Live with Dr.Charryse 🧠: “Moving From Triggers To Trust”

Hello, Kardra Sphere. Welcome to Wednesday. Oh, I like that. I really like that. It's a very different way of being welcomed into a space without the whole casual, happy Wednesday. Not that your Wednesday can't be happy, but. Right. Sometimes it's just not. Welcome to Wednesday. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you chose to come and join the quadrosphere, as always. Let's anchor in a few ways. One rate your week. Let me know on a scale of one to ten, a true reflection of how your week is going. One meaning awful week, you want it to go away.

Ten meaning it's fabulous. Good morning, Audrey. Then where are you? Where are you geographically anchored in this space? Because it's this incredible and collective. Hello, Doctor Teresa. Opportunity for us to see where we are. I am currently here in Charlotte in my home. If this is your first time here, I'm glad you came. I'm Doctor Charryse Johnson, a licensed clinical mental health therapist, mindfulness practitioner and author. And I come into this space twice a week so we can talk about all things, life, health, trauma, keeping it all together, but really experiencing peace and harmony if we're willing to do the work.

If I had to rate myself this week, it's been a week, I'm going to be honest and say that my week is a three. I know one of the lowest ratings ever, but I'm optimistic. There's still some days left in the week and I feel like it can move up. And that's the great thing about rating your week. Hello, Minnesota. Hello, New York. Hello, North Jersey. Hello, Atlanta. What's up Buffalo? Oh, I've missed your comments so much. It's just not the same. But I appreciate the fact that you still came. You continue to use your emojis, continue to use those, those are a big deal.

And just, you know, give a little love while we're talking to each other and encourages the other people who are listening, let's get down to the focus of today. I'm going to title today. Hello, Charleston. Moving from trigger to trust. So regardless of where you would rate your weekend, raise your hand if you've been triggered this week. Most of us are going to have our hand raised. And maybe I should have said raise your hand if you've ever been triggered in life. So that was inclusive of everybody you choose.

Whichever one fits. Being triggered or sometimes I will call activated is a natural part of life because we're human, we have emotions, we have different experiences, we also have different nervous systems. And so that plays a lot into the kinds of things that activate us and kind of move us, what I call offline. So today, I want to focus on what happens in your brain when you're triggered. Three important things to understand about unaddressed triggers, and then how you can work through your triggers so you can move from trigger to trust.

And here is why this is so valuable. This is a lie you don't want to sleep on. When we are constantly triggered and those triggers and activation points are unaddressed, it causes problems. It causes things to be an even bigger problem than they would be if we're working through it. So when we move from trigger to trust, it allows our brain, our body, and our nervous system to come into this really beautiful balance so that we feel a sense of safety not only in our bodies, in ourselves, but in our relationships and in the world around us.

So what happens in your brain? Essentially, we have a lot going on in the brain. But for this purpose, I want you to consider this kind of three part dynamic. You've got the amygdala back here in the limbic system, back here in the lizard brain. This is the part that sends warnings and signs to your brain to protect you from danger. Then you have the hippocampus. It gives context to your story. It is giving you information about what's being played out. I feel myself excited. Let me repeat those two things a little slower for those of you who might be writing them down.

Amygdala am Ygdla sends warnings and signs to protect you from perceived danger. Let's just note, everything that we view as dangerous may not technically qualify as dangerous, but to our brain, it registers. I'll give you a funny example. If I'm asked to talk about something personal when I am not ready, my amygdala views that as dangerous. Can anybody else relate? Hippocampus is the area that gives context to the story being played out. So when my amygdala flyers off and says, this is dangerous, my hempocampus gives context and says, Charryse, calm down.

The person or persons that are asking you to speak right now, safe. Go ahead and say what you need. If it's giving the right context, then there's the prefrontal cortex, which helps calm and regulate the amygdala so that everything flows together and you can make those wonderful, lush decisions that keep you in life and keep you operating at your highest sense of self. If I need to repeat any of that, just put it in the chat, or send me an emoji of some kind, and I will repeat all of that. When you have experienced trauma, which is too much, too fast, too soon, when you've experienced harm, frequent disappointment, painful experiences.

Do I include everybody? I'm pretty sure I did. Then what happens is our hippocampus says I don't have the right context for this because all I'm able to access is our pain, is our trauma, is our past hurt, is the people who have let us down. So it goes deep back into the subconscious and pulls up all the junk that is unresolved. So it makes the moment feel like it's a threat. And then when that happens, everything is offline. The prefrontal cortex goes offline. It kind of disappears for a moment, and then it isn't allowed or doesn't have the ability in that moment to calm the amygdala.

