Ep 62. What to Do When You’re Triggered

I am Kym Showers, and this is Reinvented After 40, episode number 62: What to Do When You’re Triggered.

Hey, friends. Welcome to Reinvented After 40, a podcast for all you women in the second half of life who are ready to take responsibility for your own wellbeing and create a life you love living.

I’m your host, Kym Showers, and after spending the first 40 years of my life people-pleasing and following all the rules, I was exhausted and ready for a change. I reinvented myself. I stopped outsourcing my happiness. And I’ve been brave enough to live a different kind of life.

I’ll be here each week to help you do the same thing. It’s going to be fun. Let’s go.

Hey, my friends, welcome back to the show. How are you today? It is actually early Friday morning and I just got back from working out with my trainer. It was a great workout. And yesterday I drove to Bakersfield to meet with my nurse practitioner, she’s amazing. But she has been doing my face treatments and my lip injections. And I get a little Botox. I get that done maybe once or twice a year. And then I started this face and neck treatment to tighten up my skin because I am 61. If you’re 61 you know what happens to our skin as we age. So it gets a little saggy.

And I’m about the treatments, tell me all the new things and then I’m going to probably say yes to it. Her name’s April Cooper, she’s in Bakersfield and I love, love, love her. She’s just very in tune with who I am and what my skin does and the look I want. And I really just like staying as natural as possible but I’m never opposed to any kind of betterment for myself. So anything that’s going to make me look and feel better, I’m just all in on it.

So it’s three treatments three months in a row. It’s called Morpheus. I think it’s called Morpheus 8 or something like that, but it’s so uncomfortable, you guys, it’s super uncomfortable. But I think it’s going to be worth it. This was my second round and it’s for my neck and my face but it’s uncomfortable. And if you want to know what it is just look it up, Morpheus with a P-H-E-U-S, look it up and it’ll tell you and you’ll know why it’s uncomfortable.

But my face is very blotchy and red this morning, as I knew it would be and my neck is really red and swollen as I knew it would be because of course our neck is so much more tender than even our face is. But I think I’m going to just love the results once I’m done, just a little tightening up of my neck without surgery, without pulling it back. But anyways, I’m telling you this because sometimes we have to go through things that are uncomfortable to get the results we want in life.

And that’s why I’m talking to you about being triggered. So what we do when we’re triggered, there is something to do that’s going to use this experience to make us better. There is nothing bad about being triggered if we decide that if we just use it as information. So what I always tell you guys is that the worst thing that can happen to us is a negative feeling if you really think about it. If we’re living our life trying to avoid negative feelings, we’re going to miss so much growth, and evolvement, and uplevelling our life.

It takes some negative feelings to teach us what we need to know, what the next step forward is. So I told you on my Instagram this week that last Friday I was triggered. And it took me by surprise because I just rarely am anymore and it’s because I’ve been doing this work now for almost five years. I’ve been practicing the tools of this mindset work that I teach, not that I don’t feel negative emotions regularly because I absolutely do. But instead of reacting I intentionally respond.

I’m really good at slowing everything down and feeling the negative emotions and letting it all be okay. But last Friday was the anniversary of my dad’s death, the first year anniversary. You know the relationship I had with my dad, and I still have even after his death with him because I love him so much. He’s taught me, he’s with me, he’s a part of me. And I had this experience on Friday, I was obviously vulnerable. And something had happened with someone else in my life that I care about and I was just triggered on Friday.

And I got really upset and then I got really mad, and I used the eff word a few times which is unusual also for me. But I cried, just that angry cry and I used the eff word. And I just really reacted from this trigger. So I was with my husband, I was with my sister and my brother-in-law who are all very safe people and who this had nothing to do with. But I have to tell you, I’m so glad it happened. In the moment I was overtaken with so much deep negative emotion. And the circumstance that triggered me, if I explained it to you it wouldn’t seem like it would be enough.

It didn’t match the level of negative emotion that it brought up. And that’s what triggers are. Sometimes we get so mad and upset about something instantly that doesn’t really make sense to us. So I just want to explain to you a little bit about this process, the next 24 hours what happened. So this was on a Friday late afternoon, early evening we were at our house. And I got super upset and then of course my sister is just so amazing and she’s my partner in crime and my sister and she knows me so well. And so she was so patient with me.

