Transcript

Brian
Hi, Ani, how are you today?

Ani
Hi, I’m good, Brian. How are you?

Brian
I’m doing great. Doing great.

Ani
Good.

Brian
Excited. You excited to be here today?

Ani
I, as always.

Brian
As always. You’re always excited to be here?

Ani
Every single time.

Brian
Every single time. Mm-hmm.

Ani
I’m consistently excited to be here.

Brian
All right. Awesome. Well, me too. All right.

Ani
Brian is just making fun of me because I am consistently not consistent ever about anything.

Brian
But here we are. Let’s not digress.

Ani
I’m excited to be here.

Brian
Okay.

Ani
All right, cool.

Brian
Well, what are we chatting about today, Annie?

Ani
I was actually listening to a bunch of our podcasts in the car while I was taking a drive the other day, and I was specifically listening to some episodes about emotional reactivity, and I was thinking about how I feel so great about the fact that, like, I really know how to navigate my emotional reactivity. And then I was also listening to some podcasts about manifestation, and when we talk about manifestation, we talk about how do you know, uh, the, the signs that the universe is opening a doorway to you, and that has something to do with somatics and how you feel in your body. And so kind of listening to some different topic areas and, and realizing that I think, Brian, a lot of people are bothered by the fact that they get triggered, and a lot of people are bothered by their negativity, and they’re looking for a way out, but they just can’t find it. And I was musing to myself that I don’t have that issue anymore, and I think people would like to talk about it.

Brian
Yeah, how do I stop getting triggered, right? Yeah, yeah. You know, we, um, I’m not sure if we’ve talked about this openly on the podcast I, we’ve talked about this in our, within our certification programs for sure, how we actually shy away from that language of the idea of, of I got, I’m getting triggered. It’s difficult thing to shy away from in the world of, uh, in the world of somatics, um, because so many people use it, the word triggered.

Ani
Yeah, not even in the world of somatics, people use triggered all over the place. It is common language.

Brian
Yeah, very common. Yeah, so it’s common language, really common. And I think, you know, if we’re going to talk about how do I stop getting triggered, I think the first step into that is to look at why you’re using that language to begin with. Because oftentimes language itself gets baked into the culture and then keeps, um, the thing in place that is trying to shift and change, right?

Ani
And I think there—

Brian
and I think this word is one of those Incidences.

Ani
I completely agree with you. I think when it probably started, when people started using it, it was to describe an experience that people were having that they didn’t really have words for. And so they started using that word, but then that word kept propagating itself over and over again, and then it becomes part of the common vernacular. And we’re not even questioning why we say it or if it’s, uh, helpful or not. I think one of the reasons why, and I don’t know where the word trigger came from. Did you—

Brian
I was just thinking, I haven’t looked that up actually. I, I, um, Well, get out of here. I wish I would have, actually, now that I think about it. Like, when was that term originally coined for this particular experience people are having?

Ani
Yeah, I think it’s kind of interesting. I mean, one of the reasons I think we say it is because of the old— I was going to say knowledge, I hate to use that word— the old way of thinking that whatever emotional thing is happening within us is happening because of something outside of us.

Brian
Yes.

Ani
And just if you’re listening and you’re like, well, yeah, that’s how it works. No, not necessarily how it works. There’s so much more understanding now about how emotions are created, how we’re creating our emotional experience. This old idea that it’s happening because something outside of me happened, that kind of makes sense with this idea about being triggered. And to your point, in our certification programs, we tell the students flat out, we’re not gonna say triggered anymore. And we use two different ways of talking about— is it okay if I bring it up now, or do you want to say it later?

Brian
Well, let’s come back. Let’s maybe do it later.

Ani
Yeah. Okay. So there’s, there’s different ways that we used to talk about it. And one of the things that in our certification programs, when, when a person goes through all of our levels, level 1, 2, and 3, we say that by the end you’re really going to be able to think as if the body-mind split never happened. And I think it’s little stuff like this that helps a person over time of being with us for a number of months and changing their language and changing how they’re looking at themselves and stuff. So this is one of the key things that actually changes how a person perceives the world, is by changing this thing. Emotional reactivity is a part of our lives, but how we’re talking about it can greatly trans— how we talk about it can greatly affect the way that we are thinking about the whole experience and how it works.

