Episode #115

Triggering & CBT

The word ‘trigger’ has become synonymous with moments of fear, anxiety, or trauma being relived.

What is ‘triggering’?

How can you use CBT tools to cope with triggers?

Join me, Dr Julie Osborn, as I share with you the CBT tools that can help you move forward.

Click to listen now!

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Full Episode Transcript

Hi, this is Dr. Julie. I'm a Doctor of Psychology and a licensed clinical social worker specializing in Cognative Behavioral Therapy. I'm here to bring the power of CBT into your own life.

So first, I'm going to share an email I received from a listener. I always appreciate you guys reaching out.

So she wrote,

“Hi, Dr. Osborn.

“Thank you for your podcast. I'm trying to draw on your mantra because I've lived my life making decisions with feelings, and I'm always unsure of myself. I'm having trouble finding what's best for me when anyone else is around. I'm focused on them. I've been diagnosed with C-PTSD, which is chronic post-traumatic stress disorder, and prescribed Lexapro, which I don't take. Any advice from you would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.”

So I wrote back and I just said,

“Thanks for being a listener and your kind words. I would start by purchasing the Mind Over Mood workbook and getting started learning the CBT tools. The ABCs of CBT would be a great podcast to listen to. If you're also focused on others, I will listen to my podcast on codependency. Another good book is Codependent No More. I truly believe that if we pause and take a moment, we do know what is best for us. Although I understand this can be hard when we put others first. I hope this is a good start for you.”

And then I just asked for permission to share her email on the podcast. I just wanted to share that with you because I thought it was a really good question. When people start listening to podcast, my mantra she's talking about is about making decisions based on what's best for you, not how you feel. And that's something I live by and really helps me on a daily basis. And this is what she was sharing that she's just trying to learn. But sometimes when we are focused on other people, we do have to pause and say, okay, if I was going to make a decision based on what was best for me right now, now it's best for them or how I feel, what would I do? And that's always a good starting point. And another way to ask yourself that is to ask yourself, am I honoring myself in this situation, in this relationship, in this circumstance?

I believe we all know when we're honoring ourselves and when we're not. And if we can be honest with ourselves, maybe that's where we need to stop, get some help, talk to someone that we trust to start a new direction and to start taking better care of ourselves. So I just wanted to read that email. I thought it might be helpful for several of you guys getting started with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, what to do about Order to Mind or Mood workbook by Dr. Greenberg Padeski. That's my main workbook that I use. I also use Feeling Great by Dr. David Burns. Those are the two. On any of my podcasts, if you scroll down through the transcription, there is a button with the picture of the books, and that will take you to be able to buy them easy and simple so you know you're getting the right one. And as always, if you have any questions as you're working through the workbook, please reach out. Sometimes you just need a little direction to keep going, go forward. So I'm definitely here for you guys to make sure you can make the most of what you're learning with me.

That is the intention, right? To get more CBT out into the world so we all can start using it and be a better place and the world will be a better place. I think if we're making decisions based on being mindful of what am I thinking and challenging and balancing out my thoughts instead of making decisions and reacting off my feelings. So today, I wanted to share a very popular word that we all use a lot. And I thought this would be good to talk about because the word triggered is really popular right now. You probably heard it, I hear it a lot. This triggered me, that triggered me. And I thought, Oh, let's talk about this because we can really use our tools to deal with when we are triggered. So what is triggering first? So to give you a definition. So if you're being triggered, that word just describes when you're having a strong emotional response to a particular event or situation or even a topic. And when you're triggered, it means that something elicited this negative or really distressing reaction many times is due to past traumas. It could be to sensitivities and personal experiences you've had.

So to give you some examples, if you have ADHD, I've heard people getting triggered that even though they're really trying to stay focused and make good decisions and be organized and that stuff, that when they do make a mistake, their trigger is like, Oh, my God, I'm going to get in trouble or I'm going to get yelled at, or people are going to think that I'm not doing my best or I don't care. Because in the past, a lot of times, especially when you're a kid, if you have ADHD, whether your family knows it or you know it or not, not everybody gets diagnosed maybe as early as they could have, which would make a difference. You're always in this corrective mode where people are getting frustrated and yelling at you. That can become your trigger. And that's when we'll talk in a minute about using the tools saying like, okay, I'm an adult now. I'm not going to get in trouble. I didn't do anything wrong. I just made a mistake here, made a mistake there like everyone does. Another trigger, which I've experienced in my life and I've shared with you guys on my core belief podcast is my old core belief was that I was bound to be abandoned.

