Trauma Triggers, Trauma Triage, Seeking Psychological Safety

Interested in Trauma 101? Click here. Both live versions with group interaction along with the option to get a recorded link. Don't let trauma continue to steal your life, learn how to navigate triggers and more! Click here.

Want the trauma detective PDF? Click here.

Trauma often shows up later as a trigger that makes a safe moment feel like the past is happening again. We break down what trauma is, why your nervous system flips into alarm, and how to ground yourself back in the present with a simple “Trigger Detective” process.
In this episode we dive deeper into trauma, brain alterations, triggers, and more.
• Trauma is defined as loss of safety or choice, including witnessing it happen to someone else (Dr. Watson's definition)
• Big T traumas and the way chronic stress can become traumatic when it overwhelms capacity
• The window of tolerance and why people respond differently to the same event, this is why we do not compare traumas.
• Stress versus trauma, plus acute stress disorder (ASD), post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and Complex post traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD)
• What happens when the prefrontal cortex goes offline and the amygdala takes over?
• Common trigger categories, including sensory, emotional, relational, anniversaries, thoughts and body sensations.
• Trigger triage steps: ask, remember, name, remain curious
• “Trigger Detective” grounding questions to orient to time, place, age and safety
• Trauma 101 options, including a live group and recorded version

Trauma detective PDF

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Transcript

Welcome And Helpful Resources

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey everybody and welcome back to the Wednesdays with Watson podcast. I am so grateful that you have decided to spend a little bit of your time here with me today. I am so, so cognizant of the fact that time is not something that we are getting more of. And so I'm so grateful anytime you decide to spend a few minutes of yours with me. And today's podcast is going to dive in just a little bit because this is a much deeper subject than we can possibly cover on a podcast, but it's going to dive a little bit into trauma triggers and how to triage those. And before we do that, we'll do a little bit of a follow-up and a review, just in case this is the first time you've made it to the Wednesdays with Watson podcast. A little bit of science-y stuff about trauma and how it affects us. Somebody asked me on a direct message the other day how I landed on specializing in trauma and in and burnout. And I told her that I went looking for something like I hope to provide when I was struggling. And so I hope today's episode won't be too science-y for you, that we will be able to dip a little bit into trauma, how our body responds, but more importantly, triggers. And at the very end, and if you look in the show notes, there's going to be an option for you to download a PDF called the Trigger Detective that I have created that will help you in times of psychological triggers and helping you understand how it may feel like it is happening again, but it is not, and that you are safe. And so before we dive into this episode, one other thing I want to mention is I will be streaming a video of this on my YouTube channel at the trauma doc, which will include a PowerPoint presentation for those of you who are visual, and uh it may not go up the same time that the podcast does, but if you go follow the trauma doc on YouTube and turn on your notifications, you will get that when it goes up for those of you that are visual. So let's dive into this episode where we're talking about trauma. What is it as a review and triggers and how can we best manage them? Let's dive into this episode.

A Simple Definition Of Trauma

SPEAKER_00 2:29

So, first up is a million-dollar question, and one I get asked all the time. What is trauma? There are a million different people, way smarter than me, and even with more education than I have, that gives us definitions of trauma. And as I've spent three years formally studying those people like Vanderkock and Judith Herman and Dan Siegel, and on and on that list goes, Diane Langberg, I have come up with my own simple definition of trauma based on all of their ideas. Trauma, in my opinion, is an event that took your safety and your choice, or you witnessed it taking somebody else's safety or and or their choice. Choice is a big one when we talk about trauma. When we remove choice, then the the traumatic event has the uh probability of uh being maladaptive or uh affecting you negatively. And so the working definition of trauma here at the trauma doc is trauma is anything that took your safety or your choice, or maybe somebody else's safety or their choice. There are some common traumas, we call them big T traumas, to include things like childhood abuse, medical trauma, diagnoses, surgeries, accidents, relational, right, including things like domestic violence and other uh issues inside homes and work and places like that, uh, accidents or injuries, uh, crimes when you see uh that are part of it. Combat war obviously is one that we know a lot of, natural disasters. We saw a lot of this with the hurricanes here in Florida. Also, chronic stress, stress that is not relieved by processing it, can turn into traumatic events where your nervous system and your body are responding in like kind. You've heard me talk a lot about the window of tolerance on this podcast, where this is your God-given capacity, is something else that you'll hear people talk about, but is your is the way that we walk through trauma work through the things that happen in our lives. And so this is why you can grow up in the same home with somebody and the event be traumatic to you and not to somebody else, is because your window of tolerance is unique to only you. Bringing in that that one of my favorite psalms in the Bible, Psalm 139, 139. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. And so we don't compare traumas because everybody's window of tolerance is different. And so if you envision a window of tolerance like a window, and it is a fixed window that uh that has a green area, which is where you are connected, you are present, you're flexible, the the event comes and you're able to handle it with no big deal. Um, but then there are these events that will shoot outside of our window of tolerance and make you and your body begin to operate in either hyper arousal, which this is when we're going to get anxious and panicked, angry, hyper-vigilant, overwhelmed, um, or hypo, where you're numb and disconnected, foggy, exhausted, collapsed. And so either side of when an event happens that pushes you into the hyper or hypo, we call that a traumatic event when it overwhelms your system, overwhelms your capacity, overwhelms your ability to tolerate

