Triggers, AKA Autonomic Nervous System Dysregulation

There is so much talk about triggers lately. People getting triggered by seemingly everything. When did triggers become a bad thing? No one wants to be triggered, so they avoid - consciously or unconsciously. But what if I tell you that triggers are gold? What if we all have it wrong, backwards, upside down? What if triggers are actually the gateway to our healing and authenticity? Hear me out - you may have already become triggered.... We only get triggered by things we are passionate about and/or need healing around. Or else we wouldn't care. We would feel nothing, not in a denial/avoidant way, but in a unbothered/non-reactive way.

When we are feeling triggered, our autonomic nervous system (ANS) is sensing a cue of threat. And since our ANS is wired based on lived experience, it will continue to signal a threat when sensing what was once a threat to us as a child but is no longer a threat as an adult. Read that again. The trigger is the signal from the body that is senses a threat. Yes, that is true. And what may have been a very real threat to us in early childhood, may not be such a threat to us as adults. The sympathetic response that our body signals to us that there is a threat may be over reactive, outdated. What was once protecting us, is now inhibiting us from feeling safe and being in regulation, living our most authentic, present life. It's preventing us from feeling safe in ourselves and the world in present time based on a system that protected us when we were very little. We have more resources, choice, context, and coping mechanisms as adults, to navigate a situation that our ANS senses as a threat because it was when we were little.

Therefore, our work is to become attuned to our ANS - to feel when it moves out of regulation and into a threat or survival response. And then use our brain to ask if this ANS response is necessary and helpful in the current situation. Most of the time, it is not. Most of the time, it is operating from an unconscious patterned response, wired very early on in life. And because it operates below our level of conscious awareness, it will continue repeating the outdated response until we rewire it to the present. Read that again. We have the ability to rewire our ANS and update it to the present simply by tuning into it and actively bringing it back to feeling a sense of safety. That's our power. Especially in a time when we feel so out of control and powerless. Let's focus more on what we actually have control over so we may feel more in control.

Did this trigger something in you? Are curious about getting to the core of what keeps you from feeling stuck in life? Looking for an accelerated pathway from surviving to thriving? Wanting to feel more empowered during a chaotic period in time? If so, working together to attune to and update your ANS may be the approach you've been looking for. Reach out for a consultation today.