And that still gets triggered from time to time. When we have our core beliefs, I talk about how it's like part of your DNA that even though I've healed from that, I still have moments that something happens that still gets triggered because it's just such a huge part of my life from what happened when I was a little kid. So that's something to recognize, right? That, say, I'm sharing something in my marriage with my husband, and for me, maybe he's not paying attention enough or he forgot something, right? Nothing intentional, but he wasn't being mindful, and that could maybe trigger some abandonment feelings in me. Now I know that my husband is not going to abandon me, and I feel very secure with him, but that's my issue, and it could still get triggered, right? So we got to talk it out, be mindful. If you've been through any abuse, that can get triggered in many ways. From hearing other people's stories, you could be watching the news, you could be watching a movie, and all of a sudden, whatever abuse you went through: emotional, physical, sexual abuse, that's out there a lot in many stories, and that could be triggering as well.

Remember that smells can trigger you, certain sounds can trigger you, whatever that had to do with the situation that you're experiencing, I know I shared with you guys that I had cancer in the past, and I just celebrated my two year cancer-free, so I was exciting. But there's some times I'll be watching a comedy. I'm like, Oh, this is a great movie. All of a sudden, somebody in a movie has cancer or someone dies of cancer. I cannot tell you how often that happens. I'm just like, You got to be getting me. But it happens, get a little triggered, and maybe it gives me a memory of what I went through to get help, what I went through initially when I was recovering. So you never know. That's the problem with getting triggered, right? Is it's usually unexpected, right? If we know we're going into a situation, we might get triggered. We planned for, we're like, Yeah, I knew this was going to come up. Right? If I'm going into a hospital to visit somebody. I'm going to be mindful before I go of like, yeah, this could be a little difficult walking in a hospital because that happened for a little while after my surgery for me.

So we can prepare for certain things, but lots of times what is getting triggered is like, I didn't know that was going to happen. I wasn't expecting that. I'm not prepared. And that's why it can be like, overwhelming. So it happens on all different levels. I'm giving you guys a bunch of different examples, hoping that maybe you can relate to one. You probably have your own. But it's just to give you an idea of what does that even mean when someone's like, Oh, I'm being triggered, right? So what do you want to do when that does happen and how can we use our tools? So I'm going to kindI'm going to give you a handful of things you can do initially, and then I'm going to get a little more specific with the CBT. So first, you want to obviously recognize your emotions because that's what you're going to feel first when you get triggered, that emotion of taking your breath away, feeling anxious, feeling overwhelmed, feeling scared, feeling depressed. Right? So remember, we're always more aware of our emotions. Just as human beings, just the way it works. But that is what we want to use as our red flag to stop and say, okay, what am I thinking that's making me having all of these emotions?

And what's going on that I'm getting triggered? So you want to ground yourself and be like, okay, oh, yeah, it's the movie, or, Oh, God, that smell reminds me of the situation that happened, whatever it might be, right? So you want to recognize your emotions and figure out what is triggering you. And then you want to give yourself little space. Give yourself a little time to first calm down, right? Do some breathing, go take a walk, go reach out to somebody, and just give yourself a moment to calm down. So then we can start identifying our thoughts, right? When we're overwhelmed or anxious or panicky, whatever you might be feeling, it's hard to be like, Okay, what am I thinking? What am I thinking? Right? So I want to get you there, but I just want you to know you need to give yourself a moment just to take a breath and understand I'm being triggered, right? I'm not in harm's way. I'm not in a dangerous situation necessarily, right? I'm just being triggered from something from my past. And then I can start saying, Okay, yeah, what am I thinking? What are my memories or images that I'm having that's creating emotions for me?

We always want to identify what our thoughts are, right? Another thing to do that I just mentioned a minute ago was the breathing. So doing some deep breathing can help you regulate your emotions again, and it will decrease your anxiety if that's what you're feeling. So there's lots of different ways to do some deep breathing. I like the 4-7-8 breathing. I mentioned this a few times in other podcasts. If you go to YouTube and you look up 4-7-8 breathing, you can see a video with Dr. Andrew While, that's one of my favorites, where you can really help your breathing to calm down. And the 4-7-8 works really fast, so that's something you can look up. But even taking four deep breaths in your nose for four seconds and exhale four, and do that until you feel calm enough that you can say, okay, what is really going through my head? And what am I thinking that I'm having such reaction to the situation? Another tool is grounding technique, right? So this focus is on you being present in the moment. Think of grounding like I'm getting grounded instead of being overwhelmed. So I'm going to be mindful of where I am, right?

