Childhood Trauma Emotional Triggers You Can Learn To Manage

28:53

28:53

Childhood Trauma Emotional Triggers You Can Learn To Manage

by Lisa A. Romano

Rated

4.9

Type

talks

Activity

Meditation

Suitable for

Everyone

Plays

1.7k

Childhood trauma can leave you with emotional scars that end up becoming emotional triggers that can be difficult to manage. In this episode, Lisa A. Romano explains what you can do to become more emotionally regulated in spite of deep wounds caused by childhood trauma.

Meet your Teacher

New York, NY, USA

Meet your Teacher

New York, NY, USA

Transcript

Welcome to the Breakdown to Breakthrough Podcast. My name is Lisa A. Romano. I am a life coach, Bestselling author, YouTube vlogger, Meditation teacher, And expert in the field of codependency and narcissistic abuse. I am a believer in the power of an organized mind. My aim is to help people learn what it means to live above the veil of consciousness rather than living a reactive life. May your heart feel blessed, Your mind feel expanded, And your spirit find hope as you spend time with me here at the Breakdown to Breakthrough Podcast. Namaste, Everybody. So today we're going to be talking about how to process deep emotional wounds or triggers that were caused by childhood emotional trauma. So today we're going to be exploring how we can process an emotional trigger. What do we do to help ourselves emotionally regulate? How do we respond when we have been triggered? And what we can do to really learn to better regulate our emotions when we are triggered. In my own personal life, I did not know that I had deep emotional wounds. In my situation, I was taught that what I thought and what I felt was irrelevant. There was no healthy mirroring. My mother did not, Nor did my father, Teach me how to regulate my emotions. Parents who are on the ball, Parents who understand the needs of their child, Know that they have to help their children regulate their emotions. So how does mommy regulate your emotions? When you cry, Mommy kisses your boo-boo and you feel better. And within seconds, Your emotions seem to be regulated, Or at least they're becoming regulated. When you are upset after school, Your parents are inquisitive. So what happened today? Why do you look upset? They give you a platform to express yourself. And feeling validated allows you to feel loved. It allows you to feel nurtured. And in a great way, Just having someone be there for you is helping you regulate your emotion. So if you came from a home where this was not your reality, Where you were taught that your emotions were irrelevant, Or you were taught that what you felt was ridiculous and you were mocked, If you grew up with childhood emotional neglect, If your parents were highly narcissistic, And so they were living through you, You were an extension of them, You were not a 3D autonomous human being, You were expected to be the most beautiful, The skinniest, The most intelligent, The best football star, The dancer on the squad that did the most solos with the dancing school, Whatever it is, If you have parents that made you feel like you were a thing, That you were there to just please them, And that you did not have your own separate identity from them, Then you had parents that were highly narcissistic, Emotionally immature, And undoubtedly you experienced childhood emotional neglect. If you have a pain in your body, If you have an emotional pain, It is the job of a parent to help you soothe it, To make it feel better. That's why a hug, A kind word, You touch your child's hair, You respond to your child appropriately, The mother becomes the person or the father becomes the person that's helping regulate the emotions of the child. But those of us who grew up in homes that were less than perfect and very oftentimes neglectful and traumatizing, So we don't have the ability to do that. And so when we are triggered in the moment and we have these very heavy emotions come up, We don't have the life skills to regulate them. It's what CPTSD is about. So we're having a difficult time navigating our emotions. So I think the first thing to understand is why do so many of us have such a difficult time regulating our emotions? I remember when I was dating my first husband and I shared something very, Very sacred with him. And he shared with me that he told a bunch of people, Especially one of his sister-in-laws, And I was devastated. And the emotions that welled up in me were I couldn't manage them. And I didn't understand it at the time, What was happening, But I felt so violated. I felt so betrayed. And he just didn't know how to say, I'm sorry. It didn't even register in his head that this was something that he should have never shared. And so we were a mess of a couple. And I didn't know how to regulate my emotions at the time. And I remember that event specifically because it was so painful. I didn't want to feel the way I felt, But I had no life skills for how to manage it and how to regulate and regulate and how to make myself feel better. He didn't know how to make me feel better because he couldn't relate to why I was so upset, Which was mind boggling. And then years later, I realized that he doesn't have the ability to have