Brian
Yeah, I, I’d actually need to propose even an evolution of emotional reactivity, Ani, and say emotional activity is a part of our lives. Sure. Because again, just to say that emotional reactivity actually puts us in the same, same boat as being triggered. So let’s kind of— we’re gonna have to look at this boat. Let’s take a step back from this where we are for a second. So The whole idea of being triggered, to your point, um, again, we’ve talked about this in past podcasts, puts us in a state of victim consciousness, um, rather than creator consciousness. And again, victim consciousness— and if this is the first time you’re listening to this pod— our podcast, and you hear me say that we’re not— there are things that happen in the world where people are victimized. That is 100% thing that happens. Uh, there are victims in the world. Yes. Um, we’re talking about victim consciousness. So victim consciousness is that the world is happening to me. Things are happening to me in my life. Like when the cash— when the person at the checkout line gives me a scowl or doesn’t give me the right change back or something like they just did something to me.

Brian
Something happened to me. Someone cut me off in the traffic. It happened to me. Like that kind of habitual living in that life is living what we call victim consciousness rather than creative consciousness, where we are actually creating the experience of our life as we’re living it out. So the idea of being triggered is saying that something happened outside of me that caused something to happen inside of me.

Ani
I am triggered, right?

Brian
I am triggered, right? You just look at the idea of a trigger. A trigger is, you know, if you pull a trigger on a, on a gun, um, the trigger pulling happens someplace different than the effect of the trigger being pulled. It’s not in the same place. So that’s where that kind of phraseology comes from. So to keep using that phrase, say, I’m getting triggered, or you’re triggering me, or I’m feeling triggered, is basically holding you in a sense, in a, in a lie actually, of victim consciousness, that there’s something happening outside of you that’s causing something inside of you. And you might be saying, but that’s what’s happening, Brian, because I didn’t feel that way a moment before, and now I, now I feel that way differently. Okay. From the way that we know the brain works with the new science of emotional construction, the way Ani was kind of talking about it is actually what we call a prediction model. So your brain is predicting what’s going to happen next. Not just your brain, your nervous system. Your brain and your nervous system, um, your nervous— what’s your nervous system, right? Well, it’s— it— there’s a— there’s neural clusters in your heart, there’s neural clusters in your gut, there’s nerves throughout your neuromuscular system in your body, right?

Brian
So that’s all your integrated nervous system. So there are features in your nervous system that are predicting what’s going to happen next in your life based on what has already happened in your life. And that’s just the way it works, because recreating scenarios every second takes way too much energy, and your body’s not gonna— your body’s not gonna spend that kind of energy. So to save energy, your nervous system will just— is going to predict what’s going to happen next. So your brain is actually looking for, looking for and validating what you already believe to be true. That’s what’s actually happening. So Um, when you feel and say, I just got triggered, it’s not that something happened outside of you that caused something inside of you. It’s not really being triggered. It’s more of being reminded. It’s more of being reminded what you already believe and don’t want to remember. That’s the way I think about it.

Ani
We already believe and don’t want to remember. Yeah, yeah. And this stuff is not necessarily conscious, so you might think to yourself when you have that experience that you would call getting triggered, well, I can’t put the— I didn’t predict this, you know, like consciously you might not see all that stuff. This is all happening subconsciously. Subconsciously. Sometimes we are consciously aware of what’s going on, but most of the time not. Most of the— especially if you haven’t done any study and really spent time consciously becoming aware of your subconscious programming. You’re not going to be aware of it. It’s happening subconsciously, below the level of your conscious awareness. So regardless of the fact that you don’t see how it works, it’s still happening like that.

Brian
Yeah. And so you’re simply just remembering an old wound, actually. That’s what’s happening. You’re remembering an old experience, you’re remembering an old hurt, and then your brain is going, see, see, it’s true. See, that’s true. And so it’s, again, it’s something that you are remembering, but you don’t want to remember, right? It’s something that you are— it’s just validating what you already believe, but it’s something you don’t wanna remember because it’s painful to remember it.

Ani
Well, that’s, that’s the thing. And we’re— our nervous systems are wired to look out for threat. And so we’re constantly looking for the things that could be threatening and finding them.

