stop and first of all, recognize it. And if you can put a name on it, that's even better because a lot of times we just want to fall into saying, I'm angry or I'm upset. A real general term like that, but if you can narrow it down more specifically than that, it's better. Let me tell you why this is helpful. Because when you're emotionally triggered, the emotional part of your brain, which is sort of the center limbic system part of your brain, takes over and it starts to drive the boat. The emotional part runs the show when it's really activated, and you don't want the emotional part of your brain to to run the show. You want the thinking part of your brain to run the show, the objective, strategic, logical, critical thinking part of your brain. That's the part you want driving the boat. But when those emotions get triggered, it gets the— it's like the volume gets really turned up in that emotional part of your brain, and you can start making a lot of emotional decisions and not even recognize that that's what's happening to you. And in order to get Out of that emotional part of your brain, you have to activate the thinking part. You have to become aware. So this R for recognize, and this awareness that you can get actually shifts you more out of the emotional part and more into the thinking part. So it's kind of like you take your car off of the autopilot or auto drive, and that's what you want to do in these kind of situations because we don't make good decisions when we're making decisions emotionally. So once you recognize something's going on here, the next step in the 4-step process is evaluate. That's the E in READ for read the situation. Evaluate where is this coming from? Now, in order to simplify that down for you, I've put it into sort of 2 categories. You can think about this. Am I being emotionally triggered Really because of something that's going on in my current life, like right now, here and now, or am I being triggered by something that went on in my childhood? And it's just that something right now is triggering some old feeling back. And I'll give you some clues here on how to tell the difference. Some of the things that can keep you in a bad emotional state of mind in the here and now are when you're overly stressed out. When you're overly stressed out, you're more irritable. You just don't, your emotional skin gets thin and you don't cope as well. When you're hungry, when you're tired, and when you are lonely. If you've ever heard the term hangry, that's what I'm talking about. Because when you're in any of those states, basically you're running out of fuel. When you're in those states, you don't have enough positive things coming in. You are running low on the fuel. And when you run low on the fuel, you risk making more emotional decisions because it's that fuel that keeps your thinking part of your brain good and activated. So sometimes it's just a matter of the current dynamics. If you've worked a long day at work, if you're overtired, something like that, that in and of itself can be the underlying thing that's triggering you. And those are easy enough if you can figure out what's going on with that, that those are easier to solve, right? Because it's like, if I'm hungry, if I'm tired, if I'm, if I'm those things, The solution is pretty easy. If it's not something like that, but it's something more from your past, and I'm going to give you some ideas about how to figure that out, those are the ones that are a little bit more complicated. And what that means is something in the here and now is reminding you of something in your past, causing you to have, I would call it like a disproportionate emotional reaction. Okay. So what I mean is this thing happens and you are upset by it, whatever level of upset that is, but it's way bigger than maybe the situation calls for. Usually when that happens, it's because whatever is going on is triggering something from your past that was not good. And it's your brain's way of protecting you because your brain, your emotional part of your brain, houses all those memories, even if you don't remember them in the thinking part of your brain. That's called your subconscious. So it's like a memory that's below your consciousness sometimes. Sometimes you can look back into your past and you know exactly what happened and you have a specific memory of it, but sometimes you don't. But a good indicator that that's what's happening to you is if that particular emotion happens to you Pretty frequently and regularly, like it's a pattern. It's an indicator when your reaction seems to always be maybe bigger than what the situation seems to cause— call for. And lastly, it's a really good indicator if it feels like it automatically happens to you, like it's a reflex and almost feels a little bit outside of your control. Like a reflex, like when you go to the doctor and they hit your knee, it's just like an automatic, it just happens. Those are indicators that whatever is happening is triggering old stuff from your past. Now, once you can figure that out, if you decide it's something in the current— Debbie's on here and she put up HALT, hungry, angry, lonely, tired. That is an old recovery acronym that says when you're in those states of mind, be extra careful because you're more vulnerable. And that's right, Debbie. A+ on that. If you can evaluate that you're in one of those just out of fuel situations, like I said, that's easy. Refuel, connect, or take a nap or whatever it is that you need to do. That's what's happening there. If you decide that this is deeper than that, it happens to me more regularly, it happens to me in these certain situations, then it means you're being triggered from something from your past. And just figuring that out and recognizing that when it