Ep 13: Triggers
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[00:00:00] Hi family. Welcome back to the rise to her podcasts. And today's episode, I'm going to be talking about triggers, how we can utilize triggers in our life. Instead of letting them control us. This episode is inspired by some things that I have recently gone through some challenges that I had after two falls, two years in a row. And other things that we can learn about triggers and our brain and safety. Can't wait for you to dive into this episode, grab your notebook.
Cause there is some good stuff coming. Let's get going.
Welcome to rise to her podcast, where we explore the journey of women, rising to the highest version of themselves and embracing a life of ease and alignment. I'm your host, Emily Greenway, a certified mindfulness and life coach with a background in public health. Over the past six years, I've worked with women from all walks of life to help them overcome their limiting beliefs, heal their past and step into a powerful [00:01:00] healed version of themselves.
No matter what cards life has dealt you, there is a way to take back control and I'm here to teach you how in this podcast, we'll dive into the art and science of creating a life filled with ease and joy. Join me as we explore practical strategies to rise above mere survival and truly flourish in each episode.
We'll delve deep into the intersection of science and personal experience, uncovering insights to elevate your mindset. And harness the power of your brain from overcoming challenges to unlocking your full potential rise to her podcast as your guide to co creating a life business and career that brings true fulfillment.
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I am so honored to be here with you. I am currently recovering from getting sick again. And [00:02:00] if you have ever listened to me, talk about the impacts of sickness and what we can learn from it. I was asking myself why. At this point in my life, am I continuing to get sick so frequently? When I'm not like doing anything, that's high risk for sickness.
I'm eating well. But I recognize I'm in this huge shift. Of newness of really inconsistency. We're moving a lot because we're traveling for work. I'm growing my business. I have new things coming down the pipeline for work, and I have a lot of hope of, newness and things that I want to do. And that's really impacting my nervous system.
And when our nervous system is activated. We can't, our immune system becomes suppressed because it's so focused on survival. So I have. [00:03:00] Practice, what I preach slowed down. Started to dig into a little bit of why. I am being triggered with the newness, what stories I have surrounding them. So that I can continue to heal those stories. And improve my immune system.
My parents will tell you that is something I've always struggled with is my immune system is so closely related to my anxiety levels and how I'm feeling. And that's the first thing that it gets impacted. And so I've always had what people would consider a weak immune system. But I've operated in a very activated state for most of my life.
And although I've healed a lot of those parts. I wanted to share this with you guys, because as someone that's been in the active healing space for over a decade, There are still things that come up. They're still patterns that I'm healing. And that doesn't mean that I haven't made progress. Actually I've made a whole [00:04:00] heck of a lot progress.
It is nowhere near like it used to be, but it still impacts me. And there are still pieces of information that I need to learn that I need to hear our body can't take in this information all at once. It needs time to process. It needs time to pull apart the stories so that it can begin to heal it one by one.
It's if you were to go in and get a bunch of vaccines at one time, our body would go into overdrive. You would get so sick, versus if you built up, you'd be able to handle it way better and you would be able to. You would feel better, right? So that's what's going on with me. And that's not even what we're going to talk about today, but I wanted to share that because I talk a lot about so Maddix and how our body has a story.
And that's a story that I am learning right now and what I am reminding myself. To slow down. Because I'm such an extrovert I want to do. Because it's fun. Not because I want to like produce and work all the time, but I want to be out with my friends [00:05:00] and I love being in that energy. But I also recognize that when I have these. Business things that I get to do when I have these work things that I get to produce. That does weigh on my head because I'm still wanting to be my best self.
I'll always want to be my best self. But I'm under this conception. I'm under this thought process that. I need to be. Something special or I need to produce to make it worth it. And I'm, that's the story that I'm rewiring right now. That me showing up me being in service is. My best. And. Cycling on those old stories of. Being this version that has to give my very best are people that are going to think that I took from them.
That surgery that's story doesn't serve me. It doesn't serve my clients. Just wanting to be real with you guys and let you know what I'm going through right now. What I'm [00:06:00] processing, it's all just information. It doesn't mean anything bad about me, about my work, right? I'm not this isn't.
I know this isn't me, my body telling me, oh, you need to do something different. It's my nervous system regulating. And our body.
Talks to us, we just need to be able to interpret, uncover the story, the language that it speaks in. We tend to make assumptions or jump to conclusions pretty frequently without getting to the root of it.