I'm going to even describe it myself like, okay, I'm in my bedroom. This is my safe place. I'm in my bed. I felt comfortable, that thing. You can touch objects around you, looking at the colors, the smells, theyouch, whatever, if you have a blanket. If I'm in my room, I have a blanket, if I'm in my room, my blanket. If you're in your car and this is happening, you can focus on that, I'm in my car, I'm safe, I'm going to pull over, that thing. So grounding gets you back to the moment. So just being mindful of where you are and describing it to yourself. That's a simple explanation of grounding. And then also reach out for support. So if you have someone that you're comfortable talking to or maybe even your therapist, right? That talking things out when you get triggered can be very helpful, right? And someone can help like, Oh, yeah, I understand. It was triggering because of this reason or that reason. You're safe. You're here with me. It's okay. You have your tools you can use, so it can help you process the whole situation better. Another thing always is self-care, doing things to help you relax, whatever that is, right?

What is it that you do that helps you calm down, meditation, whatever that might be to get you centered? And then doing some journaling or what I would also suggest, obviously, is a thaw record. I say obviously because that's what the CBT is all about, right? So doing the thought record, which is going to help you understand the triggers and the thoughts connected to them. So now, let's say I get triggered. Now, I've been able to use my grounding, my breathing. I understand that the situation is not what I think it is, but then I'm getting triggered from past experiences, right? So I would write down on my thought record, what was the situation? Where was I? What time? Who was I with? What were my moods? I would rate them. And then I would say, What are my thoughts? I'm going to be abandoned. This is happening all over again. I'm alone. I have to handle everything by myself. Those would be thoughts I personally would have if I'm feeling abandoned, thinking back to my past, not thinking I had control or that I had to control everything because I had to just rely on myself.

Those could be all my ha thoughts, my thoughts that aren't 100 % true that I'm having by getting triggered. And then that's going to increase me feeling anxious, sad, overwhelmed, maybe even a little scared, right? So for me to be able to like, okay, Julie, I know all these are how thoughts. I'm giving myself some grace, like it makes sense that I was triggered based on what I went through in my life. But now I'm not in that same place anymore. One thing I can do is looking at my experiences and the tools I've already used to change my fear of abandonment is knowing I'm not a little girl that can't do anything about her environment. Now I'm a grown woman. This is my life. These are my relationships, my experiences. And I do have some control on how to handle things in my life and that I don't have this fear of being abandoned like I used to and just put it into context. That's one thing I can do. Another thing I can do is continue with the thought record and say, Do I have any evidence for these hot thoughts that I'm out of control?

I'm going to be hurt, I'm going to be abandoned, I'm on my own. Nobody cares. I have to do everything on my own. I don't have any evidence for that. There's no evidence to support any of those thoughts because they're so hot. And then the evidence that doesn't support them is that, first of all, I have my own coping skills. I have my CBT tools. I have a loving partner I go talk to and get support. I have friends. I have family I can even talk to and just share like, Oh, all this came up for me. And I know it's not real, but it was just very emotional for me. And just to get that love and that support and have somebody help me process and maybe even do some grounding if I'm still feeling overwhelmed, right? And if it's a problem, a situation I have to handle, that support can help me come up with a game plan, an action plan, as I like to call it. So my new thought is that I'm not bound to be abandoned, but that particular situation triggered an old fear I had that's normal. I know it's going to be triggered the rest of my life because it's a part of who I am, but I'm okay and I can handle it.

And now I'm like, okay, I don't have to be anxious and scared and overwhelmed and all of those things because I've been able to walk through using that thought record and understanding where my thoughts came from, which caused me to feel that way. And a big thing with triggering might be the event, the situation, and what was that. And I want to add that if it is an event of, like so, say, going back to me, having a hard time going into hospital soon after my surgery, right, that next time I'm going to go to a hospital, because that will happen again for whatever reason, I'm going to just do some grounding with myself like, okay, you're healthy, you're safe, you're going in here just to get a test or a follow up, or you're going to go visit, if I had to visit a friend or family member and just be mindful, right? Now when I do go in, I do feel this difference that I don't get triggered like I did probably the first year after everything happened. So over time, things definitely do dissipate. They change. Using the tools, you will get better and you won't be triggered as strongly.

