You are listening to My Freedom Grove podcast with Gretchen Hernandez, episode 18.

Welcome to My Freedom Grove podcast. This is where strong people, just like you come to have honest, open discussions about anxiety, depression, and frustration, but we don't stop there. We go deeper by learning and applying mindset management tools to once and for all break free from the pain. So we can actually enjoy our lives. I'm your host, Gretchen Hernandez. I'm so glad you joined us.

Hi, my strong friends. So I have been having a great time reaching out and talking with some people. I wanted to learn from them; what is the best way that I can serve them? What are the right type of topics? There's been one topic that's been going on for the last couple of weeks that I've found not only from some of the folks that I've talked to but also from just people out there in Facebookland posting, all sorts of stuff. Which is the triggers that we're experiencing.

As you know, we're going through this pandemic; a lot of things are going on that's causing basically the whole world to get triggered. Every person is getting triggered by something, at least one thing. Oftentimes we're getting triggered by multiple things. And since we have the stay in place orders to stay in our homes, we are with the same people, and they're also getting triggered, and that's starting to cause some problems in our relationships. How do we maintain our relationships and even thrive when we're all getting triggered? Do even know how to be able to help each other.

So I thought the fastest way that I can provide help on this, of course, is to do a podcast. But I also want to know, would this topic be helpful in another format for you? I know I'm a visual learner, so I like to have all of the pictures and maybe some video, like a little video instruction with some pictures, explaining the concept, and going through more of the details. Some people really like to read, so having something written out that could describe all of this might be helpful. Having some type of a forum to be able to discuss it with other people and what's going on. Or just having the opportunity to have a one-on-one discussion might be something helpful. So what I meant by doing something different is that I want to have you guys let me know how can I support you in the best way?

I want to create something for you that is really going to help you during this time, but that serves you in the best way. So what I'm going to do is on the webpage for this podcast, that's going to be at MyFreedomGrove.com/Podcast-18. On that page, I'm going to ask you if you're interested in having this information in a different type of format. If you are, and you'd like some extra help, please click on the button that you find there, because that's going to give you a couple of questions to answer that will go right to me. No one else will see your responses; it just comes straight to me. And then, once I see what everybody is asking for, I can create something. So one thing that I've learned is that it takes a lot of time to create something. And if I've created something that's not in the right format or isn't the right topic, it's taken my time away from creating something that would be super helpful for you.

So this would be really great. It could help me; it could help others. So I just want to thank you in advance for being willing to submit your ideas on there, because that's the way that we're going to be able to help everybody in this situation.

Identifying Triggers

So what are some of the triggers that you're experiencing right now? Does everybody understand what I mean by a trigger? So triggers are usually something that has happened that we have a negative feeling about that gives us some pain in some way that might cause us some anxiety, some depression, some frustrations, and anger. Some kind of feeling that is so big and uncomfortable that we tend to have a reaction to it that we normally wouldn't have had to some other type of a circumstance.

Some of the things that are happening right now during this pandemic time that can be triggers for people, of course, are job loss. There's health scares going on having to homeschool our children or our children just not having school, not getting to be around their friends. I know my son is facing not having a high school graduation. He's been looking forward to that his whole life. My step-daughter had to experience the loss of her 10th birthday celebration. That was pretty sad. Other people are that have routines that they have or traditions that they look forward to; those aren't happening right now. People are having to postpone or cancel events that they were really looking forward to. People are having to cancel their weddings or do it in a completely different way. The amount of triggers that are happening is just so long of a list that I couldn't even go through them all.

But I'm sure that you know exactly what are the ones that are causing you the most distressed right now. During this podcast, I want you to start thinking about what are the triggers for the other people in your life, especially the ones that you are in the same living quarters with.

That's the focus of this podcast is learning what everybody's triggers are when you're together, so that you can try to figure out how can you manage those types of triggers and all of the feelings and all of the actions that come out of it so that you don't damage your relationships. Because during this time, there's enough stuff going on. The last thing you want to do is damage a relationship. But when the triggers are happening left and right, those feelings can build up like a pressure cooker. And sometimes the easiest way to try to get rid of that pressure, because we don't know other ways of doing it yet, is to push that other person away. So either temporarily or permanentl., And I'm sure that if you hadn't had all these triggers, that probably isn't the result that you wanted to have. You wanted to have your relationship.

You wanted to have that mutual love or respect or friendship, whatever it is, you're in a relationship because you wanted to be around that other person. This is an unusual time with all sorts of triggers. I'm going to go through and teach you some of the steps that I use. That has helped myself and my husband, my family, and even coworkers to navigate all of that when we do have these dual triggers going on so that our relationship can not only be preserved, but can actually start to thrive.

I debated the best way to present this to you because I always like to include examples, especially if I'm going to do some step-by-step type of instructions. But for this one, I think that it would be helpful for me to go over the steps first and then give you three specific examples. Each of those examples, we'll just go through the steps altogether.