Brian
Yeah, and we live in this, uh, we’ve talked about this in other podcasts before too. I don’t remember exactly what ones to name them, but that as human beings we live in a, uh, in a lot of ways this dual experience. So there’s a part of ourselves as human beings that live from this subconscious programming that, um, want to protect ourselves, want to not change, want to protect ourselves and not change. And there’s other parts of our human experience that are always being nudged by the Law of More Life to grow and evolve. And you could say live out our life lessons here, or learn our life lessons, or, you know, clean up our karma. I don’t know, there’s a lot of ways that people talk about this, but I think it’s pretty undeniable that humans also have this experience of growth in their life. And so this is where this experience comes together, where, um, We are, we’re validating something our subconscious already believes. And it says, see, I know it was true. That really hurts. I don’t want to remember it. And so that’s the part of yourself that’s like, I don’t want to change.

Brian
And there’s another part of yourself that says, well, wait a second. What is the opportunity here that this experience is offering me? So this is the, again, this is how you shift from victim consciousness into creator consciousness.

Ani
We were just— I think it was last podcast, maybe two— talking about range and how once you start doing somatic work, you can develop this range. Because as I’m listening to you talk, I’m thinking if people are putting the pieces together for themselves, they might be like thinking, okay, so what you’re saying is when I experience a trigger, that’s an opportunity? Like when I experience a trigger, that’s the universe calling me to become more and grow? Okay. Kind of, but it’s really, really elementary. It’s like if we only had one note on the piano and we just kept pushing that one note over and over again to say that triggers are opportunities for growth. Okay, yeah, but it just really negates the fact that we have so much somatic range. And I think knowing that, that we have somatic range, and having— being people who are working on our body awareness and being able to do things somatically and transform things somatically in our body, we develop this range. And then it’s You can’t just talk about it so simply. You can’t just talk about it as if a trigger is just the one thing.

Ani
It’s not. It’s so much— there’s so much more range. There’s so many more notes on the piano. Yeah.

Brian
And so maybe the— so the first thing to do, if you’re asking that question of how do I stop getting triggered, is to stop calling it a trigger.

Ani
Yes.

Brian
That’s the very first step, is stop calling it a trigger. Start calling it a, like, a reminder, maybe. That’s just a reminder. Oh, I just got reminded of something, right? That’s a reminder because that’s what it’s doing. So what is it? What is it reminding you of? Well, the first opportunity of that energetic reminder, you can also call it like feeling somatically charged.

Ani
Okay. I’m glad you said that.

Brian
Talked about that a lot too, right?

Ani
That’s really charged.

Brian
I just was, oh my God. So I’m experiencing somatic charge.

Ani
I really want to. Yeah. I wanted to talk about that. So thanks for bringing that up. That’s what I do. Because what we’re noticing is when something happens and I feel something in my body, it’s like the circuit’s just turned on in a certain way that feels like more information is happening right now. Yeah, my body, somatic, is charged or activated. So I think it’s just a really accurate way to talk about the experience that we’re having when we say that I’m somatically activated or I’m having somatic charge.

Brian
Yeah, so we talked about in terms of activation, we actually use that word in this, in the, uh, certification program quite a bit, activated. We talk about somatic charge a lot in the Manifestation book with our work with the laws work. So I think either one of those terms that feels to you like that feels accurate for you, they can, they can work.

Ani
Do you see, as soon as somebody says somatic, we’re taking some personal responsibility for what’s going on and helping to shift into creator consciousness. Yeah. Yeah. As soon as you say somatic, because what that says is this experience that I’m having in my body, Yeah.

Brian
And so again, let’s just back up for a second. And if the question you’re asking is, is how can I stop getting triggered? When most people ask that question, I think they’re asking it from how can I stop feeling what I’m feeling when other people do things?

Ani
How can I stop feeling what other people do things?

Brian
But if you’re, if you come at it from that perspective, you’re always going to feel something when other people feel things, because you’re still putting the responsibility on someone else. To change their behavior. Now, let’s just say if you’re in an environment, if you’re in a situation that’s dangerous, that’s physically or emotionally dangerous or harmful on a regular basis, then get out. Get out of the— find some support. Get out of that experience. Get out of that relationship as quickly as you can. Because in that case, it’s not about you changing anything other than you getting out of the experience. It’s not about them changing something. You just need to kind of move out. We’re talking about this in kind of in relationships that are relationships. Relationships are always— have some level of, uh, let’s say, rub to them.