Your Window Of Tolerance

SPEAKER_00 5:55

the situation. And so this is why we don't compare traumas, number one, number two, and I just had this happen with a client of mine, something that did not push you outside of your window of tolerance before may just suddenly and out of nowhere push you outside of your window of tolerance. And that is a phenomenon that I don't have time to express to explain here, but essentially that is a dysregulated nervous system. And when we don't regulate our nervous system, we basically close our natural window of tolerance. And those things that stub toes, for example, never bothered you before, could act as a traumatic event bursting through your window of tolerance at any time. And so that's the frustrating part about this, is that it can blindside you. It is important to differentiate between normal stress and trauma. Keep in mind that normal stress, use stress is what we call it, is actually healthy. These are the things that are usually tied to current deadlines, work, that kind of thing. Your nervous system is appropriately activated and is doing what it needs to do to get you through the task, to get you through the stress, whatever that might be. It feels difficult when it's stressful, but it feels manageable. And you know that difference, right? It feels this is hard, but I can do this. It can be short-term or ongoing. So if you've got a lot of uh good stress at work or something like that, it it can be long-term, and it and really your window of tolerance is affected by your ability to kind of deal with the normal stressors. And we talked about, we talk about on this podcast all the time movement, eating, drinking, sleeping turns, keeps that stress, you stress where it belongs, uh, where you're able to process it and deal with it and it not uh present to your body and your mind as trauma. Versus trauma, it includes an actual or perceived threat. And so I shared on the podcast a couple weeks a couple months ago, I was out riding my bike and I saw this sign that said beware of the alligators, and I was looking past it, and under there was a shadow under the tree, but at first my my nervous system thought that was a real live gator. And that is because of that, and so it became a trigger for me, a safety trigger. And so, because I pr my brain perceived that as a threat, even though it wasn't threat. When a traumatic event happens, that nervous system is on alert, it never calms down, it overwhelms, as we mentioned, your coping resources, and it can really change the way you fundamentally feel about the world. Here's the thing, though. If you're asking me if it's stress or if it's trauma, it doesn't matter what we call it. And so we address it the same way. We deal with the triggers the same way, which is the point of this podcast today. There are three different options or things that happen as a result of stress and trauma, but chronic stress that that that threatens to overwhelm.

Stress, Trauma, And PTSD Basics

SPEAKER_00 8:56

You can have acute stress disorder, which if we can catch it there, then it doesn't necessarily turn into post-traumatic stress disorder, acute stress disorder. You're going to feel some of the things that you do with PTSD, but it goes away after about 30 days because you've addressed it and versus not addressing it and it turns into PTSD, which I can't necessarily give you all of the I can, it would be a very long podcast. The criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder, I can um evaluate you for that though, if you're interested, just click the contact us form in the show notes and I'd be happy to talk to you about assessing you for post-traumatic stress disorder. But if we don't catch it at that acute stress disorder, that first level, uh, then it may turn into PTSD, which includes intrusive memories, re-experiencing, avoiding, um, a negative shift in your mood. Um, you're hyper-vigilant, it's always going to be an alligator under that tree and never a shadow. Um, and it causes impairment, causes physical issues, which turn which leads me to complex post-traumatic stress disorder, not even in the DSM, not even a real diagnosis, if I'm being honest with you, but we know it exists, and this is when you've had long-term uh trauma and different types of trauma. And so complex PTSD will eventually make its way into the DSM. But right now, it is not a real diagnosis, actually, um, except for by the ICD, the International Classification of Diseases. But the DSM, uh, which has all of our mental health disorders in it, does not list complex post-traumatic stress disorder. I've talked to you guys before about the three different parts of the brain, and I'm just really giving you a fundamental background on trauma and because I want to get to what happens when something triggers you. And so remember you have the prefrontal cortex, which is uh just keeps everything appropriate for you. It keeps everything in its right place, nothing feels like it's an emergency if it's not. You're able to be appropriate, you're able to be interact with people, you're being your everything is green, all green lights, but the prefrontal cortex is online. However, when an event happens that pushes us outside of our window of tolerance, you may be uh then be ruled by your amygdala, which is your fear center, and your hippocampus, which is uh responsible for making sure that memories are laid down properly, filed properly, if you will, and your brain traumatic memories are like having an open window on your computer at all times. It can pop up and it can do it, do its thing at any time it wants. And so these three brain feature brain uh anatomy uh points are important as we talk about what's going on in your mind and body when a traumatic event pushes you outside of that window of tolerance. I've talked to you guys before about uh Dan Siegel's hand