that type of empathy for the way that I felt. So it was a mirror to what I experienced as a child. The people in my life did not have empathy and did not have the life skills to help me regulate as a child. And here I was attracting the same type of person into my life, Unaware as a young 20 something year old woman. On the path to recovery, Specifically as it relates to codependency, I realized that over the years, My sense of self was reliant upon how other people viewed me. So I felt the need to be needed. That made me feel like I had a purpose. And if I didn't feel needed by someone, I would panic a little bit. I'd get a little wobbly because that's where I at least subconsciously gained my sense of self or my sense of purpose in the world. I got purpose out of seeing myself as the person who was needed in the group. I realized over the years that I was attracting people that needed to be fixed. I was the perfect enabler. I was the peacekeeper. So I was someone who sat back in a room and I could sense what people needed and I would jump up to fill their need because I didn't feel worthy enough. And I was very much reliant on them to make me feel like I had a sense of purpose. And I was very reliant upon their validation. If I didn't get validation, Then I felt like I had no purpose. So it was very difficult for me to regulate myself in the world and regulate my emotions. It was far too easy for me to spiral downward and to develop shame. And the codependency was a way that in fawning and chasing after people's approval, It was a way that I got to keep the shame monster away. Very dysfunctional. And it landed me in one toxic relationship after the other, Very much attracting people into my life that were self-focused, Whereas I was other focused. So the codependent narcissistic relationship is very much a hand in a glove. In order for a codependent to act out codependent tendencies, The loss of selfhood, For instance, When you are a codependent, You don't have a healthy sense of self. How can you have a healthy sense of self if you were never taught that the self that you were was valid? If you didn't have healthy mirroring from your mother, From your father, Or from your environment, How do you have a healthy perception of self if the self that you are is mocked, Is neglected, Is harassed, And is criticized, And is devalued, And is marginalized? How does a child develop healthy ego boundaries in a home where there are no boundaries? So how do you become an adult, Trying to adult in relationships from a healthy sense of self with boundaries that are absolutely necessary when you never learned that the ego that you were, The self that you were, Had boundaries? You can't. And so I think it's important that as we learn to regulate our emotions, We recognize why we have such a difficult time regulating our emotions. And if you are on the healthier end of the spectrum, You will be someone that takes this information to heart. You will apply it to your life, And you will see the value in exploring self-awareness, And you'll see the value in actually implementing these exercises. Because none of us ever really want to get stuck being triggered for the rest of our life. What kind of a life is that if we have to walk around on eggshells, If we're reactive, If we're pushing people away, If we're clinging to people in response to feeling pushed away? What kind of a life is that? It's certainly not a life of liberation. It's certainly not a life of healthy autonomy. It's certainly not a life of self-empowerment. Absolutely not. And so we have to make a decision at one point in our life that we are actually going to really, Really try to regulate our emotions. The thing is with regulating your emotions, It takes practice. And it is overriding the natural response to react to heavy emotions the way we always have. For instance, If you retreat when you have a heavy emotion, If you feel like you're not being included in something, Or if you're experiencing abandonment trauma again in a relationship and you push people away or you retreat, The feelings that you're trying to escape and the reactions that you have as a result of feeling heavy emotions are going to keep you on this karmic wheel. It's just the law of cause and effect. Nothing changes until something changes. And with self-awareness, We are able to step into this doorway of potential, Which is amazing. So each of us has the potential to change. We just have to act on it in the 3D world in order to change so that we can liberate ourselves. So I think it's fair to say that in order to be able to master our emotions and develop emotional mastery, There has to be a certain level of willingness to do so. Because there are people in society that aren't interested in managing their emotions, Like a narcissist. There are people in society that don't think there's anything wrong with lashing out. There are people in society that don't think there's anything wrong with devaluing people and reacting angrily. Some people just believe they're totally within their right to do so, And that if they're angry at anyone, That person deserved it. And so we have to recognize that there's a big difference between someone who has a difficult time