All right. So I've broken these steps basically into three big buckets. So one of them is recognizing and triage. The next bucket is working things out together. And then, the last bucket is recognizing when you need to get outside help.

Step 1: Recognize And Triage

All right, let's jump into that very first one, which is Recognize and Triage. I went over a lot of this in episode 4 of how to have a mental wellness conversation, but it was based mainly on just recognizing your own triggers and how to deal with it. With this one, it's recognizing yours and the other persons, because so often we're so focused on our own stuff that we haven't taken the time to recognize that the other person was acting how they were because they were being triggered too. So your very first part of this section is to recognize when you're getting triggered and then to think, are they acting in a way because they were triggered?

All right. So just recognizing that there are dual triggers going on is huge. And you don't have to get into all of the details yet, but to just recognize that both people in this situation are being triggered at the same time. You might be tempted to try to advocate for yourself in those moments because you're trying to make your trigger go away. But when you recognize that both of you are being triggered, it's important to know that anything you do to try to advocate for yourself to minimize the triggers that are happening for you, that that in itself can be a trigger for the other person. So you'll recognize it. It's when tempers are starting to flare, or the feelings are just awful between the two of you. That's when you do the next part of it, which is allow both of you to take a breather.

This is recognize that the other person is having a trigger; you’re having a trigger. You're not taking the break out of anger. You're taking the break out of love. This is really, really important because if you can think, "I love this person, or I really care about them depending on who they are and that I do not want our relationship to be damaged right now." That's going to be huge because just that simple shift in how you're thinking about it is going to help you make sure that you're doing the right kind of breather. Because at that point, if you make it be all about how upset you are at the trigger situation you experienced, without thinking that they're also having a trigger, you're likely to act out in anger or in self-preservation in a way that will damage your relationship.

That'll be maybe even a permanent split, but if you can recognize it for just being that both people are having a trigger, you're showing love and empathy because you have that end goal in mind that this is a relationship you really care about. It's just a dual trigger event and that they need a breather, and you need a breather.

Now, the breather is just time for you to allow yourself to process your emotions. Because as much as we'd like to stop our feelings on a dime, that usually doesn't happen. It takes time for emotions to pass through our body. Remember, emotions have a beginning, a middle, and an end; all you're doing is giving yourself enough time to allow all of those emotions to pass through you, to have their beginning, middle, and end. And to just be completely done so that you're back to a more stable type of a feeling so that you can talk more from your logical side, instead of from your emotional side. You also want to make sure that you're giving the other person enough time to have a breather.

The amount of time everybody takes to process their feelings is going to be different. You might be able to process your emotions in about 10 minutes. You might have all of those different types of coping skills that you've figured out, whether it's meditation, reading a book, whatever it is that helps you to process your emotions faster. That's great for you.

The other person might take a little bit longer to process their emotions; allow them that time because you care about them. You care about your relationship. If you try to rush into it because you're worried that the other person might be having bad feelings about you. All that's going to do is create even more bad feelings from being rushed. So allow each other that breather. So that is the recognize and triage bucket for this overall process.

Step Two: Working It Out Together

The next bucket of activity is working it out together. So this comes with the assumption that at least one of you has decided that you want to preserve this relationship and you want to try to work it out. So this isn't just ignoring the problem and never talking about it again, that's not working it out. That's just ignoring. And that's its own topic altogether. This is deciding ahead of time that you want to work on your relationship so that you can have that relationship that you've always wanted to have.

Now you'll notice that I said at least one person; it doesn't have to be that both people want to do the work. As long as one person is willing to go through this, that's all it's going to take. Of course, it is so much better if both people are willing, but all it takes is one person putting in the effort and role modeling. And then the rest just starts to flow naturally. You'll be surprised by once you start doing these steps; even if you never thought the other person would start to try to do some self-reflection by you, role modeling it, it automatically starts to happen.

So let's get into what does this look like? So the first thing you're going to do is create some alignment, have a conversation with the other person where you're stating what you want for your relationship. By telling the other person how you want to preserve your relationship or even make it stronger. You're giving them some sense of security. Because a lot of times when we're having these dual triggers, folks will go right to the worry that there's going to be a separation. So by putting it out there ahead of time, that your intention is that you really want this relationship to work. That in itself eases some of the tension. And especially if they kind of get on board saying, yeah, they want that too. So much better.

The other part with that is saying that you're recognizing that there's dual triggering going on. Now you can use whatever kind of wording you want to use. Other people might not understand what dual triggering means, but you do because you've been listening to the podcast so far, but you can explain it in your own terms. They'll get it, you'll get it. As long as everybody understands what the conversation is about. Just even acknowledging that that is happening.

It is this really great awakening and also relief because we're so used to other people just coming straight at us with blame. Like this is all your fault, you did this thing, and now you've ruined everything. By starting off the conversation with, Hey, I really want our relationship to work. And I recognize that we're both being triggered. There is no blame in that. It's just recognizing that you're both getting triggered. That's it? There's empathy. That's being expressed for both people. There's no blame.

