I spoke in the previous blog about triggers. In today’s blog, we’re going to look at ways of differentiating the different outcomes from these triggers, to reduce the trauma impact.
The key point is to differentiate triggered feelings from ‘regular’ feelings.
Triggered feelings are generally sudden, intense, and slow to fade away. They hurt and you feel them much more intensely. Whereas ‘regular’ feelings fluctuate more gently and gradually build to a peak. Triggered feelings relate to the past whereas regular feelings relate to the present.
Being able to differentiate between these feelings is important because it allows the logical or executive functioning area of the brain (prefrontal cortex) to stay online. If you can keep it online, then you are winning the battle. If you start ‘thinking’ that what I’m feeling is part of my past (trauma trigger) or is part of my present (regular feeling), then that part of the brain will tell the body that you are not in any immediate danger. It is a ‘feeling flashback’ – it’s just a trigger and not something bad is going to happen. You are observing the trigger, and not allowing the trigger to activate a nervous system response as IF there was real danger present.
The prefrontal cortex can differentiate between the different types of triggers, whereas the body can’t. It only knows that it’s being triggered and not whether the source of the trigger is real or perceived.
