Latest / The Spiritual Shitshow Podcast / Why Am I So Triggered? How To Work With Triggers Instead Of Fighting Them

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Why Am I So Triggered? How To Work With Triggers Instead Of Fighting Them · The Spiritual Shitshow Podcast

• 0:00
  Julie Nguyen: Hello, and welcome back to the Spiritual Shitshow podcast.
• 0:03
  Julie Nguyen: My name is Julie Nguyen, and after my last episode where I went out on a limb and shared some of the channeled messages that have been coming through lately, I got a message from a listener, and she did not hold back.
• 0:16
  Julie Nguyen: she basically said,"Whoa, Julie, I was listening to that, and my entire system went,'No, no, no, no, no, no, no.' And I was shaking my head back and forth being like,'No, no, no, no, no.' I completely disagree, and honestly, I was triggered by what you were saying." And you know what?
• 0:35
  Julie Nguyen: I absolutely loved that she told me Because it got me thinking about this word that we toss around constantly now, which is triggered.
• 0:43
  Julie Nguyen: This person triggered me.
• 0:44
  Julie Nguyen: That post triggered me.
• 0:45
  Julie Nguyen: That conversation triggered me.
• 0:46
  Julie Nguyen: That experience triggered me.
• 0:48
  Julie Nguyen: Okay, but then what?
• 0:51
  Julie Nguyen: Are we just supposed to stop there?
• 0:52
  Julie Nguyen: Because I'm starting to think that maybe the trigger isn't the end of the conversation.
• 0:57
  Julie Nguyen: Maybe the trigger is actually the beginning of one I've been playing with a really simple reframe lately, and it's this: Triggers are just information.
• 1:07
  Julie Nguyen: That's it.
• 1:07
  Julie Nguyen: They're information.
• 1:09
  Julie Nguyen: Something in the outer world just bumped into something inside of you, and instead of immediately deciding that it's bad or that the other person is wrong or that you're wrong or that you need to hurry up and fix it, what if we just paused and said,"Ah, there's information here"?
• 1:30
  because if we look at it through a soul-based lens, everything is energy.
• 1:36
  Our excitement, energy.
• 1:38
  Our resistance, our jealousy, our contraction, energy.
• 1:43
  Our fear, our desires, our joy, all energy.
• 1:49
  And energy carries information.
• 1:52
  if we are consciously co-creating our lives, we need that information to navigate.
• 1:59
  We need contrast.
• 2:00
  Contrast is what gives things form in the physical reality.
• 2:04
  I know what I want because I've experienced what I don't want.
• 2:09
  I understand my yes because I felt the boundaries of my no.
• 2:16
  I discover who I am because sometimes I bump into something that makes my entire being say,"Not this.
• 2:24
  Not this." My anxiety kicks up, my nervous system revs up, not this And sometimes we bump into something that makes us deeply uncomfortable because a wiser, deeper part of us is whispering,"Actually, look right here.
• 2:41
  Stay here.
• 2:43
  Get curious about this." Now let me make something really clear because this is where a lot of spiritual circles kind of land.
• 2:55
  I do not believe that every trigger means,"Oh, that's your wound.
• 3:00
  Go heal yourself," because that can be exhausting.
• 3:04
  And then we just kind of get in, in the wheel, the hamster wheel of healing all the time.
• 3:10
  Sometimes a trigger is information that a situation isn't safe.
• 3:15
  It's your body telling you,"I need a boundary here." or it could be that your nervous system recognizes a harmful pattern before your mind does.
• 3:25
  And if you're anything like me, I'm a people pleaser.
• 3:28
  And I'm like,"Oh, well, maybe I should, or maybe this is a calling from the universe, or maybe..." And sometimes your nervous system recognizes a harmful pattern before your mind does.
• 3:39
  I know when I am really revved up, it is because my body has learned that it needs to scream at me before I listen because my mind and my personality is always like,"Well, it's the people pleaser way.
• 3:56
  It's the empathic way.
• 3:57
  And so my body is picking up the information and is telling me,"I don't agree with this." This is not for me." Hold a boundary.
• 4:08
  And other times, yes, someone bumped directly into a very tender, unhealed place inside of you, and it triggered you.
• 4:15
  So the work isn't automatically assuming you are broken.
• 4:20
  The practice is empowerment, listening, discernment.
• 4:30
  What is mine here?
• 4:33
  What belongs to them?
• 4:36
  What is here for me to learn and hold and grow from?
• 4:43
  And before we even try to answer that, there is a simple, powerful step we can take.
• 4:49
  Naming it.
• 4:50
  There is so much power in being able to name something.
• 4:58
  "I am really triggered right now," or,"Wow, I am feeling incredibly defensive," or,"Huh, interesting.
• 5:04
  I feel jealous." Or,"Damn, there I go again, needing to prove myself, wearing that old costume again." And do you hear the difference between I am not enough and I'm noticing a feeling right now that says I'm not enough The tiny shift creates space, and in the space you can breathe.
