Understanding Triggers

Why building somatic resiliency is important.

A client asked me the other day, with a bit of irritation, “Why don’t you start with triggers since they are the things that throw us off course?”.  I loved that question as it showed me she was really committed to building somatic resiliency. I gently asked, “How would you know you are triggered if you didn’t fully posses the ability to know when you are truly relaxed?”

After several moments she looked up and said “Cool. I am finally getting this thing you call taking up the leadership of your life. Those triggers I have are not totally mine but they do live in my body so I would be wise to heal them.”

To which I said “yes-ish”. 

“They are yours, as they live within and trigger your mind-body connection to react. But they also belong to another moment in time, of your life, where they got truncated and are still stuck in your neuromuscular structures, often expressed as body armor. Which is why I am a fan of somatic yoga and yoga nidra.  They are tools that can initiate a clearing process so both body armor, and triggers, take up less space in your body-mind connection, freeing you up to express something other than that reaction.”

Any time you have a reactive “out of context” experience to something said in conversation, watched on TV or in a movie, when you see something, hear something, taste something, feel something and it causes you to react vs. respond to the moment, that’s generally a sign that you have an unresolved past experience still operating in your nervous system. It’s also a sign that you will be well served if you shift the reaction-response ratio more in the direction of being able to respond.

And if you’re thinking, “Well, how do I do that?”

You do that by learning how to activate the relaxation response in your nervous system so you can pause before you express what is rising in the consciousness of your mind-body connection.  And in that moment of pause, creating greater “space” to be with what is instead of throwing something into the exchange, thereby reinforcing your reaction side of the ratio, you are shifting this equation, by increasing the response side.

And just so you know, I see this is a good news-great news scenario.

The good news is you are now ready to process, to a more complete resolution, whatever past experience(s) bred this trigger.  And how do I know that? The very fact that it showed itself to you, and that you are now able to hold it in awareness, is the first step in any healing process. In other words, the fact that you are aware of this trigger, and the reaction it causes, is a sign that you are in a good position to engage it consciously. So good job!

The great news is that by learning to activate the relaxation response, through a process of building somatic resiliency, you will strengthen your capacity to pause, and move further along the path of resolving this issue before it grows into something else within your body-mind connection.

And in case you’re wondering “What do you mean, grow into something else?” Let me explain.

Unresolved past moments can turn into personality traits that develop approaches to relationships that are engendering of competition instead of collaboration.  They could turn into a habit of frustration or irritation or boredom that becomes a baseline of experience for your entire life. They could turn into headaches or stomach aches or poor digestion as the side-effects from living a life of reactivity.

By activating the relaxation response in your mind-body connection, especially after an incident of anxiety, stress, & overwhelm or a strong mental-emotional reaction, you begin to give those energies, and any stories attached to them, less real estate in your neuromuscular structures.  And as you get more adept at activating the relaxation response when you need it, your mind-body connection gets better at healing patterns from a previous time stuck in your neuromuscular circuitry.

I can almost hear you thinking, ‘What kinds of activities will help me to learn how to activate the relaxation response?”.

Taking a stroll in the woods and learning to feel the stillness of the forest is a fantastic activity.  Walking along the ocean shore, along a river or a creek and listening to the sound waves of the moving water are great activities.  Listening to a water fall, bird song, the wind in the tree’s, the rain patter on the leaves of the trees are tremendous ways to activate the relaxation response.  Enjoy a somatic yoga class, a yoga nidra class or a medication class that makes your feel good, and more fully in your body, are awesome activities. Sitting quietly while taking in a beautiful view or scene, one that makes your smile, is a nourishing activity that will help to activate the relaxation response.

These activities can also be considered a form of brain fitness or mind-body connection nutrition as they positively affect your vagus nerve and all the physiological functions that the vagus nerve influences: your heart rate, cardio-vascular profile, immune system, digestive system.  The vagus nerve is a sensory network that facilitates communication between your brain and your internal organs (digestive tract, lungs, heart, spleen, liver and kidneys) so as you learn how to activate the relaxation response, building your somatic resiliency, you are enhancing your vagal tone.

All of these activities are an important part of a process I call Engaging Your Wholeness, which includes a devotion to addressing the reaction-response ratio any time you notice it out of balance. And the quickest way to amp up the response side of that ratio is to learn how to activate the relaxation response within your nervous system.

Are you ready to re-sculpt your nervous system for ease?

And just in case you’re thinking “I am not sure I can learn how to relax” let me be the first to tell you, “Oh yes you can”.

Remember, we have a whole mechanism in our autonomic nervous system whose whole purpose is to “turn up the volume of relaxation”.  That’s all that it does.  All you need to do is to meet the conditions that precipitate its activation.  Meaning, engaging in activities, on a regular basis, that activate the relaxation response.