Dissolve a Trigger in 30s
This will work with much more than you think.
Have you ever heard a piece of news, or had a thought suddenly cross your inner workings that sent you spiraling?
The other day at work I was flying high on my way in, excited for the day and the activities and the people I work with….just feeling great.
30 min into the shift I had this feeling - one I’m familiar with but that hasn’t become a ton easier to feel in the moment regardless. The feeling that tells me it’s time to change something.
I snapped internally, going WHY CAN’T I JUST BE HAPPY, tunneling into a series of thoughts and feelings that I immediately tried to push down bc, hey, I’m working right now, and I noticed you guys (you feelings) so just leave me alone for now, all right? I DON’T WANT to feel this. I WAnt to be HAppY, like I was a minute ago.
The resistance and denial building up, my internal tension rising, I switched gears to letting the feelings wash through.
In 15 seconds I was regulated again.
When the feeling is entirely internally generated, like in this case, it can take less than 30 seconds to feel normal again. Just lower the walls that are stopping you from feeling what is coming through, and let it wash through to the other side. That’s it.
I’ll give you another example with different circumstances where it didn’t take 30s.
My roommate asked me last minute to do some stuff around the house for them.
I felt annoyed. Tried to see if I was projecting, if this could be managed internally like with the other trigger. Conflict is still not enjoyable for me, particularly in close relationships.
I even tried to feel into talking it out or venting to my friends that are capable enough to let me do that with them without taking on my frustrations and emotions.
No getting out of it, I had to simply own my feelings and risk being taken the wrong way.
“I feel annoyed you didn’t ask me sooner.”
And left it at that. (The request was also in a text.)
God bless, the response I got was validation of how I felt and an ask for forgiveness.
Then the feelings changed. And in this case a shift in being ok with the request.
It can help to practice.
Look, no one performs their best under stress without having practiced without stress first.
A friend of mine, Marco, has invited me and others to sit down and practice exercises out of a book for a style of communication. We don’t have to agree with exactly what the book says, but we can try sincerely and glean what we can from the specialization, letting the parts we get integrate in our own interpretations and letting the other ones go.
When I went for a 10-day experience in silent Vipassana meditation, one of the pleas from the coordinators was to sincerely try, rather than coming in with skepticism. Instead of digging a hundred shallow holes, they asked us to go deep on one in order to decide for ourselves and find some meaning.
As in any container or sports frame, really. The skills we practice when something isn’t on the line can help prepare us for game time and increased levels of stress.
If you challenge your thinking when shit is already squarely hitting the fan, you probably won’t have the bandwith to really do it.
But pursuing your own growth when things are chill increase your ability to change and handle things, maybe even so that you don’t experience stress where you would before.
Communication exercises that feel challenging to do with people can work just like lifting weights. You can increase your ability to deal with challenge by engaging with the challenge, grow from it after you stop (signal of safety/recovery can occur and integration into the body), and reap the rewards when it comes time to use your new strength.
If I’d never had talks with Roxanne before about this stuff it would be harder to predict how sharing my feelings was going to go. While still stressful, it wasn’t the first time I’d ever said what was true for me. The trick is finding people to practice with so you can believe it can work by actually experiencing it for yourself.
I encourage you to do what you can to participate in active communication practices like deep listening, imago technique, non-violent communication, or anything else that seems interesting to you. How you wish communication can go is possible to achieve, if you spell out your wishes.
Look, there has never been anything you can’t look up and discover the mainstream view of it is at least partly bullshit. In the case of anything valuable to you, do your own research and discovery.
I have more about how to let the feelings flow, how to break them down, and even how to speak with and release deeper spiritual clingy bits in my latest course, The Supportive Mind, relaunching for business on August 10. I look forward to seeing you there and helping you through the short videos and exercises that you can practice right along with us from the live recording done in February.
Make sure you pay attention so you can feel it for yourself what it’s like to have your mind in your corner.