regulating their emotions, As is the case with people who struggle with CPTSD, And someone who is just absolutely disinterested in learning to become more self-aware and self-responsible. So there has to be a willingness. The next thing that we have to work on is our awareness. Now what are you becoming aware of? The moment that you start to feel off, The moment that you start to feel your heart race, The moment that you start to feel like there's cotton in your brain. For me, When I have a CPTSD trigger response, My ears get hot, I almost go deaf, Well, Everything gets muffled, My heart beats erratically in my chest, And my face gets very, Very hot. It's I'm arrested in time. And the work that I've done around awareness has really, Really been beneficial and has totally helped me transform my life. So what I learned to do is become aware of the feelings that I feel when I am triggered. That is huge. Someone says something to you and your feelings are hurt and you have a full-blown response to what has just happened, And you're feeling the trigger come on, Become aware that something just shifted. Become aware that the amygdala has been activated. You're being flooded possibly with old memories or maybe the emotions tied to old memories. Just become aware. That's your first step. The second thing is to observe. Observe what? Observe how your body responds to this trigger. Very important. Observing might sound like, Okay, I feel my face getting hot. Okay, I can't hear as well as I did five minutes ago. Okay, My breathing's become erratic. Oh my gosh, I'm starting to sweat. So you actually in your head or even out loud, You start calling out the symptoms of this trigger, The physical sensations that are valid. Your body is responding to a fight or flight response. Chemicals are being produced in your bloodstream and your limbic system is responding naturally. Your nervous system is overly activated right now in this moment and it's your job to observe the consequences of that overreaction. The next step is critical. So what I teach in my online courses is this idea of learning to sit with and learning to feel and learning to be one with the emotions that you will naturally want to push away from or react to. When you learn to sit with your emotions, You're not leaving your body. You're learning to say, My body's experiencing these sensations, But I am okay. I am not these physical sensations. I find that people define the hardest step differently. Some people find that observing how they feel is the hardest step, Like just recognizing, Okay, I'm in a trigger. Other people find it more difficult to call out the body sensations. They're overwhelmed. And then other people find it more difficult to just sit with how they feel. But this is really the money step. This is the step that will change your life. Because what happens is when we are in a trauma response, The chemicals in our body, They just want to take over. And our habits of thought and our habits of behavior are going to take over. But all that does is keep us stuck. And so learning to sit with uncomfortable emotions will absolutely change your life. So it's almost, If you want to look at it this way, It's like delaying gratification. It's like, I'm going to be okay that in this moment, I'm not so okay. I'm not going to resist that which I feel. So we are learning to become nonresistant to what we feel. We're learning to acknowledge and say, Namaste, This is how I feel. We're learning to not push away how we feel. We're learning not to run away with how we feel. We're really learning how to sit with what it is that we're feeling. We're recognizing that we are not our feelings. We are the observer of our feelings. We're recognizing that we're not even our body. We are the observer of these bodily sensations. This was huge. When I was able to develop that space where I was able to say, Wait a minute, The I am that I am or the observer that I am, The higher self that I am has the ability to observe my body, My 3D body, Have a physical experience to an emotional trigger. And it became easier for me to recognize the value in, Okay, Lisa, Breathe through this, Breathe through this, Which brings me to my next step. Only a cool mind can take a deep breath. Think about it. When you're anxious, Immediately your breathing starts to change. Oxygen saturation starts to change. That's why so many of us start to get a little woozy. We start to get a little lightheaded. We almost get to the point where we're going to faint, And some of us actually do. When you are in a trigger and you're walking through these steps and you say, Deep breathe, Just deep breathe, You're literally shifting your brain. Your brain assumes there is no saber tooth tiger coming because think about it. If a saber tooth tiger was running after you, Would you have the ability to relax and take a deep breath? Absolutely not. You would be running on all cylinders to escape the saber tooth tiger. So the next time you feel your emotions getting out of control, Whether that's sadness, Whether that's anger, Whether that's shame, Whether that's anxiety, Take a deep breath. Now, Once you've walked through all these steps, You might start to feel everything in your body