What Triggers Do To The Brain

SPEAKER_00 11:55

model, which is um, you know, if you put your hand in in front of your face with the uh your arm bone being your spine, your fingers being your prefrontal cortex, your thumb housing the amygdala, which is the fear center, and the hippocampus, when you are uh an event pushes you outside of your window of tolerance or you're triggered from a traumatic memory, that prefrontal cortex is going to go offline, it's not working, there is no access to logic or what is true, good, and right and appropriate, you're being ruled by that fear center, and then memories are being laid down in that open window on your computer where they can come up at any time, and that's by definition a trigger. And so it's important for us to learn to live with a regulated nervous system so that our prefrontal cortex is in charge, and and if your hand is still in front of your face and that PFC goes offline, we call that flipping your lid. We uh work through triggers and we put that prefrontal cortex back in charge so that your nervous system is regulated. It is not mobilized, it is not overwhelmed, it is regulated, and you're able to work through the trigger. There are different types of triggers, as you know if you've had them: sensory triggers, sights, cells, smells, sounds, taste, touch. There are um emotional triggers, feelings that resemble the past. This can happen at work. Fear, shame, helplessness, rejection, loneliness. You can have relational triggers, again, can happen at work, conflict, criticism. What if somebody's just silent? What about that email that says, hey, why don't you put 2026 instead of 2025 a corrective action? These relational things can be triggers to those traumatic events that happened to us earlier in life. Anniversaries of things too can be a trigger, and that's one that we normally know is coming. But a lot of times these triggers are again like that open window on the computer with memories there that and and files there that can just start to operate and do whatever they want. That is, by definition, a trigger. You can have thoughts or beliefs or memories that serve as triggers, and then you can have some body sensations that serve as triggers. This is why I'm really careful about pushing body work with uh clients, because uh sometimes feelings inside your body can trigger a um a psychological traumatic memory. And so these different types of triggers are something that we can uh work through and something that in uh one of my uh webinars, Trauma 101, we work through. In the second uh month of working together, we work through how to uh operate with triggers. And I will talk to you a little bit more about some of that that here towards the end of the

Sensory, Emotional, And Relational Triggers

SPEAKER_00 14:45

podcast. But in that moment, in the trauma moment, you want to ask, remember, name, and and remain curious. And so ask yourself when the traumatic memory happens, when the computer just that that that file, open file on your computer just opens up and starts dumping information to you. You ask yourself, am I present in this moment? And and 99.9% of the time you're gonna say, Yes, I am safe in this moment. And then you can say, Okay, I need to remember that a trigger, it's it it makes me feel like it's the same, but it's not. It's not actual danger. Triggers are not actual danger, and so you remember that. You name the alarm. This feels like the old thing. This feels like when I was seven, this feels like I was ten, this feels like I was twelve. And so, but it's not that. I am not that now. And you begin to just continue to ask yourself questions. Ask yourself, am I feeling certain ways? And and here's some ways that oftentimes traumatic triggers will make you feel. It'll make you feel uncertain, maybe powerless, ignored, like you're in trouble. It might make you feel misunderstood, trapped, rejected. These are all feelings that the that open window in your brain is is making could could possibly make you feel. And so I want you to name them. What am I feeling in this moment? I had a situation a couple about a week and a half ago where something triggered an abandonment for me. And I needed to go through this process. What am I feeling and why? And is it really about that person or is it about something that happened back there? Because this feels like I am 15 again and being abandoned or being rejected. Is that this? Is that this? And so I was on my bike and I was walking through. What am