So that's when you just react or shut down, or a combination of the two react, push people away, pull yourself away, isolate, engage in some kind of behavior to seek an external source of calm, to help you manage what's happening there. And when we're in that situation, it keeps us out of the things that we truly desire. It's also why it's important for us to do our work and do our part to address our triggers, especially the ones that we see. These continue to play out in our lives. Even if other people play a part.

We always want to self check and go, what's my part? And how this continues to activate me? Am I in connection, you know, with someone safe enough to also work through these triggers? While it is such a challenge, things to consider is a trigger is just a part of your story that hasn't been tended to or resolved yet. I want you to get that down. Maybe if you don't remember anything that I say. I would like for you to remember that a trigger is a part of your story that hasn't been tended to or resolved yet.

And how do you know whether or not it's been tended to? You seeing it and reacting to it is different than tending. Tending is like gardening. You look at it, what looks great, what doesn't have. I pulled up the roots of it. Am I making sure that I'm fertilizing this trigger and this story to make sure it stays? Stays well. So it's an active process, which we constantly have to do in different ways. And it's painful. It's painful to tend to our triggers, because we just want to fall back into what's comfortable.

Leave me alone. Get away from me. Eat, drink, be merry. All the different things are often easier in the moment than really going. Here this is, again, let me work through it. I'll also say this. If you've found yourself in a place, and I am speaking to myself as well, that you have ever said, oh, here we go again. That might be an indicator of a dynamic and a trigger that you want to work through, because there are moments and situations in our life where we do feel like we have repeated experiences, but part of it is because we are telling ourselves the same story.

The story that you tell yourself about the experience and experiences that you're going through are going to play a significant part, part in your ability to feel triggered or to feel trust. So when you are kind of looking at the triggers that you have or working through one specifically, keep in mind a couple of things. Number one, the threat isn't always as real as it seems. The threat is real. You're feeling it. It's valid. And what you feel is valid. What I mean when I say it may not be as real as it seems is I want you to consider, does the punishment meet the crime?

Is my reaction to this trigger parallel to the depth of what just happened to me? Let's say I'm in a situation and someone is talking to me. They say, man, you're always on the road. I bet your kids don't think you're the best parent and wonder why you're gone so much. That would be like a dagger in my heart. Now, for their information, my kids are grown and mostly out of the house and don't really care and love going with trips. You know what I mean? But I digress. Let's say that my response to that was to let them have it and just.

And I can do that in a very direct way while staying calm. Not a good trait. Sometimes that would be an example of me being triggered by an area that's important to me, considering it a significant threat, when really it was just somebody talking out the side of their neck and commenting and communicating on something that they don't know anything about because they don't know me or my kids. So if I'm in a place that that trigger has not been tended to, boom. What I'm gonna say and how I'm gonna react, and, boy, have I lived in that land in certain seasons of my life, just comes without direct thought or pause versus I've tended to it.

I've worked through it. I'm good with my life. My children are good with my life. Nothing that anybody can say is going to activate that? You picking up what I'm putting down? The second thing to remember, unaddressed triggers can cause you to be handcuffed by your own defense mechanisms. Here's how you know that you may be in a situation where your trigger, or a trigger is holding you hostage. Hostage. If you feel a push, pull, a tug of war, I want this, but no, I really think this is great for me, but I'm afraid this feels amazing.

Oh, but this is terrifying. I can think of a million different examples in my own life where I've had those conflicts. And those conflicts where we're walking towards something incredible and amazing and then being yanked back by an old, outdated, painful series of stories will keep us away from what we truly desire. And that's the third thing. Our unresolved triggers will cause us, or may cause us to self sabotage our destiny and keep us away from things that we truly desire. I was having this conversation with a friend a few weeks ago, and I was talking about a big change that I know I'm going to be making in the next several months.

And for a moment, the context that came up, the amygdala fired off and fear set in over, oh my goodness, I'm going to make another change. And it was kind of weird to, because this is also a change that I want. Push, pull. I want this change. Why am I terrified? Right? So one thing that she did, being the great friend that she is, reminded me, you're choosing to make this change and adjustment. And yes, it's different, but it's very possible. And it's not the first time that you've made a choice to change something in your life.

And it worked out. And I was like, oh, okay, good point. The other thing that I realized is what was coming up for me really had nothing to do with the change that I'm going to make, but more to do with the loss of a familiar dynamic. Right. Change makes us uncomfortable. Let me connect this to what we're talking about. Healing your trigger will be scary, will be uncomfortable, maybe even a little terrifying, will make you feel like you're losing something. And what you will gain on the other side of healing that trigger and moving it to trust is incredible.