The next part is to take some time to learn from each other about the triggers. So you get to go first because the other person might not have decided they want to do this, and they don't have to. It would be great if they do. And they just might because you're about to role model some pretty terrific behavior.

You're going to take the time to learn all about the other person and all about their triggers. Now, this can be kind of a hard one because they may not have the best way of communicating about their triggers, and the way that they describe it might come off as blaming you. The best way to deal with that is just trying to understand what was the specific action, or if it was words or an expression on your face or something that they saw on TV or something that's happening with the kids or with a roommate or with work, what is this specific action or activity that was happening?

So that way, it helps you make it not be about you. It's not something personal. It's just, what is the action? Now, remember, when people are talking, they might have a whole bunch of other information attached to what that activity was. That's their interpretation of what the activity meant, but for this to be super, super helpful for you, you need to be able to recognize what was the event versus what was all of the meaning that is being said about the event.

So even if you use like a piece of paper to write down, what was the actual activity? What were the words that were said? What was the action that happened? The facial expression, whatever it was. Because it was that, that was the trigger. All of the rest of the stuff that they're saying that goes with it. That is what happened once that triggering event occurred. That's all of the thoughts that got created as a result of the trigger.

Now give yourself some time with this. Other people need some time to talk, and it's going to be really hard to not try to let them know that they're wrong because oftentimes, something else that triggered another person is not going to be a triggering event for you. It won't even make sense to you in many times how that even triggered the other person. That's not your job at that particular moment. That particular moment, you're just trying to learn from the other person, what was the triggering event? Once you have a good list of what those were, I want you to acknowledge the other person and thank them for sharing with you.

You're probably going to have all sorts of feelings because remember just them sharing. That could be a triggering event for you, especially depending on how they communicate it. Allow yourself another timeout after this, another breather, go and process your emotions so that you're not providing any reaction other than as a data collector. That's all you were doing was collecting some data from them. Now you're going to go somewhere, have your breather so that if you have any emotions that came up as a result, you can process those.

And then you'll be in a better state of mind so that you can look at that list and see what specifically were those activities or events that happened because the next step is for you to decide if those things that you had direct control over. So this is your actions, your reactions, and your inactions, right? So these could be your facial expressions. These can be the words that you've said, the things that you did, or the things that you didn't do. And you get to have a decision point.

They're letting you know; these are things that triggered them. And as much as you'd like to go back and tell them, don't be triggered by it. That's not your place. Those are their triggers. It's their work to do to try to make it not be triggers. What you are in charge of at that point is owning the part that you had in it. If you made that facial expression own that you made that facial expression like, oh, okay. Maybe you didn't even know that you made that facial expression, but just having that knowledge of how it impacts another person, that it is a trigger for them. You now get to choose if you want to continue doing that action, knowing that that's going to trigger them.

All right? So the easy part is, if you decide that you're not going to do that action or that reaction, then you can stop. It might be that you have some mindset work that you need to do so that you're resolving whatever the thoughts were that generated that type of an action for you. And that's, that's going to come up. We're going to talk about that when we get to the third bucket, but you can decide if you're going to change how you acted or didn't act.

Now, if you decide that you're not going to change, the next part that comes up is that that is now offloading an activity onto the other person. The other person is now going to have to deal with you still showing up in that same way. And you're going to have to allow them space and allow them to make boundary decisions for themselves. I talked about growing love with boundaries in a previous podcast. Boundary setting is when you're willing to be around a certain behavior or not be around that behavior; you have the right to choose how you want to act.

The other person has the right to choose if they to be around you when you act that way or not. Now they may choose to be around that because they really want to be around you. And that can cause them to go down a path of self-destruction. And it really hurts them a lot. They might also be willing to be around you and those particular actions, but they're doing their mindset work so that those don't become triggers for them anymore. Their third option is to decide not to be around you anymore. That might be a temporary thing where just if you act like that for like 10 minutes, they're just not going to be around you for that 10 minutes. But if it's something that is happening quite often, or the trigger is that strong, they might decide they don't want to be around you at all. And that is completely their option.

Now let's flip that around, and let's talk about the triggers that you were having. So everything that I've told you so far has just been our bucket one of recognize and triage and bucket two of the work that you can do together. Now, I know that that sounded like it was the work that you could do alone so far, right? And that's because that's the only work that you're guaranteed you could do because you are in direct control of that.

But that second bucket was called, how do you do the work together? So we're also going to look at you evaluating the triggers that you had off of their actions. When you've gone through those steps of having that alignment discussion and then learning from each other, hopefully, they started asking you on their own what your triggers were.

So they might not. And it's okay for you to share with them what your triggers are because self-advocacy is really important. Your mental health is so important that you can't leave it up to someone else to advocate for you. The outcome at this point is not to change the other person; It’s to share the knowledge because the other person might not even realize that you were getting triggered by any of their actions.

