Introduction to Emotional Triggers

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Welcome to the Fulfilled Leader Podcast , the podcast to strengthen your emotional resilience and find fulfillment at work . I'm your host , jean Balfour , master Certified Coach , with over 5,000 hours one-to-one and tens of thousands of hours in groups . I've coached incredible leaders like you to overcome their biggest work challenges and go on to lead resiliently , finding the type of fulfillment they never knew possible . They are leaders people want to work for and organizations want to hire . In this podcast , we have conversations about the psychological and emotional struggles of leadership . About the psychological and emotional struggles of leadership , you're going to hear neuroscience , psychology , leadership models and evidence-based approaches that all have an impact in helping you be a resilient and fulfilled leader . Every week , you learn ideas and tools that will shift the way you lead and live your life , making change possible . Let's start the show . Hi and welcome to the Fulfilled Leader .

Speaker 1 1:10

I wonder how many times today you've been triggered . Maybe it was a small feeling that arose after receiving an email . Or maybe you had a big reaction to something a colleague said . Probably and mostly , nobody else noticed that you were triggered internally , that you were emotionally dysregulated . Or maybe you did react , maybe responding in a way that you regretted a bit afterwards . We know this happens to us all . It's really a natural part of our human condition and as humans , we are on the alert to protect ourselves , and at times this leads us to having these emotional or sometimes even physical reactions to events , small and large , which knock us off our game , and sometimes these lead us to behaving in ways that we're not always proud and many times , in fact , mostly , they also lead to a lot of kind of internal thought patterns that are not helpful for us . In this episode of the Fulfilled Leader , I'm going to share with you some insights into what's happening when we're triggered and ways that we can learn from it , and also about how we can find a way for it to happen less . This is something I've worked hard on myself and obviously I'm a long way from perfect , but I am a lot better , and I believe that the more we understand what's happening to us when we're triggered , the more we can find a pause and we can change it . I also know that having a few tools in your toolkit to bring yourself back to the present moment , back to being able to manage well , can be hugely helpful .

Speaker 1 2:59

As leaders , we have a responsibility , I think , to the people we lead , to become increasingly effective at managing ourselves . This is because our responses to events should be appropriate and we want to embody calm and present leadership , and this is more important the more senior we are . We look up to our leaders , looking for little clues about how they are , about what acceptable behavior looks like and what the culture of the organization is . And every micro behavior sends a signal , and learning to be aware of how we are being perceived , particularly when we're emotionally impacted ourselves , is part of learning to lead strategically and effectively . This doesn't mean there's not room for emotion . Emotion is good . I'm a big fan of it . It's that we're aware of which emotion and when people are seeing it .

Speaker 1 3:58

As you're listening to this episode , you might find it helpful to think about a recent time when you were triggered . This can be either at work or at home , and maybe with a journal . Try some of the things that I'm talking about here . Let me explain a bit about what I understand by the term being triggered

Understanding What Triggers Us

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. For me , it's when something happens and I'm pulled away from being a calm adult focused on work to being hooked and distracted by my emotions and my thoughts . It may or may not lead to me behaving differently , but it will almost certainly lead to the series of difficult thought patterns running through my head and feelings coursing through my body . Some frameworks describe it as being derailed or emotionally hijacked .

Speaker 1 4:48

Psychologists suggest that when it happens , it can come out of our unconscious , and I think sometimes this is true . Something happens , so we have an experience and we instantly feel that something's not right for us , and we may not even know why . It may have rubbed up against a past experience or something that we are kind of not really in tune with . I also see it happening in our semi-conscious . So this is like if somebody speaks to me and it reminds me of my dad and it can also happen in the conscious so someone says something and I instantly know that what they've said goes against one of my values or my work ethic or something related to how I see the world .

Speaker 1 5:33

The thing is and you will already know this is that the triggering usually happens so quickly we don't even see it coming . Suddenly our mind is racing , our heart rate increases . Suddenly our mind is racing , our heart rate increases and we're worried , upset , angry . You fill in the blank . All of the emotions and all of the thoughts are there when we are triggered . We will each have a different way of being . Some of us will be loud and extroverted that's me and so I'm more likely to be telling people that I'm not feeling great about a situation . Others of us will become very quiet and may become even more quiet than normal . So really withdrawing , going into ourselves , and for some of us there'll be a mix . Maybe we'll be loud first , then quiet , we might become cynical , we might become extremely cautious . It we might become cynical , we might become extremely cautious .