And so that can lead us to do something that really wasn't what our body was trying to tell us, or wasn't trying to teach us. And that just comes through opening that communication, deepening that connection. So that you can be compassionate with yourself so that you don't have to get mad. You can be like, oh, that's, what's going on.
Make sense? I know I can. Next time when I'm in a launch or next time. I have something that I want to do with friends, but I know I have. A goal that I'm trying to meet my business. Maybe I take a little more time for myself or I do a [00:07:00] little more energetic work. Just information.
So hopefully that resonates with you guys.
So let's get into today's topic and. I want to tell you a story. About when I fell down the stairs a few years ago. And what keeps coming up for me now? It'll relate back to the stories that we tell ourselves, but how our brain. Wants to keep us safe and why triggers are there to protect us. And when we can start to cultivate compassion for our triggers. We can begin to heal them rather than resist them. So two years ago when it was Thanksgiving, my family and I were staying up in the mountains for Thanksgiving. And it was this beautiful mountain house. I was staying on the bottom floor. It was like the basement and you'd have to walk up the stairs to go to the living area, the kitchen. And it had been a great Thanksgiving so far.
My partner was just [00:08:00] meeting my parents. We were having a great time. And we went to the hot tub. We got out. I'm going to go down the stairs, which are wooden and they're very steep, inclined. Halfway down the stairs. I slipped. And when I slipped my right foot stayed behind me while my left foot slipped down. And the process, I partially tore a lot of tendons and ligaments, completely bruised.
My body went into shock. I lost my hearing. For a few seconds just because my body was absolutely freaking out. I immediately became bruised all over super nauseous. Thankfully nothing was broken. I did have some partial tears, a lot of bruising, and I ended up being in a boot for the next three months and having to do a lot of work on strengthening that ankle. Fast forward to almost 365 days later, but it was at 367 days later. Two days after Thanksgiving, I was bouldering with my partner, [00:09:00] fell off the top of the bouldering wall and broke the same ankle almost exactly a year later. We always joke now that when it's time for Thanksgiving, I need to be put in a bubble.
And while I agree. This is starting to pop up and make itself a little more. Known to me about how my body. Remembers that fall. And so when I go to go downstairs, which I'll have to walk up and downstairs every day to get to my office or get back downstairs. And I have this fear every single time where I grew up onto the railing. And I think, oh my gosh, I just don't want to fall.
And. That's something. When the dogs run downstairs, I am so nervous. I can see myself slipping. Because I have this trigger. Of my body saying, oh my gosh, you need to be really careful because last time. Remember what happened? And there's two ways we can look at this trigger one.
I could avoid [00:10:00] going downstairs. Ever again. And while yes, there are some triggers that are so overwhelming that they are so hard to work through. And those oftentimes need to be handled with the care of a psychiatrist or psychologist working alongside of you. This is you're going to be these little triggers throughout the day that do come up and remind you of bad things or do arise throughout the day that caused you some type of distress. But it's ultimately your brain saying, Hey, remember. We don't want to get hurt.
We want to be safe. Hey, maybe you should avoid this. So it doesn't happen again. But the problem is when we allow our triggers. To then. Perpetuate into us avoiding. Things that will benefit us. So me going up and down the stairs every day to get to my office, that is something I need to do to be in my space and to work.
Sure. I could completely. Redo one of the downstairs bedrooms and make it my office. But this room is specifically [00:11:00] created for me to work in. And.
Learning. And regulating my body. We'll not only benefit the trigger of falling. It's going to strengthen and regulate my nervous system overall. The same trigger came up when I was working out last week in the gym and my trainer asked me to do box jumps. Instead of jumping down, it was jumping up, but my body had the same exact reaction. Is that I have, when I go to walk down the stairs. And I just said, wow, that's really interesting.
I didn't think that it would have the same reaction. But it was all about falling. My body wanted to protect me from the fall. So I had this deep reaction. And it took me a few tries. To even make myself commit to the jump because my body was working. So hard against me. [00:12:00] It was saying, Nope, that's scary.
You're gonna fall. You're gonna hurt yourself. You're gonna fall. You're gonna hurt yourself.
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And I had to work through it. Take deep breaths and I had to commit to it. Because triggers are not there. To control your life. They're there to give you information of [00:14:00] something that's not fully healed. Or fully resolved in your body. They're there to protect you. But we have to learn to differentiate. Between those that are meant to redirect us. And those that are meant to be resolved.