So remember when I was talking about the other person, sharing the triggers, what you're looking for are what are the specific words that were said, or activities or events when you are communicating your triggers? Do your best to shave down all of the extra stuff around it. All of those extra meaning that you have around the trigger points shave it all down to just the activities, the words that were said, or the events that happened.

That's the clearest way of describing it. You can also consider the tone of voice that you're saying it in because the other person might start to feel blamed. You're trying to do this, and as neutral as possible, you're just saying, Hey, when you said these words, or when you squished up your face or when you bounced your leg or whatever it was, that was a triggering event for me.

This phase is just so that they know what your triggers are. Allow both of you to have that breather afterwards. Because again, it's so tempting to allow ourselves to start to respond to all of the information. So the other person might start to have some negative feelings come up as a result of hearing this information, they might want to defend themselves. You might want to go and give even more information. That might not be the best time because no one has really had enough time to process this and allow their emotions to come up, allow their emotions to pass through. So allow yourself a breather after sharing that information.

And then once everybody has processed their information, then you can decide what to do next. So the other person gets to decide if it was their actions, their words, or events that they had some kind of control over. Would they be willing to change that? Because again, you've already stated that your end goal is to try to have a relationship that works. Ideally, both of you would want to try to reduce the amount of triggers. So if it's words that are said or activities that happen or events, is there some way that you can help each other to reduce the amount of that or to eliminate it altogether?

You're responsible for your own actions, which is a great thing because that means you are empowered to change all of that. You have the power to have this relationship that you want by changing the things that you can control.

Since we're talking about their actions, they also get to be empowered. If they really want a relationship that works, they get to choose if they're going to change their actions. They might have some thought work that they need to do so that they don't have all of those actions anymore. And again, that's something separate. We'll talk about that in our third bucket. For now, it's just; they get to make that decision.

And then, if for some reason, they choose that they do not want to make that change. They're now offloading the responsibility back onto you. Here's this action or event that might continue to happen. And you now have the decision of what you're going to do with that. You have three different outcomes from this. You can choose to either grin and bear it. Let them still do that kind of activity; let it still trigger you. And you're just going to try to control how you react to it.

That's kind of a path of self-destruction. That's not going to feel good that does not make the pain go away. In fact, it makes the pain get worse.

The second option is that you can do the mindset work that dissolves those things as being triggers in the first place. It is possible for someone to still have the exact same action, but for you to think about it in a completely different way that does not cause you any painful feelings.

The third option is for you to use your boundaries. So again, boundaries is just allowing the other person to act. However, they want to that's their free will you get to choose if you're going to be around them or not? That time away from the other person might be just for a short amount of time. Like if they're just exhibiting this for like 10 minutes and that's it, you can choose to not be around them for 10 minutes, or if it's a repeated pattern of behavior and they're not going to change, and it's still causing you all of that pain, you can choose to not be around them at all.

That's your boundary work that you get to do. Because remember, boundary work is going to help everybody to have much better mental health and to have really good relationships with each other. Because when we do that boundary work and we do decide to remove ourselves from the other person for a short amount of time, the other person gets it really clear message of how to treat you. Same thing for when they do the boundary work. You get a very clear message for how to treat them. It's always the individual's choice on what actions, what behaviors they want to exhibit, but there's ways that they can change their behavior.

Step Three: Recognizing When You Need Outside Help

And that's what I want to get into bucket number three. Bucket number three is when do you recognize that you need outside help to help you with changing your behavior or helping you to get a different perspective on things. This type of help can be in two different ways. One of them could be just the outside perspective. This is a neutral third party who is not in the same living environment with you, or if this is a work thing that if they're not in the same work environment with you. They're someone that you can go; you can tell all of the stuff to. You don't have to worry about triggering them whatsoever because they're not involved in that environment. They're not part of that dynamic. That neutral third party might be able to see it in a different way than what you can see it as. They'll be able to see those different triggers and help tease it out for you.

The other way that outside people can help is they may have already resolved something similar, or they might have a different type of skillset that helps you. So I've mentioned a couple of times about doing the mindset work. That's something that I specialize in, which is teasing everything out so that you can see what the exact circumstances and then how our thoughts are creating our feelings. And then how our feelings are creating our actions.

With that, you can take any type of a trigger that has happened and evaluate how you're thinking about it that generates those feelings. Then you start doing some thought shopping where you're finding other ways of thinking about that exact same circumstance, where it does not cause those types of feelings. And then you'll have different actions altogether that are going to give you the results that you want. Folks that are trained in this type of thing are pretty good at it.

I know it's tempting to go and turn to a friend on how to do this, but not everybody has been trained in this type of thing. And they may have some other ways of dealing with it, such as blaming or labeling someone as a narcissist, or just saying that everything is their fault and that they have to be the one that changes. So consider that as you're going out and you're trying to get help from different sources.

Are they someone that can be totally objective so that they're not getting triggered either and that they're not bringing in their emotional stuff that could taint the outcome of your conversation? And do they have the right kind of skill set to help you through this?