happens, goes a long way to getting control over it. And the reason that is, is because you've taken it from the unconscious into the conscious, which now allows your thinking brain to kick in and you can make decisions about what to do with it. The thing about emotions are this, they're just messengers. Emotions are really just chemical processes that happen in your brain that are signals. It's there to give you a signal, usually to go towards something or away from something. So the emotions are really like the brakes and the gasoline in your brain. And so that's all that it is. It's not good. It's not bad. There are some emotions that are uncomfortable, right? But they're not bad. And sometimes we label them as bad, but it'd be like saying the brakes in your car are bad, right? No, the brakes in your car are good. We need those brakes there. Otherwise it's unsafe. Even the uncomfortable emotions we need. Now, that doesn't mean we like to feel that way because it is uncomfortable, but it's a message. It's an important something that your brain is trying to tell you, and your job is to figure out what that is. It doesn't mean that you have to react to that feeling. It doesn't mean that you have to even believe that feeling. Your feelings will lie to you. Just because you feel something does not mean it's the truth. Your feelings will definitely lie to you. But Identifying it, evaluating it, and then ask yourself, that's the 3rd step in the process. What do I want to do about this? Now that I've identified it, I understand what's going on with me. What do I want to do about it? Let me give you an example because I always think examples help. I have an emotional trigger that I have is when I feel like I have to do everything myself and no one, I have no one there to help me, right? For some reason that hits my buttons and I can feel myself have this visceral reaction to it almost. I can feel the brakes get slammed on and it's really hard to overcome, even though I know that's happening to me. I know why it's happening to me. I know where it connects to in my past. It takes a lot of conscious effort not to be really irritable, not to project onto people, not to take it out on the people around me. Because I have to recognize like, wow, that's my button. That's not really something that's out here happening. It's something maybe that's happening out here, but the reason I'm having such a response to it is because it relates to something from my past that was bothersome. Usually it's like a feeling you had in childhood that was really uncomfortable for you. So your brain has that on lockdown memory and it scans for that as a way of trying to protect you. like a defense mechanism kind of thing. But the problem is that when you don't have control over those emotional triggers, it feels like it's not protecting you very much. Sometimes those kind of things can really mess things up for you. It can mess up relationships and stuff like that. So I actually made a list of really common emotional triggers for you, and I put the link in the description. Let me see if I can put it right here in the Comment section for you too. There you go. Where you guys can go to this link and download it, but it might help you to identify what your button is because I just, I made you a pretty good list of what are some of the things like, is your button feeling controlled? Is your button feeling not heard? Is your button feeling misunderstood? Is your button feeling embarrassed? Is your button feeling like you're forced to do something? We all have these different Buttons. Doesn't mean something's wrong with you. We all have them. We just need to know what they are so that we can be mindful of them. Sometimes in these videos, I call them blind spots. You need to know where the blind spots in your car are because you need to know you need to double-check, right? Because you can be tricked. We all have those blind spots or emotional triggers. So you guys can go and totally download that. It will help you. I think when you see it, sometimes when you read through them like that, it's like, oh yeah, that's the one. That's the one. If you know what yours is, Let us know that in the comments because you could probably be saying something that I might not have put on the list that I didn't even think of, and someone else could see it and say, oh yeah, that's my button too. When I feel that way, it's not good, right? So remember, feelings don't necessarily tell you the truth. It's just a piece of information that you need to analyze. The last step in the 4-step process is the D, and the D stands for decide. You want to Decide how you want to interact with that. Now, if this video is helpful for you, if you're getting value out of it, make sure you hit the like button. That helps me to spread this message to someone else. I appreciate that. So let me give you some clues on decide. I'm going to go ahead and give you your first decision free, right? I'm giving you this one for free because this one is almost always what you need to do first. Okay? It's not the end of the decide part, but it's your first decide step, right? You need to decide not to fix or engage or deal with that problem right there in that moment. Now, why do you want to do that? Because right there in that moment, you probably still have your emotional brain pretty activated, and that's not when you want to have the conversation with the person that is doing something that's always triggering you. That's not when you want to Tell your boss that you don't like it when this or that or the other. It's not that you don't have those conversations. It's not that you don't deal with it, but don't deal with it when you're in that feeling state. Okay? So your first decision that I want you to make is I'm