Speaker 1 6:28

I've talked in the podcast before that our nervous system is on the alert to protect us . There's some suggestion that our amygdala is spending maybe up to 70% of the time scanning for threats . And on a good day , when we're calm , we've had a good night's sleep we're recently back from holiday . We're able to kind of manage that . We are aware of incoming trouble and we remain calm . We see it for what it is . We're able to internally process it .

Speaker 1 6:57

However , we all know those times where something happens and we're instantly fired up , reacting in a way that isn't our usual self , and these are the events that we often look back on with regret and sometimes justification . Something that we might have coped with on a good day becomes a big deal . Maybe our boss makes a request , we deem it to be unreasonable and , rather than negotiating with them , we storm off angry . Or a colleague says something and we take it really personally and end up crying in the bathroom . Maybe we got feedback on a piece of work and we're very suddenly defensive I know I can do that or a colleague makes a mistake and we become really overly critical of them .

Speaker 1 7:41

There's an endless supply of examples , and so , as humans , we learn to protect ourselves , and when we were growing up , we also learned ways to do this in our family systems and through our education , ways of keeping ourselves safe , and some of these actually work really well for us . They function well and , particularly when we're calm , we can respond appropriately . And sometimes they don't function so well and we react . And the thing is , this is going to happen to us . We can't avoid it , but we can take responsibility for our reactions and we can learn every time it happens , so that we can increasingly become at work , we can increasingly manage ourselves in the situation . When I talk to people in coaching about their experiences , they usually , most of the time , can describe what happened and they often share how , after the event they experience these other strong emotions .

Speaker 1 8:47

So when we've noticed that we've been triggered , we can also become overly self-critical . We maybe feel guilty for reacting , we may feel shame about our behavior , we may blame the other person for triggering us to react in that way , and so we not only have the experience and the triggering , but there's a whole lot of other stuff that carries on after it . So of course I recognize this . I've had lots of different reactions and I and we mostly seek to behave well as adults , and yet sometimes we let ourselves down and that can just be because we're just caught in a thinking spiral more than any other way that we've behaved . The thing at work is that this can feel really exposing , because we want to aim at work to show the best of ourselves , and when this doesn't happen , it can leave us personally in a bit of hurt and pain and , as I said , sometimes shame for our reaction , and maybe we'll be calm , emotional beings all day . That's what people will think we are , but regardless of what people seeing inside , we're really struggling with reactions

Recognizing Your Personal Triggers

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to different events .

Speaker 1 10:04

If you're listening to this and thinking , hey , I don't get triggered at work , go and try this now . Go to your inbox , scroll down the emails you've got I imagine there's a few hundred , maybe even a few thousand in there and notice if any one of them creates a rise of any emotion frustration , anger , impatience , annoyance , blame and so on . There you are , you're triggered . I think our inboxes are a daily source of triggering interactions and maybe a big learning space . It may be that we're just triggered because we think , oh , I didn't do that and I owe it to that person . We're constantly being triggered by things coming towards us and us having this reaction to them .

Speaker 1 10:49

I'd like to deepen our understanding of what's happening by sharing some insights into what I see can create triggers , and then also to follow up with a model to help make sense of it . I'll finish by sharing a process for learning more from the experience so that in the future , there's more choice about how we behave . There are as many triggers as there are humans , maybe stars . As many triggers as there are humans , maybe stars . Each of us is triggered personally , based on our own story , our own experience of life , our personality , what's happening for us that day , and , of course , we're with other humans also in this space , experiencing the same range of things , the same infinite range of things that can trigger us and we can't control this , so we know that this is going to happen . But understanding what might be triggering us can be very powerful , because when we become aware of our particular triggers , the things that may be most likely to trigger us we can accept that , see it as part of us and then work out how to be less triggered and less reactive .