beginning to get a little bit more balanced. At least what you might feel is that it hasn't escalated. Now this is where you really have to become like an emotional Sherlock Holmes. Now we want to identify who, What, When, Where, What happened to me? Who are the people involved? What was said? How did I feel when this person said what they said? Who does this person remind me of? When did I feel this way in the past? Most of our triggers today, If not all of them, Are tied to some experience from the past. We have a record of the past. Our body, As Joe Dispenza says, Is a record of the past. When we suffer from CPTSD, Someone could look at us a certain way, Remind us of our narcissistic mother, And we can feel so enraged in the moment because we understand on some visceral level we're being judged. This person's trying to control us. They're being unjust. They're being unfair. There's manipulation happening. And so all sorts of deep emotions can be triggered in the now just from the way someone looks at you. This is reactivity. We don't want to be that reactive to things that are happening outside of us because that's where we lose our sense of control. We are giving our power over to external experiences. So there's great value in learning to regulate your emotion. At this stage of the process, You're trying to figure out what happened. What were the events that led up to this actual trigger? The next thing that you have to clearly identify is how did my body respond? Label it on paper. Write it out in your journal. When so-and-so said this, My body reacted this way. I could observe my heart begin to beat rapidly. My body began to perspire. My blood pressure went up. My ears went deaf. My ears got hot. I experienced blunt brain fog. It felt like cognitive dissonance. I became very confused. I shut down. I wanted to run away. I did shut down. So you want to identify how does the trigger react in your body? What automatically by default happens in your body? Why? Because you can't fix a hole in the wall you can't see. You can't. So if you're highly reactive to someone accusing you of something that you're not guilty of and you tend to react poorly to that person firing off emails, Firing off texts, Maybe fawning, Maybe drinking too much, Maybe going out to gamble, Spending too much money, Fighting with the kids, Taking it out on the spouse, Whatever it is that happens as a result of you being triggered, Unless you see what happens to you as a result of this trigger, You're not going to be able to fix it. So we're building your ability to be self-aware through self-inquiring questions. By this time, Hopefully you're starting to feel much, Much calmer. Now this is where you have to decide what you're going to do about how you feel. This is going to create forward moving momentum in the direction that you desire. Now if you're in a toxic relationship for instance, And you're dealing with someone who is highly manipulative and you've just been triggered, They've pushed you away. A narcissist will withhold sex. A narcissist will withhold affirmation. A narcissist, If your mom passes away, A narcissist disappears. Narcissists will find as many ways as possible to kick you when you're down. This triggers you. You know that it's unacceptable behavior. Makes you feel out of control. So you have a natural response to what is happening, Which is escalated due to childhood trauma. So it becomes a sort of dovetailed mess of very deep emotions and a lot of reactivity. Now that you've walked through these steps and you're gaining some clarity and you're identifying how you feel, What was the trigger, How your body responded, Now you want to decide what you want to do about it. If you're in a toxic relationship for instance, Here's your opportunity to decide, Do I need to have a conversation? Do I need to set a boundary? Am I done? How many times have I been on this roller coaster? How many times have we had similar conversations? So now critical thinking comes in. Now you use the benefit of contrast with a calm mind space. Decide what is best for you. When it comes to toxic relationships, We have one of three choices. We either set a boundary and look to change it or we accept it, Right? We stay right where we are because we can't change the other person or we leave it. Really those are our choices. So when we set a boundary, We expect our partners to meet us halfway and we wait for change to happen. Of course we have to be fair. So in expecting your partner to change and hoping that your partner will change something that is just unacceptable to you, You buy yourself time and you wait to see if your partner's able to change. Does your partner have a willingness to change? Some partners don't. You have to decide, Does my partner even have the ability, The capability to change? This is the step that you are learning to become a critical thinker. You're learning to become a more rational thinker versus a highly emotional and reactive thinker and you're trying to make those decisions in this space. What do I need to do right now? Am I leaving this situation? Am I looking to change it? Am I setting boundaries? Am I having a conversation or am I just accepting things as they are? Now when it