And she just loved me and listened to me and had so much compassion for me. And so that was of course very helpful. And of course my husband and brother-in-law did too. And they just had so much compassion for me, and it probably lasted 15 minutes and then I gathered myself and the rest of the evening was okay, and we had a sweet time together. But this is what I learned, I didn’t sleep that well that night, but I just gave myself so much space, so much understanding, so much love, so much compassion.

And I just tried to figure out where it came from and that all happened pretty quickly because I have been in this habit, in this practice of not being mean to myself. But instead, showing myself compassion and love just like I would my granddaughters, just like I would with my kids, just like I would my husband, and my sister, and my brother-in-law, just like I do with my clients. I just show my people so much love and compassion and no judgment, just so much understanding.

And so that’s what I practiced on myself on Friday, just I decided I wasn’t going to judge myself, or criticize myself, or be mad at myself at all for getting mad, and so upset, and using the eff word, because in the past I would have. I would have gotten so mad at myself, I would have sat in so much shame, and blame, and gotten mad at the person that I thought triggered me. But I didn’t do any of that.

So that’s step number one, when we get triggered, go straight to self-compassion, and understanding, and self-love, and give yourself space to know that you had good reason to react the way you did. But it is never the circumstance’s job to not trigger us. And in the circumstance I’m talking about the situation or the person that we want to blame. That’s where we go first is they shouldn’t have said that. They shouldn’t have done that, it’s their fault. That’s where we want to go, we want to blame them and then we want to turn around and be mad at ourselves for reacting.

So step number one is not blaming them or shaming ourself, but instead showing ourselves so much love and compassion and then figuring out why we were triggered. And that’s what I did on Friday. Once I’d figured out why I was triggered, it made so much sense to me. It’s like, of course, I was vulnerable. I was raised by a mom, and I know if you’ve listened to all my episodes, I have talked to you about my relationship with my birth mom, the mom who raised me. She was always emotionally unstable.

And she was very sensitive and overreactive as far as her emotions go, thin skinned, walking on eggshells. That’s why I became such a good people pleaser. So when I would do anything, I could not have any boundaries in my life for the first 30 years of my life when I was in relationship with her. Because any time I would say no to her, or not comply, or not just appease her, she would get so upset with me. And this is what she would do, she would give me this silent treatment. And the silent treatment was so painful for me.

And she would sometimes for days, sometimes for weeks she would not speak to me. But what she would do is be extra nice and communicative with my siblings. But she was making a point with me, don’t you ever make me mad again or this is what’s going to happen to you. You are left out. I will not be kind to you. I will not do anything for you. I will not even acknowledge you. So that’s what my mom would do. So I’m 61 years old and the silent treatment still has a tendency to trigger me.

So I’m just telling you, if you ever want to hurt my feelings, if you’re in my life and I really care about you, and you really want to hurt my feelings, just shut me out, give me the silent treatment, do not respond to me if I contact you. And you will be guaranteed that my feelings will be a little bit hurt. But I will not blame you for that. I will own the whole experience. That is what triggered me on Friday. I was so triggered by a circumstance just like that and I was so upset about it.

And I didn’t really understand the reaction, the visceral reaction, all the negative emotions that came up. I’m so glad I felt them. I’m so glad I got them out. But then after self-compassion and figuring out what it was exactly that brought those negative emotions up, it was something from my childhood that I was wired this away. I took it so personally. I made it mean something about me. And it just created a lot, my thoughts about it created a lot of hurt, a lot of anger, a lot of negative feelings that came up.

So then the next thing I did after this awareness that, that makes sense now why I reacted, why I was triggered. And no shame, no blame, not for the circumstance and not for me, acceptance in all of it. Compassion in all of it and now what do I want to do moving forward? So the way I don’t get stuck in the spinout of shame, and blame, and being mad at myself is loving what is. You know how I always tell you the universe is always working for us, for our good, even in the painful circumstances, even in the painful reactions, even in the times when we are feeling negative emotion.