Speaker 1 11:55

And I can't share all of them here . As I've said , there's millions and they will be deeply personal . Sometimes you call them as buttons which get pressed , but here's a few ideas to get you thinking . So let me just start with values . I think values are one that often can create a trigger . For example , if you have a value about timeliness being on time and you're with another person who has a different time value , maybe about being flexible and you notice that the person with a different time value doesn't adhere to your time values , you can be quite triggered quite quickly . Maybe , if you value attention to detail and somebody else that's me is less concerned about attention to detail , you might feel a bit annoyed because why didn't you go through this ? Why didn't you proofread it ? Another area might be boundary issues . I've seen this so much in teams I've worked in that if somebody's in a role and somebody else steps into that role or does a piece of the work that you think is yours , you can feel really triggered , like they've overstepped the mark . Many people talk about somebody taking the credit for something you did .

Speaker 1 13:03

Micromanagement is a real trigger because it can lead to this feeling that you don't trust me , you're watching over me . Criticism can trigger us , especially in public . Some people are fine with criticism can I just say I'm not one of them but some people really receive criticism as a chance to learn , some me included . It's a trigger and particularly if that happens in public . Feeling excluded from a group is a really hard experience and will trigger us to have lots of reactions , a sense of unfair treatment , either for us or that we perceive in others . Perfectionism is one I've seen in coaching clients , so they have a high perfectionism standard for themselves and when that comes up against other people's standards they can feel pretty triggered to annoyance . A tone of voice can trigger us , so this feeling of being a bit patronized , maybe , or intimidated can do it .

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Tiredness is a trigger . When we're tired I take everything a bit more personally and , of course , poor communication can lead to it . And just a final one

The Parent-Adult-Child Model Explained

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overhearing somebody mention our name in a conversation can often trigger us to what are they talking about ? What are they saying about me ? And we're off in a worry spiral . Our triggers also don't have to be external , so they can be about our own reaction to something about us . It can be noticing that we made a mistake and we feel terrible about it , or regretting something we said in meetings or to somebody , or wishing we had said more in a meeting , and this is where we're triggered internally and our own thoughts and feelings are taking us away from being at our best . Sometimes our reactions also really surprise us because it can seem a bit unconscious and to come out of nowhere , and that can sometimes feel like there's no obvious cause of it . I believe if we go back and look , we can usually find the cause .

Speaker 1 15:06

Here's a bit of a personal example , a brief one . I hold trust and integrity as being a hugely important value , so if I say something , I just expect that someone will believe me , and if they doubt or question my integrity , I can be instantly triggered . And this happens in a lot of situations , but I've learned most about it in the car . I am a good navigator . I'm really good at reading maps . Whole nother story about why . But so when I'm navigating and I say turn left at the next junction and the driver says , are you sure ? I'm instantly triggered . I've had moments where I've gone instantly up the scale of trigger and I'm saying Are you questioning me ? Don't you trust me ? And now of course the driver has a right to check , because they're the driver and my integrity value being instantly offended isn't appropriate . So once I actually realized that what was happening in these situations was just my value about integrity , I began to see that I could actually not react . I didn't have to react , I could just say , yeah , it is just turn left here . And do you know , over time I've got better and I mostly stopped reacting . It still happens very occasionally . So you could pause now and think about that example we talked about the beginning of the podcast and think , while you're listening to this , what could be going on here that's triggering me .

Speaker 1 16:36

One way of looking at this and looking at what's happening is through the lens of something called transactional analysis . It's otherwise called the parent-adult-child model , and I love this model . I use it with coaching clients a lot because I think it helps us to explain relationships in organizations and often helps us to understand why we're being triggered in a particular relationship . If you're new to this , you can head over to Google and learn more transactional analysis . But in a nutshell , it's developed by Eric Byrne and he was a psychoanalyst and he was looking at analyzing transactions with other people hence the term transactional analysis and he could see that we can see different ways that we interact with each other and different ways that we're impacted or that we talk to ourselves . And he suggested that we have these kind of three .

Speaker 1 17:29

You can call them ego states or states of mind . The adult , which is when we're calm , open to learning , we're being ourselves without being triggered . And when we're in the adult , we're really often in the present moment or close to it . We might be thinking about the past or the future , but we're calm , we're in a clear state , we're able actually to debate and disagree with people , explore difference , but we're not flooded with emotion , we're not flooded with difficult thoughts and it's a good day for us .

