Latest / The Spiritual Shitshow Podcast / Why Am I So Triggered? 3 Ways to Regulate Your Nervous System

Transcript

Why Am I So Triggered? 3 Ways to Regulate Your Nervous System · The Spiritual Shitshow Podcast

• 0:11
  Hello, and welcome back to the Spiritual Shit Show.
• 0:14
  My name is Julie Nguyen, and in our last episode, we talked about a pretty big concept, the idea that everything is energy, and energy is information.
• 0:25
  And by extension, that means your triggers are information too.
• 0:29
  But let's be honest, it is incredibly easy to say,"Oh, my triggers are my teachers," when you are sitting in a quiet room drinking tea and feeling completely fine.
• 0:39
  It's a beautiful spiritual concept.
• 0:42
  But it's a completely different story when you are actually in it.
• 0:46
  When somebody says the thing and you can feel your body reacting.
• 0:51
  When your partner uses that tone and you feel that fire inside of you.
• 0:56
  When you feel rejected, criticized, or deeply misunderstood.
• 1:01
  Sometimes you just walk into a room and suddenly your entire body feels different and nothing obvious even happens.
• 1:08
  You're just suddenly overwhelmed or flooded or anxious.
• 1:13
  For me, my tell is my head literally begins to shake.
• 1:17
  My nervous system shakes my head no In that moment, you don't want a teacher.
• 1:23
  You want to fight, you want to prove your point, you want to run, or you want to completely shut down today we are going to take this one step further.
• 1:36
  We're gonna talk about what is actually happening in your nervous system when you get triggered, and more importantly, what the hell to do about it when you're in the thick of it When you are triggered, your conscious, logical brain, the prefrontal cortex, essentially goes offline.
• 1:56
  It hands the keys over to your survival brain, the amygdala.
• 2:00
  Now, your amygdala doesn't care about your spiritual growth.
• 2:05
  It doesn't care about energy as information.
• 2:08
  It cares about one thing: keeping you alive.
• 2:13
  It perceives that text, the tone, what you've heard, or the rejection as literal physical threat, and your body floods with cortisol and adrenaline.
• 2:26
  You are no longer reacting to the present moment.
• 2:29
  You are reacting to a past memory that your body has stored as unsafe.
• 2:35
  So how do we bring you back?
• 2:38
  how do we translate that trigger as information into actual healing when your body is screaming danger?
• 2:51
  It can happen in three steps Step one, locate it.
• 2:58
  Instead of trying to fix the thought, I want you to drop your attention into the physical body.
• 3:04
  Where is the trigger living right now?
• 3:07
  is it a knot in your stomach?
• 3:09
  Is it a tightness in your chest?
• 3:11
  A clenching in your jaw?
• 3:12
  For me, it's in my eyes and in my neck.
• 3:17
  But I want you to find it for you, and then name it silently.
• 3:22
  I feel tightness in my chest.
• 3:25
  I feel the grip in my stomach.
• 3:29
  And then this simple act shifts you from being the emotion to observing the emotion, the sensation, and the feeling Step two, slow down the biology.
• 3:45
  You cannot think your way out of a psychological hijack.
• 3:51
  You have to breathe your way out Breath is the transition here, and the quickest hack for your nervous system is the psychological sigh.
• 4:01
  So two quick inhales through the nose, followed by a long, slow exhale through the mouth.
• 4:08
  Let's do this together.
• 4:11
  So take a double inhale And then a long exhale.
• 4:20
  Let's try it again.
• 4:23
  Ready and inhale But it feels good, and I like the number three, so let's do it one more time.
• 4:43
  This sends a literal biological signal to your brain that says,"Okay, we are safe now." And then step three, I want you to ask the golden question.
• 4:58
  Once your heart rate starts to drop, and only then, you can ask,"How old does this feeling feel?" Whoa, that feels powerful, doesn't it?
• 5:12
  How old does this feeling feel?
• 5:17
  Because the trigger is rarely about what is happening right now.
• 5:22
  It's usually an echo Does the feeling of rejection feel like you're 30 or does it feel like you're eight?
• 5:35
  When you identify the age and how old is this feeling, that's where you can find the information, and that's where trigger is giving you information.
• 5:47
  and then you remind yourself that the adult version of you can handle this trigger, the text message, the tone, the rejection, what you heard And it's your eight-year-old version maybe of you that felt that they couldn't survive that isolation, that they are fearing being abandoned again, that they're resisting and feeling the trigger of not being heard, seen, valued, loved Your triggers are information, but they're not the pop quiz you need to ace.
• 6:22
  Your triggers are information, and they are simply a roadmap pointing to the parts of you that are still waiting to be comforted, integrated, and brought home.
• 6:36
  So the next time you feel triggered, don't try to be spiritual.
• 6:42
  just try to be present.
• 6:44
  Breathe.
• 6:46
  Find your body.
• 6:49
  Remember your breath And I love this question: How old does this feeling feel?
• 7:03
  Thank you for listening, and I'll see you next episode