Ani
They’re always challenging us to grow.

Brian
Yep, they’re always challenging us to grow.

Ani
Yeah, it’s a function of relationships.

Brian
And those can be work relationships, they can be friend relationships, they can be primary relationships, they can be, uh, child-parent relationships. Whatever it is, we’re talking about those types of relationships that are, uh, that aren’t unsafe in, um, that aren’t unsafe. Let’s just put it that way.

Ani
A lot of times when people are asking, how can I stop getting triggered, the next thing they think they need to do is set up boundaries. And if you’ve been listening to the podcast, you know that we have opinions about that concept of boundaries. I think it’s a much more nuanced conversation than just saying set up boundaries, because once you understand the body-mind connection, you understand how we set up boundaries. We’re setting up armoring, and we’re setting up tension in the body, and all those kinds of things. But it’s still that conversation of boundaries has the idea in it that you’re doing something to me that I need to put up a boundary or stop or protect myself from.

Brian
Yeah, right. You know, right, right. So let’s— so if we’re gonna answer this question from the perspective of the Somatic Coaching Academy around how can I stop getting triggered I think there’s 3 things that we’d like to share with you on this podcast. So the first thing is that when you have that experience of feeling somatically energized or somatically activated or somatically charged, right, using Ani’s language around that, the first thing to recognize is that something is happening in your subconscious that is trying to become conscious.

Ani
Yep. That’s a great way to put it.

Brian
Something’s happening in your subconscious that is trying to become conscious. And it’s typically a belief system that is feeling threatened, right? Or even, uh, painfully validated is another way to kind of think about what happens when someone says something, you feel charged. Um, oftentimes it’s a belief system that you already believe, but you don’t want someone else to know about. And so it can feel like this kind of this charge that you’re like, oh my God, like someone sees the most vulnerable parts of me, the parts that have shame and guilt and all that kind of stuff associated with it, that that thing is trying to become conscious so that you can do something with it.

Ani
Yeah, it’s information.

Brian
Yeah, right. So that’s the first— that’s the first thing. First thing. The second thing is recognize that it’s something that you are subconsciously attached to.

Ani
It has meaning. It’s important. Yep.

Brian
Yeah. And it has probably— yeah, why would you say meaning important, right? There’s a story connected to it. There’s probably a whole narrative. There’s probably a whole drama.

Ani
There’s probably a whole something that’s important in some way. I mean, that’s one of the greatest things about somatic charge is understanding what’s important to us and When, when people talk about how they can uncover their beliefs, beliefs can be hard to uncover because there’s so much the water that we swim in. But somatic charge is such a fantastic way to help us to see beliefs. Yeah, it highlights them. It’s like putting a spotlight on something.

Brian
Absolutely. So if we back up here, this number 1, right, the number 1 is, uh, that activation, that somatic activation is something subconscious trying to become conscious. The second thing is that you are attached to that thing. On some level. You might not want to be consciously attached to it, but you are subconsciously attached to it. Okay, so that’s there. Now the third thing is that when you feel somatically activated like that, it is like an— it’s like an arrow. It’s an arrow pointing directly to an opportunity for growth, pointing directly to it. Because when you can let go of that thing that you are attached to, that is trying to revalidate itself again and again and again in the external world through external people, that’s causing you pain. When you can let go of that, that charge goes away.

Ani
Yeah. And you might not be consciously aware, even though the arrows are pointing directly to it, you might not be consciously aware of what it is, even though the arrows are right there. It reminds me of when someone in our house opens the refrigerator and says, “Where’s the milk?” And it’s right there, but they can’t see it. Those big huge arrows.

Brian
And then you point with a big huge arrow, right? You should get a big long pointer with an arrow, right? And point right at it.

Ani
There.

Brian
But sometimes that’s me in the, in the pantry, I have to say. You’ll send me to the pantry for something and I’ll be like, “I don’t see it,” and it’s right there.