comes to codependency, What happens to us as codependents is that we rely on something external to make us feel good enough and we rely on others to make us feel better. So if you have someone in your life that has begun to mentally take advantage of your vulnerabilities and they know that you seek their approval, Then this person will withhold, A toxic person will deliberately withhold affirmation in order to play a mind game with you. This might make you feel very, Very uncomfortable. It might make you feel vulnerable. It might trigger abandonment trauma and it does reinforce the trauma bond. The fear that you are the reason that this person is hurting you. You are the reason that this person shut down. You are the reason that this person is stonewalling you. And what a codependent will do is panic and then in that space we try to figure out ways to fawn, To rescue and we ultimately end up enabling a very toxic relationship. And so what we have to learn to do is we have to learn to cut any ties that we have to experiences and people and behaviors and even belief systems that have us thinking that we need something on the outside, Drinking alcohol, Cigarettes, Whatever, Other people. We have to begin becoming more accountable and self-aware for the ways in which we rely on things outside of us to soothe us. So this is the decision making process where we are ultimately learning that we can take care of the self. We make a decision that no, I'm not running to my mother who constantly abuses me. No, I'm not acquiescing to my narcissistic father for approval. No, I am not going to fawn and subjugate my needs to someone who is emotionally exploitative. I'm not going to do that. So rather than have someone else take care of me, I'm going to take care of myself. What does that look like to you? You have to decide what makes you feel better after this process. For me, What makes me feel better is meditation, A hot bath, Epsom salt bath, Walks in nature, Crying, Sometimes crying and then validating my inner child, Journaling. If my heart is not settled, Then I begin my day calming myself down with a quick meditation. I get out my journal and I write and write and write and write and write. It's amazing what unfolds on a piece of paper as I'm beginning to speak to myself about the way that I feel and what the circumstances were. My agenda is to become that Sherlock Holmes detective, That emotional detective, Which is the foundation of emotional mastery. The ability to ask yourself the right questions. Why do I feel this way? What bothered me about this? When did I feel like this in the past? Who does this person remind me of? Where am I stuck? Am I seeking approval? What happened when this person said that? What is really going on here? What is disempowering me? What is making me feel stuck? How do I reinforce this pattern? What can I do next time? This is an amazing point in this exercise because if you practice what you discover about yourself, Your life must change. In essence, You're finding ways to become that mother and father that were supposed to validate you. You're learning to become the divine feminine, The divine male within you that has the ability to witness you, To acknowledge you, To validate you, And to have empathy for you, And to empower you from the inside out. As long as we do not do this work, We stay stuck. We are vulnerable people who fear exposing ourselves to the wrong person and oftentimes do. We become over sharers. We hide our vulnerabilities with perfectionism. We live in fear of failure. We're so afraid of getting mocked. We're so afraid of being criticized. At the end of the day, What we're really afraid of is being abandoned and suffering rejection, Which is really the inner child's wounds. It's that part of us that has been so wounded in childhood that we pretend doesn't exist in our adulthood, But yet we're still reacting to. Not only do we react to rejection, We live in fear of the rejection and we develop things like codependency and reactive anger as ways to cope with the fear of rejection. When we stop for a minute and we learn to heal the inner child, We can begin living our life more consciously. We can begin to deliberately create our new life. To me, That is what it's all about, To become aware of the wounds within myself, To develop strategies and skills to heal myself, To develop ways in which I can give myself that which I was supposed to receive in childhood, And to move forward from there feeling empowered and no longer like a victim of circumstance. That is the potential that we all hold. That, Dear one, Is your birthright. Many of us are taught that we need to fight the darkness. No, You don't need to fight the darkness. You need to embrace the darkness. You need to learn to sit with the darkness. It's imagine yourself sitting in a dark room and your emotional wounds were ghosts. You would have to learn to sit in a dark room with these ghosts and know that they're there and make peace with them. The more centered you are and the more nonresistant you are to these ghosts, The quicker they have to disappear. Really empowering stuff when you actually put these steps into practice in your own life. Namaste, Everybody. Have a great night.