So don't let what you think will happen keep you from moving from trigger to trust. So let's say that you are listening to this and you're like, woo, you are reading me. You're all in my business, in my mail. What do you do? You always want to work to find the origin of the story that has created harm and brought disruption in your brain. I'm going to say that again because that is key. Find the origin of your story. Remember, a trigger is a part of your story that has not been tended to, healed right or resolved.

So you have to find the origin of the story that has created the harm and brought disruption to the brain. I'll give you an example using what I was telling you about myself earlier. That whole dynamic of if somebody asked me to talk about something personal before, I'm ready. In my exploration over time of figuring out why is that so triggering to me, I discovered that growing up in a lot of chaos and a lot of trauma, being quiet was self protective. Going inside and internalizing my next move without anyone knowing was my go to coping skill.

So the thought of me sharing with somebody in the moment what I'm feeling so they could interject or give advice or stand in the way of what I felt like I needed to do or use that or manipulate, that was a no. But then that causes a problem because there are going to be situations where you need to communicate to people in the moment. Here's what I'm feeling right now, and not internalize it and come up with things in your head and then communicate it. But that was the origin of that story, and it is still a work in progress.

I'm better at it than I used to be, but it's still a little something that comes up with me that I have to fight against. But because I know the origin of my story, I can kind of speak to my amygdala, give my hippocampus a new story, and say, we are not in danger. It is okay to communicate what's happening. And whatever happens with whatever you communicate, you have the skills to manage. So, a four part process to find the origin of your triggers. Number one, identify your response. Let me say this.

If I could yell it for emphasis, I would have do this on paper. You will not successfully work through your triggers in your head, because in your head is where the distortion lies, the fear lies, and the false perceived stories lie. What you think about your story is real. I'm not invalidating that, but when we do this in our head, we're going to replay the same story we've always told ourselves. That's how we get stuck in. This always happens to me because we stay in our head. Do this on paper.

What was the trigger? Identify your response. How are you noticing yourself? Respond to your trigger. I'm internalizing. I'm being quiet. I'm being short. I'm being irritable. I'm being talkative. I'm being anxious. I'm eating more. I'm smoking more. I'm sleeping less. Whatever the case may be, then reflect on what led you to these emotions. This is something that I want to look like. This happened, Arrow, this happened. Arrow, this happened. It's not one thing that created the trigger. It may be one thing that was the icing on the cake to your response, but it's important, right, context.

This was going on. I didn't have enough sleep, and I was already irritable. Then I got frustrated. True story. Because there was a bank incident that took a lot of money out of my account. Then da da da da, then da da da. And this person said that, and boom, because it gives you an opportunity to go. There was a lot of things, we call them antecedents, that happened before I was triggered. That allows us to have context to see what was happening versus blaming the icing for the trigger. Three, what past experiences does this bring to the surface?

Oh, when there was a financial situation that brought up lack and scarcity and fear, because it's always something that I've worried about. And I was so frustrated because I feel like I always do the right thing to make sure that was okay and something still happened to me, and that reaches all the way back into not having enough as a child, which is the origin of that story. So you can even find that within one trigger, there are multiple stories that all created additional fear. And then, number four, what is not true about the story that I'm telling myself?

Because we get to the end of the trigger and we tell ourselves I'm a failure. I'm not good enough to do this. I'm losing control of who I am, or I'm terrible at my finances. What's not true about the story that you're telling yourself? Let me repeat those four. Number one, after you identify your trigger, identify the response. Number two, reflect on what led to these emotions. Go back as far as you need to. Number what past experiences, stories does this trigger bring to the surface? And number four, what is not true about the story you are telling yourself in this moment?

I dare you to try it. You're going to get triggered. Hopefully not today. You could also use this to process a past trigger or something that you feel like I'm often triggered when people do XYZ. Okay, so moving this from thought to action means more than hearts high fives. It's me. But actually sitting down and utilizing this process as a skill, keep this framework handy. Screenshot it on your phone. That way if you're not at home, you could grab a piece of paper and go whoop. I need to work through this because working through this before you respond will change your life.

We often get triggered and respond without really understanding the context of our fears and our stories and our defense mechanisms. And more than anything, I want you to be able to move from trigger to trust, to be able to trust yourself and trust that you can create a new story that is far better than the one that keeps replaying in your head. As always, I'm so glad that you came to. I think this is pretty valuable for us. I hope that it's something that you will listen to again as you need to, and something that you will share if you come across somebody else that is very activated and doesn't know how to work through it.

We don't have to sit and suffer in silence and push away the world we can work through and we can healed. So until we meet again, have a fantastic and fabulous rest of the week. And remember, you are amazing and incredible and enough. And if you're having a rough time, it's going to get better. I'll see you soon. Bye.