STOP! I've just been triggered STOP I've just been triggered

We are back today to chat about when our triggers cause us to feel sad :( 

"This is one I really struggle with for many, many, many years. Everything made me feel sad. I think it’s my default emotion." says Candice

And that not uncommon for empathetic people. 

Sadness is one of those things that we all feel from time to time and all sorts of things can trigger us to feel sad. 


having trouble at home (for example, family fights or domestic violence)


having trouble at school or work, or feeling pressure there


moving home


losing a loved one or a friend


being ill, or caring for someone who is ill


experiencing chemical changes in your body (from puberty, drugs or medicines)


experiencing changes in your thoughts (for example, developing an unhelpful thinking style such as being self-critical, or learning new information about subjects such as poverty or terrorism).



Sadness often occurs at the same time as other feelings, such as anger, stress, guilt, grief, anxiety or hopelessness. 

Sometimes, the other feeling may be so strong that you don’t realise you are sad. Or the sadness masks those other feelings. So sadness is one that often needs a little investigating to get to the root cause. 

Tune in to hear us chat about navigating sadness....

It’s nice to be back after a little extended break! We thought we’d run a little series called Behind the Triggers to look into the emotions behind our triggers … 

A lot of us have that anxious feeling running through our bodies on a regular basis, and those feeling comes in a variety of states -

from intense alarm bells loudly ringing to fear running in the background of our thoughts. 



And when this happens, we may withdraw socially, rely on substances or get caught up in drama to escape this feeling of impending doom.

Truth is we end up walking through life fearful of looking at what causes this overwhelming worry & we begin to believe that we are just anxious because one or both of our parents were  worriers.

 

It’s amazing how quickly we accept this as truth, instead of we are in fear because we have been traumatized at one or more points in our lives. 



Tune in and listen to us chat about finding safety when triggered.

Nat and Candice have been chatting about how to make this podcast as impactful as possible, and have decided to, every now and then, include an episode that is a guided experience to help people navigate particular triggers or the impacts of triggers.

In this episode you will be guided on an experience to help remove the emotional charge of a history of not feeling heard.

This guided experiences are a combination of the modalities Nat and Candice use, influenced by narrative therapy, hypnotherapy, meditation, parts therapy and somatic release… We are going to go gently with these and encourage everyone to be gentle with themselves as they follow along.

Think of this as a self-help audio to be followed when it’s safe to do so, with your eyes closed and body relaxed. So maybe in bed, on the couch, somewhere
comfortable and safe to follow along.

Relax in and allow yourself to fall into a dream like state.

All sorts of things can get passed down through families generationally, physical characteristics, personality traits, genetic conditions, and in some cases
trauma can also be inherited.

Fascinating isn’t it. Now there is still a stack of research that needs to happen to really clarify exactly how this happens and how it all works. But at the moment there are theories around it occurring through in-utero exposure to things like stress hormones and also trauma being passed down and activated through
epigenetics.

If you think of it from an evolutionary perspective, because our brains are hardwired to keep us safe, for our survival we are passing down what our brains/bodies think are essential survival traits, but is actually trauma… Humans are a very clever species, but we all still have these primitive survival instincts that happen on autopilot unless we do some work essentially rewire those instinctual responses and make changes in our life around the things that trigger those
responses.

Listen along to this fascinating and often forgotten part of the trauma experience.

In our latest episode we are chatting about Big T Trauma. It's a bit of a heavy on, just a heads up!


Big T Trauma is a reaction to a deeply disturbing, life-threatening event or situation — so for example, war, natural disasters, violent crimes, a school shooting, a serious car accident, or sexual abuse. In addition, the death of a parent or loved one can be a big T trauma. 

 

These are the types of trauma that can lead to PTSD.  For trauma to be considered PTSD, symptoms must last more than a month and be severe enough to interfere with daily functioning.



Acute big T trauma results from a single traumatic incident, while chronic big T trauma is the result of repeated, ongoing trauma, such as physical or sexual abuse or domestic violence. Bullying or cyberbullying can also qualify as chronic trauma, particularly if it is severe and ongoing.

 

Big T trauma and PTSD have serious mental, physical, and emotional impacts on people.


As we said it's a heavy one, but it's worth a listen.

In this episode we are chatting about Little T Trauma and sharing a couple of simple therapy tools you might find useful. 
For a long time in the trauma space even professionals were led to believe that trauma only existed when we experienced life threatening events, like war, rape, natural disasters and horrible things like that. But over time it became overwhelmingly obvious that people were experiencing events not typically defined as trauma and having the same emotional and physical impact which led to a huge expansion in the definition of and our understanding of trauma.
Little T Trauma refers to events that typically don’t involve violence or disaster, but do create significant distress. Meaning, things like an ongoing situation what causes you to feel distress, hear, or a sense of helplessness can cause little T Trauma. So it might be a relationship breakdown, loss of a job, financial worries, not being heard, seen or validated as a child, times where you felt isolated and alone.
These trauma’s can often be a little more difficult to identify because there wasn’t necessarily one big obvious event that stands out that caused the trauma to be trapped in the body.
Remembering that trauma isn’t the event, it’s the response that happens within you.