Speaker 1 18:00

The second ego state is the parent On a good day part of us which watches out to make sure we're okay , our children are okay is a good parent . But on a bad day , this state is either telling us off or others off , being critical , or it's colluding with us , saying see , you knew it was okay to do this . We , because of this , describe the parent as either critical or nurturing , and one way of thinking about this is to remember the last time somebody around you made a mistake , were you calm and deal with it appropriately , or were you angry and fed up , or did you want to step in and help and rescue them ? So the angry is the critical parent and the step in and rescue is nurturing parent . And if you were calm and help them work out what happened , that was you , an adult .

Speaker 1 18:52

The third ego state is the child and with the child , memories of our reactions and protections in our childhood are triggered . And on a good day , our child is playful and has fun . However , when we're triggered , our child can either become rebellious I'm not going to do that or it can turn to pleasing people , being a bit compliant and saying yes when we mean

Practical Strategies for Managing Triggers

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no . And if you think about what happens when someone criticizes you , do you find yourself either desperately trying to please them and make it right , or do you ignore them and , in your head , head off to blame . And either of these are child states and it can often lead to us feeling a bit like we're a victim . So the adult state is the state when we're not triggered . And when we are triggered we either end up in the parent or the child and when this happens we feel a bit emotionally out of control , a bit unable to react from a strong place .

Speaker 1 19:52

So the thing with transactional analysis , with this parent-adult-child model , is that we want to learn to see when we've been triggered out of adult into parent or child and then work out what to do to bring ourselves back . And this is important because often these states are triggered in relation to another person . For example , if we're having a calm debate or discussion about something and the other person suddenly becomes critical , maybe they shift to parent mode , it can trigger in us a child reaction . It can also happen if someone's behaving a bit I don't know what to do , maybe feeling a bit helpless , that can trigger us to either nurturing , rescuing them or criticizing them . And I love thinking about these states of mind when something happens , because I know from my own experience that when I've become either the critical parent mode or the victim child mode , then it's time for me to work out how to get back to adult . So what can we do ?

Speaker 1 20:54

Our main role is to learn over time to notice in any moment that we've been triggered and to find the pause . That's the first thing to do . We're looking for the difference between reacting from our emotions and responding from our calm , adult state , and I notice , as I'm sharing this , that I'm not talking about calm , rational state . That is is important , but our calm state might still involve some emotion , some intuition , along with our analytical mind . It's just that when we're triggered , these bits of information are not really available to us . In a way , that's very helpful .

Speaker 1 21:34

So let's start with a strategy for what to do in the moment when you notice the trigger is coming towards you and you're aware that you might either do something you regret or that you know that you're heading into a kind of thought spiral that won't be helpful for you , and the best thing to do is to have a strategy . That's your grounding strategy , that's your way of knowing that you can , time and again , get back to calm quite quickly , and this will be a very personal thing and , for many people , involves looking at their breathing . So having some sort of breathing strategy that calms them down , a very simple thing that you can do is do a long , gentle out breath , because this signals to our nervous system I'm in charge here . It's basically saying to the body I'm in control of the situation . You can place your feet on the floor so you can become aware of your body , straighten your back , lift your head . As I said , each person will have their own grounding strategy , but anything that's going to just help you find that kind of almost nanosecond of calm before you go into reacting in a way that you don't want to , that gives you the chance to respond . Now , my suggestion around this is that you create your own strategy and then you practice , practice , practice in low pressure situations .

Speaker 1 23:00

So maybe you're in a meeting , you're feeling a little bit annoyed . See if you can ground yourself , get yourself back to center in that moment , and that can help you then . But let's assume that you don't manage to do that and you're coming away from something . You're walking away from a meeting , or you've just stepped back from your desk because you've just read an email that's really upset you . What do you do ? So ? First of all , if you can calm yourself down immediately after and then see if you can find five or ten minutes to look at the event , to look at what actually happened . Grab a pen and paper , dictate it on your phone . What you're wanting to do is become the observer of yourself . You're wanting to do is become the observer of yourself . You're wanting to stand outside of the situation and look at everything that happened , even starting from when you woke up that day . It's about looking at it from all angles the environment , yourself , the other person , even the weather , because learning from what was going on is the next place that we can begin to learn to be less triggered . We can learn to prevent it happening in the future . So what we're doing here is an inquiry , and please practice this with self compassion , so taking care of yourself . But maybe look back . You can go back even to the morning of that day , or sometimes it's even days .