Ani
I hide things in plain sight in the pantry that I don’t want my family members to see, and they don’t see them. And that’s a perfect example about how the subconscious works. Stuff is right there and you can’t see it. So as a female-identified person who has been definitely high on my horse about the things that I can see in the refrigerator that nobody else can see, I feel like I can say this. If you are a person who is the kind of person who’s like, I see the milk. It drives me crazy that no one else can see it. And just to extrapolate that metaphor a little bit more, maybe you see in other people the things that they don’t see about themselves, but you see it in them, but they don’t see it. Guess what? There’s stuff in here too. There’s stuff in us too that we don’t see. That might be a little ouchy, but you’re welcome because it helps again to see those arrows that are pointing towards something that we can become aware of and have massive opportunity to help our lives grow. Are you smirking because you’re like, oh, Ani just did it right now?

Ani
Like, what’s that smirk about?

Brian
Well, I’m just thinking all the things I hide in plain sight from you that you can’t see.

Ani
Like what? Now I want to know.

Brian
Now you will never know. You’re going to have to find them.

Ani
I’m going to have to become more curious. For yourself.

Brian
Yeah, because we all have those blind spots.

Ani
We do. Right?

Brian
We all have those blind spots because, again, of the way that your brain and your nervous system is filtering out reality to validate what it is that you already believe.

Ani
And it has to do that to work efficiently. That is you working properly, right?

Brian
So to the point of, if you’re— if there’s something you believe about, I can never find the milk, and you’re gonna open up the fridge, then you’re naturally— you’re not going to see the milk because your nervous system is going to actually filter the information out of it. So based on what you believe, um, again, you can also think about— we did a podcast on, uh, Uh, being feeling rubbed the wrong way by people also, right? So this kind of goes hand in hand with that. So things that irritate you about other people, like it follows the same rules. Number one, um, uh, it’s something in your subconscious that’s trying to become conscious. Number two, there’s something in your subconscious you are attached to. And number three, it’s like bright red arrows pointing at an opportunity for growth, because when you can let go of the attachment to that thing, then that somatic charge dissipates. I mean, you know, we both have stories on it, but you can— you remember any experiences for you that when you’ve actually cleaned up that thing, and where previously you were in a situation where you got that somatic charge or activation, and then after you clean it up, you’re in that situation again and there’s no charge?

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
And you’re like, where’d the charge go?

Ani
Or you don’t even remember that you had a charge.

Brian
Yeah.

Ani
And then somebody might bring up to you like, wow, it used to be really uncomfortable in this instance or in this situation or something, you’re like, did I? Oh my gosh, I did.

Brian
Yeah, yeah.

Ani
I mean, I remember when I moved in with you— Brian’s parents live across the street from us— and I used to feel all jammed up all the time about wanting to be liked and accepted and all of those things. And I just, I had so much activation, somatic charge, a lot. And then eventually I started to, to get more comfortable at family events or going across the street and Yet you might not even recognize that growth sometimes.

Brian
Yeah.

Ani
Because it’s just gone.

Brian
Yeah. And the cool thing is when it’s gone, doesn’t life just feel so much easier?

Ani
So much easier.

Brian
So much easier. And I think that in a lot of ways is what people are looking for in their lives. Yeah. You know, even when they think about the whole manifestation project and that kind of stuff, you know, I think a lot of people think they want to manifest something because it’ll make their life more exciting. But I think ultimately it’s just we want life to feel easy, feel better, flow, want to feel better without attaching to pleasure, without attaching to pain, knowing that both those things are a part of life. But in general, just on a regular everyday basis, we want to feel more comfortable in our own skin and feel more like ourselves and feel like we’re living the life that we really want to live without compromising it for what other people want for us or feel about it or whatever it happens to be. And All of that comes with reducing somatic activation in the body, right? All that activation all the time. When you just even that out, you just, you’re just like in flow and feel comfortable a lot of the day. It’s amazing.

Ani
And really take personal responsibility for our lives as the creators of our experience. Because I mean, I have plenty of emotions that come up. I have plenty of like clouds in my sky. You know, it’s not always a sunny day. You know, all— I’m not calm and centered all the time. And I feel so good most of the time because I can navigate all of that stuff. Yeah.