• 5:34
  You don't have to do anything with the trigger yet, just naming it, noticing it.
• 5:41
  When we are highly activated, we are in the charge.
• 5:46
  We are in the defending.
• 5:48
  We are reacting.
• 5:49
  We are proving or we're shutting down.
• 5:53
  We aren't in a place to decipher the great spiritual meaning of our lives.
• 5:58
  So the first practice isn't to solve it or to throw up a really strong, hard boundary to say,"No, no, no, no, no, no, no." It's just to sit with it.
• 6:10
  Let the physical charge settle into something neutral, and then we can get curious about it Curiosity is beautiful because it doesn't feel like interrogation.
• 6:23
  I'm not standing over myself like,"Okay, Julie, what's your fucking wound now?" Or,"Oh, there it is again.
• 6:29
  God, are we ever gonna get over this?
• 6:31
  Are we ever going to heal from this?" Because honestly, I'm not, interested in using healing as another way to beat myself up anymore If I keep signaling to the universe that I need to heal this and I need to heal that and I need to heal this, I will always need to heal something.
• 6:50
  And where I'm at now is how much living am I doing and how much healing am I doing?
• 6:57
  Because again, I can sit in healing forever.
• 7:03
  I can heal my inner child.
• 7:05
  I can heal my physical body.
• 7:06
  I can heal my ancestral line.
• 7:08
  I can heal the mother wound.
• 7:10
  I we can be in it forever instead, what I am reframing and asking myself is,"Huh, what's really going on here?
• 7:23
  And what did that touch?
• 7:26
  Am I giving my power away?
• 7:29
  Or is there a tiny truth here that I'm not quite ready to look at yet?" I've had to face this head-on recently as I'm practicing stepping confidently back into myself, my gifts, my energy, my creativity, my light, the things that I love And it's immediately bringing me back to who I was when I was 21, and oh my God, I was fearless in my 20s.
• 7:59
  I built dance studios in my 20s.
• 8:01
  I was fearless, and ignorance was bliss, but I didn't know enough to know what could go wrong.
• 8:10
  And because ignorance was bliss, later down the line, I had a lot I had to lament for.
• 8:18
  I had a lot that I was like,"Ah, I could have done that better." But I can't go back to being that 20-year-old woman.
• 8:28
  And now that I'm 47, I've succeeded, I've failed, I've built things, I've lost things.
• 8:36
  I'm in the stages of rebuilding them again.
• 8:39
  and I have accumulated incredible wisdom.
• 8:45
  And along with it, I've accumulated some fear because I don't have the luxury of ignorance is bliss anymore.
• 8:54
  I actually have lived experiences, so how do I turn these lived experiences into wisdom?
• 9:04
  So what I am asking myself is maybe the goal isn't to become fearless again.
• 9:09
  Maybe it's the question of how do I become courageous with awareness, courageous with wisdom, courageous with confidence?
• 9:20
  can I bring the raw excitement that I had when I was 21 and marry it with the deep wisdom of 47-year-old Julie?
• 9:30
  Can I know the risks, know that some people won't show up, and still choose to create anyways?
• 9:42
  Maybe we revisit certain lessons in our lives not because we failed them the first time, but because we are meeting them again from a higher rung of the ladder.
• 9:54
  More wisdom, more authenticity, more choice.
• 9:59
  And our triggers are just the little signals on the road saying,"Look here.
• 10:06
  Don't panic.
• 10:08
  Just look.
• 10:10
  Get curious.
• 10:12
  There's information here." So the next time that you feel the heat rise up in your chest and you say,"Oh my God.
• 10:19
  No, no, no, no, no.
• 10:21
  I am so triggered by all of that or that person or that information or that experience," before this, I want you just to stop.
• 10:32
  Before the story, before the text messages you might regret, just pause.
• 10:38
  I want you just to get excited about, wow, okay, this is information here.
• 10:44
  And then I want you to allow yourself to feel it, name it, get curious about it.
• 10:53
  What is it telling you?
• 10:56
  Listen.
• 10:58
  Breathe.
• 11:02
  And then choose.
• 11:04
  Okay, I have this information, and it's encouraging me to dot, dot, dot.
• 11:11
  It's pointing me in the direction of dot, dot, dot.
• 11:15
  It's creating contrast or structure so I can stay in alignment with dot, dot, dot The goal isn't to become a person who never gets triggered.
• 11:28
  The goal is to become someone who can be triggered without abandoning themselves inside of it.
• 11:36
  Your triggers don't get to make the decisions.
• 11:40
  Your fears don't get to make the decisions.
• 11:43
  You do.
• 11:46
  Thank the trigger for the information and then ask yourself,"What do I want to create from here?" Thank you so much for being here.
• 11:56
  Thanks for the feedback.
• 11:58
  Thanks for listening.
• 12:00
  Thanks for sharing your insights on how you are receiving the information, loving it, being triggered by it.
• 12:08
  It just feels really beautiful to be in a space where we can name things, be honest with things, and grow together through the mud of it all All right.
• 12:22
  Till next time