The universe, if we allow it, if we accept it, if we do not blame the circumstance or anything outside of us and do not shame ourself, if we go, “Wow, I am so glad this happened. How can I forgive the circumstance, forgive myself, learn from it and move on?” This is the acceptance, the awareness, and now the shift, the choosing, the adjustment on my part moving forward. I know now that shutting me out or giving me the silent treatment is kind of a trigger for me and I let it be okay. It’s okay.

And it empowered me so much, you guys, I of course apologized to my husband and to my sister because I don’t want to – well, and of course they’re both my family, it’s just like oh my gosh. My sister goes, “Do not apologize to me. that’s what I’m here for.” And of course my husband’s the same way. They had just shown me so much love and compassion. And I just loved the whole experience, it was so good for me.

And then I took it to all my groups this week and told them specifically what happened because my group containers are a safe place where we can lay everything out, and name names, and tell the specific stories and we’re all safe. So I told them specifically what happened and then how I responded to it, how I healed from it, how I was okay after 24 hours from it and just let it go. And I moved on. And because I’m a life coach, so my brain’s like, well, you shouldn’t be acting like this if you’re a life coach. This is what you teach about.

And I’m like, no, I totally should be doing this, this is perfect. This is the perfect way for not only for me to grow but for my clients to grow. I’m going to tell them exactly what happened, and exactly the steps that I went through, that I specifically worked on afterwards. And I found out how emotionally resilient I have become. And I am so proud of myself for making so much progress in the last five years with these tools that I teach them.

And then you know what happened in every single group this week? Every single one of my clients brought up a trigger in the last week that they didn’t even know they wanted to work on. And so we got specific on their triggers and the tools that they could use, and the steps that they could take. And they figured out why they were triggered. And it was such a beautiful work this week for all of us.

And that leads me into you and your triggers because I know you have them. And there are specific steps that you can take in awareness, and acceptance and no judgment, but only self-compassion and love. And then the resilience of making the changes you want to make in your thought, feel, act cycle, moving forward, not blaming the circumstance and definitely never shaming yourself when that shame comes up. Being able to let that shame go, by deciding you should have done that.

It is for your good and your benefits to react and to get triggered. Now how can you become more emotionally resilient in this self-love moving forward, in this acceptance moving forward? Empowering yourself because it is not the world’s job to not trigger us. It’s the world’s absolute job to trigger us. It’s our job to figure out why we’re emotionally triggered. And then dig in and do the work so that we become women, gritty women who are emotionally resilient. That is our job.

That’s the beautiful work that I do with my clients in my small groups week, after week, after week. It is profound, it is beautiful, it is empowering. And I want you to come work with me. If you are a yes, this is your opportunity. I start my next group and it’s the last group I will start for this year 2022. It starts Tuesday December 6th at 10:00am. There are only three women in every single group I have. Some of them are even two women, there’s three of us. It is the most empowering boutique lifechanging container that you say yes to when you make your investment in yourself.

I would love to coach you for the first time, and you can ask all the questions, go to my website kymshowerslifecoach.com and send me an email and we’ll schedule you a 30 minute coaching session. You will get a taste of one-on-one coaching. You can ask all the questions about my next group, and you will say yes. You will want this experience moving in to the new year. Making the changes in your life that you haven’t been able to make on your own.

You will make these changes in this small group container, this life coaching container that will absolutely shift your thoughts. And you will become the emotionally resilient woman that you’ve always longed to become. No more walking on eggshells. No more thin skin. No more overreacting and being triggered so easily, constantly. You will learn and it will happen pretty quickly, you will see results instantly I promise you. I see it in every single one of my clients week after week.

So that’s what I have for you today. I hope this was extremely encouraging and enlightening for you. And just know that you’re not alone and you can create any kind of life that you want for yourself. And I am here to be your life coach and to teach you, and coach you, and help you get there. I love you so much for showing up today, please follow, rate, and review this show and you will get your name in the hat for the new AirPods, I will be giving away at the end of this month, beginning of December. You will have those for an early Christmas gift.

And definitely strongly consider saying yes to yourself and saying yes to life coaching and taking one of these three spots in my small group that starts Tuesday morning 10 o’clock, December 6th. I would love it. You will love it and be changed forever I promise you. Okay, have the best week and I will see you next Thursday.

Thanks for listening to Reinvented After 40. If you want more information or resources from the podcast, please visit KymShowersLifeCoach.com.