Sometimes you almost have to go through the triggering to even know that that particular event in your life can still affect you. But that's why learning the tools, now waiting for things to happen, if you're learning these tools so you have them when things happen in your life, it's like, Oh, okay, if something does happen, I'm going to use my tools, my breathing tools, my CBT tools, whatever those might be, you want to be ready for it, because we don't know when things are going to happen in our lives. But knowing that I have tools, I know that that consciously and subconsciously relaxes me in my life because I know that whatever comes my way, I know how to deal with it. And if it's not just me handling it, I have other people in my life I can go to. I hope you're starting to think about, Yeah, what triggers have I had? Could I have? Our brain works really fast. And when you've had triggering events or if it's been traumatic for you, your brain always remembers some of that, and it can't decipher through its thoughts what's going on. You have to do that.

That's why you can have these strong reactions, and you need to take that pause and say, Okay, I'm safe. What's going on? I need to calm down so I can work through this. Right? So again, everybody has their own triggers. And it's important to be patient with yourself as you explore this. And if they're linked to past traumas or any other disturbing experiences, I'd really encourage you guys to seek some professional help so you can address and you can manage them. Because what happens a lot is when we don't have tools and we don't address our triggers, we tend to just avoid situations. I'm not going to go here, I'm not going to go there. I'm not going to put myself out there, maybe in a relationship, whatever that might be, because that's going to trigger me. That's going to trigger me. We don't want to give the emotions, we don't want to give the experience of being triggered all of the control in our lives. We want to always say, What part can I control? What part can I change? What part do I have to let go? But I want to focus on what I can control and not let it control me, because if you allow that to happen, you're going to give up a lot of stuff in your life and your world is going to get really small.

Because if I'm not going to go here or I'm not going to go date again because some people I've said, I've been cheated on before, so I don't ever want to be vulnerable again, well, that's going to just leave you as a single person the rest of your life and probably lonely, right? Or you had a bad experience at a job, so you're never going to go work for anybody again. Not that you have to work for people, but most people do work for others. It's like, no, I need to have a new experience. What can I do differently so that doesn't happen again? So we want to learn from what we went through. We want to change how we think about ourselves and we want to prepare that the situation may come up again. But what am I going to do if that happens and what am I doing to prevent that from happening? I'm going to be as healthy as I can. I'm going to deal with my past, my hurts that could still affect me in many other ways today. And again, it's not just affecting me, but it affects everyone in my life, right?

If I'm avoiding places, if I'm not being vulnerable to get close to others, my family is going to miss out because I'm just going to be holding back all the time. And being close to them and with my friends too, and sharing and being authentic just makes the relationships even better. So I don't want to be fearful of not putting myself out there because maybe I'll be abandoned by somebody, right? I probably will be. But maybe that'll be one person and I still have lots of other people in my life, and I can't control somebody choosing to abandon me for whatever reason. But if it happens, I know what... I know what to do. And that's very empowering and gives me a lot of, I'd say, courage and strength, feeling and knowing that I'll be okay. So I hope this was helpful and again, got you thinking about your own triggers, write them down. Sometimes if you have someone in your life you're really close to, sometimes they can bring it up and say, You know, I noticed when this happens or when I say this that you have a hard time or you react negatively to it.

Maybe that's a little triggering for you and you'd be like, Oh, you know what? You're right. I appreciate that. That's some good insight. I wasn't putting that together. I was just reacting. I was being maybe angry or pushy or controlling, right? Thinking like, Well, that makes sense. I'm like this because of this, this, and that, but not really connecting to something in my past. So when you're close with people in your life and you're open to them sharing things like that with you, that can be helpful, too. So again, writing them down, you might be aware of some, but not always. And that's normal, right? We don't understand everything that's going on with this 24-7. So as always, be mindful, get into that habit that when you're having negative emotions, to ask yourself, the first step is, What am I thinking? And is it a hundred % true? Which of my thoughts are how thoughts? The ones that aren't a hundred % true? Which ones are facts? And let me find some balanced ways to change my thinking so I can get back on track and come up with the plan and feel good again, feel like I was feeling before I got triggered and understand that that's just part of life.

And also it's part of the healing process, too, I think. It just also allows me to be like, okay, maybe you need to do a little bit of more work, right? Just be more mindful and to remind myself like, Oh, yeah, I have all these things I can do when that happens, so I don't have to worry about it happening because I'll know what to do.

So thanks again for being with me here today.

You know how you can find me on my website, mycognitivebehavioraltherapy.com.

I'm also on Instagram at My CBT Podcast.

You can find me on Facebook under Dr. Julie Osborn.

And if you want to send me an email, you can reach me at mycbt podcast@gmail.com. Please keep sharing your thoughts, your concerns, your questions.

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Remember to make decisions based on what's best for you, not how you feel.