Brian
And we’re not— and you’re not attached to it. That just comes back to the idea of attachment to it. Because even when you feel activated, um, because of, again, something that’s happening inside of you that you’re validating, um, one of the ways to gauge how you’re doing with this process is how long does that somatic charge last. So sometimes, you know, it might be like it lasts for— some people last for years. Like they have their— they have a hurt that goes on for years and they, they just don’t let it go. And imagine if you feel activated and it goes away in a couple of seconds or a couple of minutes and it’s gone.

Ani
Wow, that’s so cool.

Brian
Would that be life-changing for you?

Ani
It’s been life-changing for me. I used to be a professional grudge holder.

Brian
Charge holder? Yeah, grudge, grudgy charge.

Ani
I used to be a professional grudge holder. I don’t know if you had noticed that years ago.

Brian
Boy, interesting, now that you point it out.

Ani
I know you probably didn’t notice. I could hold on to stuff for weeks and months.

Brian
My curiosity is though, um, when you say grudge holder, was there a somatic charge associated with the, with the grudge?

Ani
Yes. So I would just keep holding on to the tension.

Brian
Now I’m, I’m curious, was it— how did it work? How did it work for you? Was it letting go of the, of the charge that helped you let go of the grudge, or was it letting go of the grudge to help you let go of the charge? What was the relationship between those two things?

Ani
Well, first you would piss me off, and then I would feel— listen, I would trigger you. Sure.

Brian
First Brian would trigger me.

Ani
What’d you say?

Brian
Well, I was just curious, the relationship between the somatic charge and the grudge, because the grudge is kind of the story.

Ani
What has—

Brian
but the charge is the charge.

Ani
So what have I learned to let go of first?

Brian
Yeah, like, how did it work? Would chicken or the egg?

Ani
The end of the story with understanding how to navigate it, not the whole complexity of the middle of how I got here, is let go of the charge. And I’ll not just let go of it because I think that is kind of not accurate. It’s allowing it to flow through me. Yeah, that’s accurate.

Brian
That’s accurate. Do you feel like the—

Ani
because the story changes. When the charge flows through you.

Brian
We were in— I think it was in the last, last podcast we talked about, um, tension, chronic tension, right? And actually, a little teaser, upcoming podcast is going to go deeper dive into chronic tension. But chronic tension is what blocks or holds the charge. So when you say flow through, flow through you, part of that is releasing the tension associated with the charge so that it can flow through, right?

Ani
Right. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Because the story changes once the charge flows. The story that you’re telling yourself changes. Yes.

Brian
Because it’s not getting recycled. Exactly. Not getting recycled.

Ani
And you’re not making the same—

Brian
strengthened again and again and again and again and again.

Ani
Which, you know, if you listen to— I think it was last week’s podcast— means that you start to predict next time and tomorrow and the next day and next week what’s going to happen differently in your life anyway.

Brian
So, yeah. Yeah, so maybe we’ll bring this conversation back when we do this, uh, podcast on chronic tension coming up in the near future, because it’s a part of that conversation about how do you actually let go of the somatic charge that is— that you’re calling being triggered by something outside of you that’s simply a revalidation of what’s already going on inside of you.

Ani
Sounds great. I was just thinking, so if you enjoyed this podcast, send it to somebody who triggers you.

Brian
And certainly leave comments and Google reviews and check us out and all that kind of stuff. Let us know about notes after you send it to that person.

Ani
Gosh, I’m just kidding. Uh, send it to somebody who you have these conversations with, like your bestie or your mom or your sister or your brother or your best friend or somebody who you have these kinds of conversations with. I think it’s one of the things that can transform a relationship so powerfully when we start to have conscious conversations together. So if you have complained or bitched, you know, to somebody else about being triggered by blah blah blah, and you’re willing to be vulnerable enough to share with this person who matters to you in your life this conversation, think about how this conversation can transform your relationship. Not to say that you never get to talk about how you’re activated again, but how you get to not just have your own shift in language, but you get to share that with somebody who have these conversations with. So I encourage you to share, share this episode with the person who you talk with and confide in about how you’re feeling about things. Yep.

Brian
Yeah, great advice.

Ani
Thank you.

Brian
Love that. Cool.

Ani
All right, until next week, we will see you then.

Brian
All right, bye-bye.