Speaker 1 24:21

What was the buildup to the conversation ? Start with yourself . How were you feeling ? Were there any events that already left you a bit on edge that day ? What about previous encounters with this person ? How had they gone and what were you coming into the conversation or the email interaction with ? Maybe some assumptions , maybe some fears , maybe some concerns . What was the topic that you were talking about and what about that topic could have led you to feeling this way ? What about when you were triggered ? What were some of the things that you noticed yourself saying to yourself , this person is being unreasonable . Or notice words that you were using about them or about yourself , and then inquire into those . What does unreasonable mean ? Why does unreasonable seem so important ? What's the story that you were telling yourself and that maybe you were believing ?

Speaker 1 25:17

You can look for any other of the triggers that we talked about earlier . Were there any values at play ? For example , as I've said , we might have a value about timeliness and getting things done , and the other person's missed that . Was there something going on here , related to

Learning and Growing from Trigger Events

Speaker 1 25:31

some particular thing that I'm sensitive to being triggered about ? What were the facts of things that were going on ? So we're usually so focused on the emotions and the thoughts , but what was actually said and done ? What was the real situation ? And then , what ego state were you in when you reacted ? Maybe you moved out of adult into parent or child . Maybe you weren't also in that adult ego state .

Speaker 1 25:59

As I've said , we want to approach this with self-compassion , but also with a lot of curiosity , because what we want to do here is to learn what is it that triggers us , so that we can see it coming and so that we can learn to have a different response and reaction to it next time . Here's a few other things that you can try to help you both calm down and also manage your response to triggers . Dan Siegel talks about name it to tame it , and he's talking about naming your emotions here . So if you're feeling let down , name it . I notice I'm feeling let down , angry . I notice I'm feeling angry . Putting notice in front of it gives you some distance . So you name your emotions , and the neuroscience is very clear about this . Naming emotions gives them slightly less hold over us . You can also notice the story that you're telling yourself . You can begin to think what is my mind saying here ? So maybe my mind is saying that it feels that I feel judged by this person . Again , what you're doing is you're naming what is the story , what's going on in my mind here .

Speaker 1 27:07

This might be really hard , but you can focus on finding something positive in the other person . You know , we know people are not all good or bad . So if you've been triggered by something that happened with another person , just looking for one thing that you know they did well , maybe even looking for their intent . Maybe their intent wasn't to upset you , but their intent was to get something done and because you've been triggered , you've missed that intent .

Speaker 1 27:31

Curiosity and questions can help us a lot in the moment when we're triggered , because we can notice that we're jumping to conclusions maybe and we can ask the other person what else is happening here Can you tell me a bit more about your thinking behind this ? Being curious might help us get underneath some assumptions that we've jumped into and help us to come to a different outcome . We can look at the situation and think , wow , I'm really triggered because this isn't what I wanted , and we can step back and say is there a less ideal outcome that would still leave me feeling OK , and then I wouldn't be triggered . And we can work at really calming ourselves , doing things like going for a walk , noticing things in the present moment and really bringing ourselves back to calm things in the present moment and really bringing ourselves back to calm . As we get better at learning what's happening to us , we can get better at not being so overwhelmed by these experiences , and I know this has been really true for me and so the next time we notice that some of these events are happening , we might be able to interrupt them and knock out that pattern before we get triggered , and that means that we're able to focus on our work , we're able to lead in a way that we feel good about and we're not derailed and behaving in a way that we don't feel good about .

Final Thoughts on Compassionate Leadership

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This is an enormous topic on something that happens to all of us , and it's a learning journey . Learning to be less triggered is a lifelong commitment , but I know from my own experience that if we commit to it , we really can change it . But I want to finish by reminding you to be very compassionate towards yourself . It's part of being human being triggered , and so berating yourself afterwards doesn't help . See every piece as a learning moment , one that we all have , so that you can look for more ways to return to your calm , adult self . Thanks for listening to the Fulfilled Leader . If this episode resonated , share it with another leader or friend , and don't forget to follow the podcast so you never miss an episode . You can even rate and review . You can find more support and resources at jeanbalfourcom , or come and say hello on LinkedIn . Take care and keep leading with heart .