They're of course some high risk activities that I probably won't do now.
Because I know what it feels like to fall. I'm not going to boater again. I'm not a great climber when it comes to no ropes attached to me and I don't fall very gracefully. So I'm probably not going to boater again. But what I did do. As I still went back in the gym and started rock climbing again, I was attached to things.
I had risk mitigation. I'm not going to stop going up and downstairs because that would impact a lots of my life. I'm going to take that information, hold onto the rail and walk slowly. And breathe through it because when we intentionally engage our breath, We engage the parasympathetic [00:15:00] part of the nervous system. And we begin to tell our brain, you were safe.
You have the information to protect you. But I see so many women that have these triggers in their life. The either they judge with such harsh criticism that is impacting their self-love, how they speak to themselves. How they choose to interact in the world. Or they take these triggers. And they avoid them at all costs. Impacting their relationships impacting their wealth. And pending every other part of their life because they are so afraid of facing. That trigger that information that they just completely avoid it.
But when we can acknowledge that, that trigger is just simply information.
And as you just there. To give you insight of how to protect yourself moving forward. You can begin to heal the version of you that maybe didn't have. That guidance before that [00:16:00] did land you in the situation where you got hurt.
So many people, when it comes to relationships, don't recognize this enough,
we can say sure. When it comes to maybe car accidents or falling, or. I was bit by a dog once. I have these triggers. And we know we want to work through them. Because we can't avoid dogs the rest of our life, or we can't avoid cars. The rest of our life. But when it comes to those that. Require us to heal things. With romantic relationships. Dynamics of power. Or even. Trusting people in general. We avoid it.
We push people away. We say no, I can do it all by myself. And so these are ways in which triggers are going to drastically impact our relationships with others and ourselves because we've taken this trigger. And instead of taking ads information, To either redirect or resolve. [00:17:00] We take it as absolute truth that we must avoid it. That if we don't want to get hurt again, we must avoid this thing at all costs. So now we've given so much power to the trigger that we have handed over all the power that we once had. And that is not why our brain gives us triggers. Yeah, maybe in primal days it says, okay, if we almost got attacked by a lion and we're going to be in high alert, anytime we hear something that sounds like the lion in the Bush, because that means you could almost die.
But when we don't acknowledge that our brain is a primal brain operating on a modern system, we continue to give power away to things that are no longer life-threatening. That are no longer impacting us on a daily basis, but we allow it to, we allow it to become life-threatening in our brain. We allow it to impact our daily life. And so we continue to give away that conscious power to something that could be resolved. Or be used as a redirection.
Our brain is a [00:18:00] fascinating organ, but when we gather. The conscious awareness, the compassion for ourselves. And just say, what is this trigger? Trying to teach me? We can start to redirect reform and transform. How we interpret that stimuli. Yes, I'm probably going to continue to be nervous walking downstairs because those two falls cause months of pain, I still have ankle pain every day.
But now I just approach it with a little more caution. I remember to slow down.
And I continue to move through it instead of resisting it, fighting it and avoiding it. I move through it. And with it with the current, when we fight the current, I use this in a call. Yesterday with one of my clients when we fight it, that's when we began to drown. Because we began to weaken ourselves, our, her immune system.
Like I talked about earlier, our energy reserves our mental fortitude because we're fighting, [00:19:00] fighting, fighting against it. Instead of saying, what can I learn from this? How can I cultivate this compassion? Okay, how can I take this information as just that? It's just information to protect myself.
I get to choose how I want to use that information.
So utilizing these questions, I want you to begin to look in your life where you're allowing triggers to consume you. Rather than redirect or allow you to resolve things. You have the power to choose how you interpret the stimuli. It's just a beautiful pit bit of information that your brain has used to keep you safe. Don't give it more power than that. Because you are more powerful. Then they would like for you to believe and when women heal the world heals. I believe in you so much, I'm cheering you on always until next time.
Talk to you then. Bye.
Thank you for joining me on this episode of rise to her podcast, where we're dedicated to empowering women to embrace their highest selves and live a life of ease and alignment. [00:20:00] If you enjoyed today's episode and want to continue this journey with me, make sure to give me a follow on Instagram at rise to her or on YouTube at rise to her.
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