How To Triage A Trigger

SPEAKER_00 16:55

I feeling? I was feeling ignored, I was feeling abandoned, and I and and as I worked through it and asked myself these questions, and this is what this PDF that I'm uh offering for you in the show notes, just shoot me the fill out the contact form and I'll give you the trauma detective PDF that's helping us work through when the open when the file opens, because it's it's been laid down improperly in the hippocampus, when it opens, what am I feeling? Am I feeling uncertain, powerless, ignored, like I'm in trouble, misunderstood, trapped, rejected? What am I feeling? Some things will make us feel that way. And and a lot of these that I'm going to mention might be at work or with your significant other. So, for example, I had a situation earlier this year where I had a supervisor when I was working at the hospital uh point out that I was putting the wrong year on doctor's appointments. It was like early January, and I came unglued. It was such a trigger for me, set me outside of my window of tolerance, and I wasn't able in that moment to do what I'm saying to you to begin to investigate what I was feeling and why. The correction just felt like danger to me. Like my my body just went into overdrive. And that that little corrective feedback turned into danger because as I worked through it many months later, I realized that my original, some of my original traumas, correction was danger. If I got a C and at school, then I I paid for it at home. Silence, does silence feel like abandonment to some of us? If somebody is just silent, whether it's a somebody at work or somebody in in our home? Does conflict feel like loss? Like, oh, I oh, now that we have the conflict, I can no longer have the relationship? Does disappointment make you feel like you're bad? And is someone else's mood my responsibility? And so these are so between I want you to ask, am I feeling uncertain, powerless, ignored, like I'm in trouble, like I'm misunderstood, like I'm trapped, like I'm rejected? Does this make me feel some kind of way? And if it does, begin into to investigate and begin to be a trigger detective. And that's what this PDF file that I I've put together for you, where you can literally work through this. You ask yourself something like this, what just happened? Let's stick with the facts. What just happened? So in that advice in that in that situation that I just gave you, what just happened was I got called into a meeting that I thought was something else and it was all about me and how I needed to fix some things. And my boss told me that I need to put 2026, not 2025, and that makes me feel some kind of way. And so when you ask yourself and you're and you're following along in the PDF, what just happened? You're sticking with the facts, not what we think happened, not what you felt happened, but exactly what happened. And then you ask yourself, what did my body think happened? Then you ask yourself, who is in charge in this moment? How old do you feel? How old are you? Is 10-year-old in charge, or is the you now in charge? Where are you? Physically name it. I am sitting in my office, in this city, in this state, and I am safe. What time is it? Literally look at your watch and say it is 1235 out loud. What is the date? It is not yesterday, it is not tomorrow, it is today. And so what you're doing as a trigger detective, something happened that made you feel activated, and you're actually just walking through

The Trigger Detective Questions

SPEAKER_00 20:40

what am I feeling? What do some of these things like correction, etc. What does it feel like it means? And then you go through a series of about six questions that orient you to the here and now and takes the power out of the trigger. You want to notice what happened. What did you notice in your body when it when whatever happened? What did your body think was about to happen? How old are you now? What is the date? And choose what do I need right now? And so this is an episode meant to help you dive through what it's like to work through these psychological traumas, or excuse me, triggers, and orienting yourself to what's actually happening, not what your body and your mind thinks happened as a result of your previous traumas and triggers. As I mentioned, I am going to pop this up on YouTube, which will include a PowerPoint presentation and some visuals. But more importantly, I want to invite you to think about joining us at the end of August for Trauma 101. And what that is, is we will there's two different options for that. There is a live group, and that is uh an application to be filled out. Not everyone would be appropriate for the live group. The live group is meeting on when the last August, the last September in August. The last Saturday in August, or you can get a recorded video link of Trauma 101. The motivation, direction, and goal of Trauma 101 is to demystify trauma and what it does to us and to put you on a path for healing. The live version does have a group component, which is my favorite way to work with people. We learn from each other and community. And so if you'd like to be considered for that last uh Saturday in August, Trauma 101, click contact Amy in the show notes. Shoot me a contact um form telling me that you're interested in the live, or if you are interested in the recorded version of it, do the same. We will be back here in two weeks as we are continuing to walk through life, and I am uh motivated uh to really help

Trauma 101 Invite And Closing

SPEAKER_00 23:05

people understand uh trauma and how we can live through it and how we can have the hope of healing. As you know, if you've been around me for any amount of time, I have a long history of trauma and an even longer history of healing. So we'll be back here in two weeks. Until then, remember you are seen, you are known, you are heard, you are loved, and you are so so valued, and we're gonna get the same.