All right. So those were the three big buckets.

The first one was the Recognize and Triage. So again, the Recognize and Triage was recognizing that there is a dual trigger and then allowing a breather for both people to process their emotion.

Bucket two is the work that you can do together. So with that, you have step one, which is aligning on wanting to have a good relationship, and that you are recognizing that there's the dual triggers going on. So that's the first part of it. The second part of it was learning from each other, what the triggers are, and getting it down to specific activities, words, events. The third one is acknowledging that you had a part in that, that yes, you are the one that did that activity and acknowledging that the other person does have that trigger. Not trying to convince them that they shouldn't have it, you're acknowledging that they had it. And then your last part is deciding. What are you going to do with that information? Are you going to change or not change? And then what is your course of action based on that decision?

The third bucket is when to seek outside help. And the two considerations with that, is it someone that is a neutral third party that would not have any emotional connection to what's going on, and do they have the right skill set to help you?

All right. So I want to run through three different examples so that these steps can resonate a little bit more. I'm going to use personal examples for this because triggers is a pretty intimate kind of discussion. And so, it's better for me to share my vulnerabilities than to share anybody else's story.

Example 1 - Pandemic & Grocery Shopping

My Trigger: Fear From The Virus
His Trigger: Fear Of Food Spoiling From Extra Cleaning Precautions

So with this first one, I'm going to talk about the trigger that I had with going to the grocery store. I was experiencing a lot of anxiety about the potential for getting the virus. It could be on any of the surfaces. It could be around any of the people that we interact with.

I had a lot of anxiety, and I wanted to do things in a certain way. I was trained on a septic technique from having this 25-year career in the biotech industry and being a microbiologist. I knew how to keep us from getting any of the virus. I just needed my husband's cooperation in doing the activities in a certain way because we were both going shopping together and then bringing the groceries home. I was going to be cleaning off everything before it got put away. He got triggered by that because it takes a lot of extra time and it's extra movement and effort at the grocery store so that we're not touching things. And then, when we got home, of course, it was going to take a very long time to go through all of this. And he was worried about food that had already been in the car for an hour drive back from the grocery store. And now I was going to take even more time to clean it.

So it getting into the fridge or into the freezer before it spoiled was really important for him. So I was getting triggered by the fear from the virus. He was getting triggered about the fear of the extra steps, but also the bigger one of spoiled food. I had to recognize that we both had that dual trigger going on and to allow us to both have a breather. Luckily we have a long car ride home. So I had some time to process through my anxiety. So I focused on some present moment activities so that I could stop my brain from racing through all of the fear so that I could have a good conversation with my husband.

So the next step that I did before we got home is aligned on the vision. So we both aligned that we wanted to keep ourselves safe from food spoiling, but also from the potential contamination with the virus. We also talked about how we wanted to maintain our mental health. That this was really important for both of us is that I wanted to make sure I didn't have any extra anxiety because it was really uncomfortable, but I wanted to make sure he wasn't having any extra anxiety.

That was something that we could both get on board with. We were having empathy for each other and empathy for ourselves so that we could agree. We wanted to have this type of an outcome. We took a little bit more time to learn. So I listened to him. I wanted to learn more about why he might be getting triggered from me wanting to clean everything. So he shared all of his stuff.

And then, I self-advocated for myself by explaining my trigger points a little bit more. So then, we were able to figure out a game plan together. We were both going to change our activities in a certain way. So all of our needs could be met.

Once we got home, we were able to execute on that game plan. And neither of us had to deal with the anxiety. It was peaceful. And we were safe now with thinking about getting the outside help for this particular example; we didn't need any extra outside help. We were able to resolve this one on our own.

However, we did have something when we were working on before this pandemic even started, where he was getting triggered, and I was getting triggered. So I was trying to help him with some of his stuff because I'm a mindset coach. And so I help him as much as I can, but there was a point where he shared something that triggered me.

And as much as I'm a pretty skilled coach at being able to do this, I had to recognize that there are going to be times when I'm not the right coach for him, that although I love him and I want to be there for him. I need to have him go and see another coach who will not be triggered. I wanted him to be able to work through all of his stuff and not have to worry about any repercussions that it would have for me as his wife. So when you're thinking about the dual triggers that are happening between you and your spouse or your loved one, there's going to be times that you have a whole lot of skills that you can help the other person, but recognize that sometimes you might also be getting triggered. And when is it the right time to ask your spouse to go seek some outside help, or when is the right time for you to go and seek some outside help?

Because as much as we'd like our spouses to be there for us, we can't expect them to do the job of an independent third party to help us through all of our stuff. We might be triggering them, but they might also not have the skillset. So it's important for us to seek out the people that have the right skillset. And we'll also be that neutral third party.

Example 2 - Homeschooling and Working from Home

All right. My second example is with my daughter. So my ten-year-old daughter has autism. She has a few challenges with school. She's never really enjoyed school. Some of it is from the social aspect of it. Some of it is from the structure. Some of it is from writing. She has dyspraxia. So it causes her some pain in her arm when she's trying to write. So there's different accommodations over the years that we've figured out so that school can work for her.