going to put that on hold for just a second. I'm going to let that simmer inside for a few minutes, and I'm going to sort through what I want to do about that. Now, that doesn't mean I cram it down and never deal with it, because if you do that, It's going to build up, build up, and eventually you are going to react to it and you're probably going to really react to it like extreme because you've been cramming it down so long. So it's not a forever, it's a hold on, let me get my composure, let me think it through and let me make a decision. And now sometimes you may decide, you know what, this is frustrating for me. And as much as I dislike it, It really is something from my past and it really isn't something that these other people or situations are doing. And you may decide not to do anything externally about it, like no conversation, no problem solved, but you may instead decide you're going to do something internally about it. You're going to work on that issue to figure it out so that it is not such a big trigger emotional button for you. Now let's take a look at who we have here. Let's see what you guys got to say. I want to hear about y'all's triggers. I confessed mine. What's yours? All right. Hey Debbie and Rita. Let's see what Rita says. Almost every time we communicate, usually over Facebook messaging, my daughter, addicted loved one, is insulting. I'm tired of it, so I've stopped responding. Maybe she'll get the hint. So that's a good example, Rita, of taking a step back and giving yourself some time to compose. But that may be one of those situations where you do want to address it once you get the chance to really think it through and decide how you want to respond to the situation, because waiting for someone to guess what our buttons are or figure it out. A lot of times they don't figure it out, right? Ladies out there, if you're married, you have a boyfriend or husband and you wait for them to figure it out, they're not going to figure it out. Okay? So sometimes you just got to let someone know. Sometimes you just got to say, hey, I don't know if you're intending to do this, but this is the way this comes across to me and it really hits my button or whatever. Unless you think they're trying to hit your button. And in that case, you don't really want to give them that information because then they're like, bingo. That's like job well done. They'll just do it even more. Hey Terry. He says, after watching this, I feel less crazy. Thank you. You are very welcome, AMC. We all have a little craziness in us. We all have buttons and it's just really important information. Sometimes I have clients that say or do things that trigger me, not in the same way as like the other trigger, But maybe it triggers sadness or guilt or something like that in me. And it's just important to know what your buttons are because you can know what it means when that happens. Rita says that these buttons are a mirror of what we're putting out. I like it. That's deep. I totally agree. Marty says sober but lazy young adult in recovery. Is my trigger. Okay, Marty. So what you're saying is you have a young adult in your life. I'm guessing maybe that's your kid or something who's not drinking or using or whatever, but who's not functioning or moving forward. What is it about that that triggers you? So think one level deeper than that. That's a perfect example of that external situation. So it's like you've done good because you've done the recognize, right? Now evaluate what is that that hits your button so bad? Where does that connect to? And a good way you might want to ask yourself this, Marty, is they're lazy, they don't do anything, and that means blank. What would you fill in that blank with? It means blank. Usually if you finish that sentence out, you're getting pretty close to recognizing what it is that's underneath the situation that's really bothering you so much. I've got somebody else up here who says their button is disrespectful. So when someone, if someone was disrespectful, you sort of blow up or lose it. I can remember when I was a teenager, even I hated to see my friends, or not really my friends, but other teenagers would be super disrespectful to their parents. That just did not go down in my house. We pretty much did whatever we wanted. We didn't have a lot of rules, but we didn't act disrespectfully. And so that I can totally relate to what you're saying as far as disrespectful. Sometimes I'll see that happen in sessions, like when we have sessions, especially between parents and kids or something like that. And I'm usually pretty calm. I don't get heated very easy, but that'll just slam my butt and I'll be like, hold up, that's not going down. You can't talk like that in my office. I get all like— You're gonna have to leave because it hits that, it hits that button sometimes inside. And I do think it's okay to set a boundary on it. But for me, because I know that's my button, I have to be like extra careful about it. Let's see here. Rude, evil eye, and disrespectful. I love that. The evil eye. The evil eye. Is that to you? That's awesome. All right, everybody, don't forget to get your free download of the list because I'm telling you it's going to help you sort through and you're going to see some on there and you're going to think, oh yeah, I forgot about that one. That was definitely a button for me. I'm telling you, once you can identify them and name them, you have already gained a big chunk of control over it. So get your download. And up next, I have a whole video for you I made a few weeks back about feeling unheard because feeling unheard is such a Huge trigger for so many people. I have a whole video specifically on how to deal with that one. Thanks for hanging out with me, everybody. I will see you next week.