Now that we've switched to a homeschool environment, I'm still working full-time. I'm still seeing clients. I'm still trying to figure out all of the ins and outs of being an entrepreneur and having my own business. I've got more than a full-time job. Now I have homeschooling on top of it. I was definitely getting triggered by this because I didn't have time on my plate to stop and be a teacher too. My daughter is pretty darn smart. She can figure out a lot of stuff on her own.

For example, the very first week, she was given a homework packet from her teacher. She was able to go through and complete everything. Like we did a short little check-in for maybe a half hour to go through everything. She knew what she had to do. She got it all done. It was great. I thought, yes, this is going to work.

We're going to be able to have her do her schoolwork. I'm going to be able to continue doing my workin. The next week rolled around. And it changed. We were given three weeks worth of work all at one time, and everything was segmented out into different topics. But the weekly schedule was to do a little bit out of each of those topics. The result for my daughter and how she processes, things was overwhelmed. There was just too much of it all at once. Instead of just segmented into small pieces that kind of had its own schedule and routine. I didn't recognize this at first because I thought, oh, she handled it just fine the very first week. So the second time that we got a packet, I didn't even really sat down with her. I assumed that she had it all taken care of because she had flown through it like a champ the very first time.

Then about four days into it, I checked in with her and yeah, I could have definitely done a better job with that. I know that. So I checked in with her and found out that she was really, really struggling. Honestly, I got really frustrated because I didn't think that I have the time to stop everything in my business and do this with my daughter. And so, my emotions did start to get the best of me. We sat down, we were trying to do things and I don't know if it was from my energy or just her frustration with the whole homeschooling thing, but she got triggered from it all. And having both of us triggered at the exact same time was not a good recipe for success. Luckily, we followed this process, recognizing that there was a dual trigger going on.

She was triggered from the complexity of having to figure out all of this stuff. And that's not really what she wanted to do. She wanted to go and watch YouTube. I was being triggered because I wanted to be spending my time on my business. And I had clients that I had to see. And I couldn't because I had to stop and be a teacher now. This wasn't a role that I had signed up for. I was so used to the teachers doing it, and they were really good at it.

So I got triggered. She got triggered. So we recognized first that was happening. And then we allowed ourselves to go take a breather. So luckily, I've worked with my daughter enough with all of these techniques that she recognized it too. She was able to go into her bedroom process through her emotions. And I let her know that when she was ready, that I would be out there waiting for her.

So during that time, I was able to process through my emotions, too. And to think about things in a different way. And so I put myself into her shoes and started to think about what she was going through. And that helped me to have a lot more empathy because although I might've been able to figure out how to do all of that work. I'm also a whole lot older than she is, and I don't have autism that I'm aware of.

So I started to try to figure out what were the ways that I could help her to work through all of that. So after we were done with our breather, we got back together to do that second bucket of working together. So we aligned that we wanted to figure out a way to make it all work so that she could be able to do her schoolwork successfully. I could do my work successfully, and that we wanted to learn from each other; what were all of the different triggers?

Because sometimes there's little tiny ones in addition to the overall big one of being overwhelmed. So we spent some time doing that second part, which was learning from each other, looking specifically at what were the activities and the events that were happening. We had the option next to take another breather if we needed to. And so, for some of those pieces, we did decide to take a breather because we still had some more emotions to process through some frustration because we didn't necessarily know the answer right away on some of these things. But the ones that we didn't feel we needed a breather on, we were able to take care of right then and there and figure some stuff out.

So the next part of it was the deciding are we going to change our behavior?

We found some ways to change because that ended up being what was in our best interest. But I did have to tag in some extra help because I might not completely understand the best way to set up a certain structure for my daughter. And to also figure out what's another way that I could do some of my business that would allow me some extra time to take on this teacher role for my daughter. So I turned to some of the material that a good friend of mine has done. He's an ADHD coach and also specializes with autism.

So I was reading through some of his stuff, and I was looking at what some of my other parent friends have done for creating some structure for their kids. And I also talked with my daughter's teacher on figuring out what were the boundaries around what she had to do, what she didn't have to do the timing of it all.

And then I turned back to my mindset coaches because I have a couple of them that I've hired to help me through all of the rough parts in my life, whether it's through business or otherwise, to help me to put it in a little bit different perspective. And so I was turning specifically to the business ones this time, because I needed to figure out how to pace things in a different way and which things I wanted to focus on first. And so, they were able to help me work through those different things.

It was nice to have all of those neutral third parties to help us figure out how to do all of this and make it work.

Example 3 - Triggered Work Teams

All right. So last example is when you have a whole group of people. So the best example that I can provide was a work environment that I had, where a bunch of us were all thrown together in the same room.

And our roles changed all at the same time. So we had the dynamic of introverts and extroverts, all being in the same room together all the time, instead of having separate space, which I'm sure some of you that are having a stay in place order, you might have extra people in your house because you're trying to help out other people.

This could pertain also the roles changing. This is really significant because, as we've experienced, a lot of people are having job loss during this pandemic. Roles change. If you have job loss, you might've been the one that was used to making all of the money, and now you don't have that money. That ends up creating a bit of identity crisis. It triggers a lot of your insecurities. You might be trying to figure out new ways of working or even a new job all-together or creating something new.

Each one of those in itself becomes a trigger and creates an avalanche of thoughts that are creating all sorts of feelings. Now that gets magnified when you have a whole bunch of people all together in the same space, like what I had; what happened is that each person in that space would start getting triggered by the other people in the space and for different reasons.

So, for example, I was someone that liked to think out loud and write a whole bunch of stuff up on a dry erase board and be very verbose in thinking through everything because I'm not someone that just stays quiet and does all of the thinking in my head to myself, I like to have thought partners. However, I had other folks that were in the room that were more of introverts and quiet thinkers. And they did like to process completely on their own and not share any of their thoughts until they had a final finished product or until they had figured out exactly what their strategy was on something. They didn't want to share anything that was half-baked or would be scrapped at some point.

So it was just different working styles. It doesn't mean that one was right and one was wrong. They were just different. And what was happening was that when I was thinking out loud, I was triggering a lot of things for them. And their reaction to that trigger was something that I felt was shutting me down. So it was causing a trigger for me.

So we were triggering each other and not because anyone was doing anything wrong, it's just, that's kind of what happens when you're in a single environment, and you don't have the option to go somewhere else. So in looking at the process, I had to recognize that all of these triggers were happening. Now, this was more than dual trigger at this point because there were multiple people. Everybody had something different that they were dealing with. They all had different things that would trigger them.

So something that would trigger two people wouldn't trigger anybody else, or something that would not trigger anybody else in the room might just trigger me. So recognizing when was it that I was being triggered, but when was it that they were being triggered. Who was being triggered? How many people were being triggered, it got kind of complex.

What you could tell right away was that emotional flare gun is that nobody was happy. It was getting pretty awful. So I had to allow myself a breather. I had to pull myself away from there for awhile in whatever way I could. So at the time, I was able to go spend some time off in a bathroom. And when I was home, I could be in my own space in my bedroom.

Now, when you're thinking about a home environment, think about, is there any space in that home environment where you can create a space that is just for you, even if it's just for an hour or two. However much time, you need to be able to just process your emotions.

So I know one of the things I did when I first started working from home, and I had triggers all around me of, you know, like chores that I needed to do. I created like a cubicle around one chair because that created a space that didn't have any triggers, and I could just be there and decompress. So think about what could you do in your environment so that you can have a breather and allow the other person to have a breather, too.

Again, it might be tempting to want to just escape everybody. Right? You've got all sorts of different people. Everybody's having their triggers. So how can everybody be able to take a breather? It might be from one person even just voicing, "I think we're all being triggered right now." Let's go to our separate corners and cool down. But remember to say it out of empathy, that you care about all these people that you're sharing a house with.

All right. So that's your recognize and your triage. Recognizing that everybody is having some type of a trigger going on and allowing everybody to have a breather, to process their emotions.

All right. Getting into the second bucket. This is assuming that at least one person in the house wants to make this all work. Hopefully, you can get more than one. Now you'll have to think about your approach with this. Do you want to do this as getting the whole team together? Or is this something that you want to start off with just one person at a time? So there's a bit of the tribe mentality here. Is that it's so easy to gang up on the one who will take all of the responsibility, because if, if you can offload all of the responsibility or all of the blame onto one person, it's easier to push them out.

That might even be out of the house to relieve the steam pressure buildup of everybody's emotions, but that might not be the long-term solution. And that's probably not very nice to that one person. That's just a defense mechanism.

So a way to work with that tribe mentality is to find your early adopters. Even if it's just one other person to get alignment on a vision of, "Hey, I want everybody in the house to be able to have a conversation about our triggers and how we can try to work together so that this is easier for everybody." Once you can get that alignment with that one person, you might go through all of the rest of the steps together, or you might decide between the two of you, you might go and recruit the next person.

If you're able to do it, where you have that conversation with everybody all at once. And everybody's in alignment, that is ideal, but it's really hard to do. Especially depending on the number of people that you have in your house. So think about it just one at a time. And then how can you slowly build up the alignment of everybody wanting to do this.

Make sure that you're doing this for good. You're not trying to gang up on anybody. This is for everybody to have that shared vision of how do we work this out together, recognizing all of our triggers so that we can make this the best living environment for everybody. And we all get to have good mental health.

All right. So when I had this in my work environment, I originally started with trying to do this one person at a time, and I actually had some pretty good success with it because overall, I had a really good bunch of people that had good hearts. But it was just trying to help them get past their trigger, to be willing, to even talk with me.

So in the very beginning, most of it was just me listening to how I might've triggered them. And then I was the one doing the changing to make sure I wasn't triggering them. Because as soon as I wasn't the source of the triggers, they were willing to work with me more. And I had also role modeled that I cared about them and that I was willing to change. However, I was showing up so that we could have this shared goal together. And it made their lives so much better that they were like, yeah, I now recognize that I see what you were doing. And yeah, I want to do that for this person.

And then we would go to the next person together and, and that actually started to work pretty well. So again, it was sitting down having that honest talk, trying to learn what was the trigger for the other person. What was the actual activity trying really hard, not to react, just looking for what was the activity? What was the words? What was the facial expression or the event that was happening?

And it wasn't for me to decide if it was correct or not, for them to be triggered by it. It was for me to acknowledge that this thing had happened, and it was a trigger for them. And then I got to choose if I wanted to change or not change. After I would collect all that information, some of it was really hard to listen to. So I went, and I took a breather. There was even one day that I went; I went for a weekend getaway so that I could go and try to process through all of it. And I was so stuck on trying to make this other person wrong that I spent a whole weekend away. And I couldn't even process all of the emotions.

But I had to try to figure out what if I was wrong in thinking that their triggers were wrong. What if I really was making a mistake? And that was a hard one. Like I really had to work through it with this one person. Now, when I say that I had to go through a lot with that person, it wasn't me going and talking a lot with them. It was me doing the introspection on my side of it so that I could own what my part of it was and to find what it was about that person that I really appreciated and admired and why I would want us to come back together. Because I was so ready to just be splitsville with this person.

So this is one where I had to tag in another person. I had to go back to some coaches. I went to what I call my big gun coaches. Cause I knew that I was stuck on some really hard stuff about how I was thinking about this person and how I was showing up. I felt so right in everything that I was doing and that this person was totally wrong, but how I was showing up was triggering them. And when they're triggered, they're reacting in a way that triggers me, and it was just this awful back and forth triggering that could escalate. And neither of us wanted to escalate it.

In fact, this was a relationship that I had had for a long time that I really valued. And I just couldn't even wrap my head around how it had gotten so bad. So, I called in the big guns to try to figure out what the heck was going on with me. And it really helped because then once I finally did have that breakthrough, I was able to go to him and issue of very heartfelt apology and it moved us forward so much.

So a big thing was for me to try to figure out what was I going to have to give up by admitting that I wasn't right. There was something I was trying to hold on to. And that one's a bit mind bending. It takes a while. That's why I said I had to call in my big guns of coaching to help me out on it.

So when we're looking back at those three big buckets, just want to go back over what they were. First one was recognize and triage. So you're recognizing that there's multiple triggers for each person and then allowing the breather.

And then you're getting together to try to figure out how you can work it out. So you're figuring out an alignment for you both and then learning from each other; what are the triggers? What are those specific activities? And then acknowledging your part in that trigger. And then having that decision on whether to change yourself or to not change.

And then bucket three was when do you recognize that you're going to need outside help? And what is the right type of help that you need for your situation?

Again, I know that was a lot of information. It might be kind of complicated, but honestly, these situations can be pretty complicated. That's why outside help can be super helpful. Now I know this was all in auditory form. Not everybody is an auditory learner. I personally had to use a lot of pictures even to be able to describe this because I'm a very visual person in learning. And so I want to find out from you, is this a topic that you guys want some more help on?

And is there a different format that you would like to see this in? Would you like some type of a visual, whether that's some kind of a video course with me, like drawing pictures and walking you through it or having something written out or even having some type of a discussion group, or one-on-one. Remember to go to the website page for this episode; that’s going to be MyFreedomGrove.com/Podcast-18. On there, you're going to see a section. That's going to ask you if you're interested in having a more in-depth type of a training or discussion on this. If you do click that button, there'll be a couple of questions for you to answer again. It just comes to me. Nobody else has to see this. I'll look at what everybody's responses are and I'm going to create something that is perfect just for you.

I know this is a really rough time for everybody. Let's just show empathy, try to help one another. If any of this information that you've learned from this podcast if you think this could help someone else feel free either to share what you've learned with them. Some people learn best by doing a teach-back, or you can share the episode. Share the website so that they can go and listen to it. And maybe they also need it in a different type of a learning format or a discussion format.

All right. So I stand behind that better together. I've been saying that for a couple of years now because we all face challenges at a different point in life. There's to be somebody else out there that has faced that exact same challenge and figured out a way through let's find each other and learn from each other because together we're going to get better.

My friends, have a great week, be good to each other, have a lot of patience and empathy. I'll talk to you next week. Bye bye.

Thank you for listening to My Freedom Grove Podcast. I hope this podcast provided you some relief and some inspiration. If you know somebody else that can benefit from this podcast, please share the link with them together. I know we can make a difference. To access more podcasts and offerings, please visit www.MyFreedomGrove.com Until next time, take care of yourself. This world needs you.