Very Strong Reactions

Friend of mine was talking about a very strong reaction of his. So strong that he just avoids the triggers altogether. Which does, from over here, keep part of his life in the shallow end. Thought that I'd put something together, then post it to my website so I can simply tell people to go read it, rather than having to explain it one more time.

Yes, I'm getting tired of explaining human physics.

Not tired of exploring the concept.

Just tired of explaining the basics.

Anyhow.

Strong Reactions.

Ain't no external way of gauging what is strong and what is not.

It's subjective to the person experiencing them.

Basically, part of you interprets a strong possibility of a threat and hijacks you.

It believes that the threat is real and that it has the only means to dance with it.

And it takes you over and does what it wants to do.

You can be totally self-identified with that part and you think that it is you making the threat evaluation and deciding what to do.

You can be totally not self-identified with that part and be helplessly watching it do what it does.

If you want to change your relationship to that triggered part and how the two of you dance, it's going to take some work. And it's probably not going to be very pleasant work.

In a nutshell, you're going to have to stand in the maelstrom of that perceived threat and choose to do something other than what the part wants to do.

And the part will not be happy bout this.

Not in the slightest.

It will fight you with every trick in its book, fair and foul.

Procedure

1. Find the trigger. Be able to point to it. It is possible to work with internal triggers and it's way easier if you have some practice with external triggers under your belt.

2. Fine out what the part's meaning-making of this trigger is. Go for more nuance than less. What kind of danger? What kind of threat?

3. Create an alternative, Adult-orientated meaning-making about the trigger.

4. Find a way to ease your way into the shallow end of the dance with this trigger.

5. When you can feel the trigger activate, you are going to do one of these five things. They are arranged in order of increasing difficulty.

a. Watch the normal trigger dance happen.

This is de-self-identifying with the trigger dance.

b. Do not do what the trigger dance wants you to do. Become still.

If your trigger dance is to go to freeze, then move the smallest bit.

c. Do something absurdly small that is NOT part of the trigger dance.

d. Do something, anything larger that is NOT part of the trigger dance.

e. Do the 180 of what the trigger-dance wants you to do.

f. Do what aligns with who you want to become, in the face of this trigger.

The first three times that you try this, you're just trying to get through it.

Don't worry about finesse.

Don't worry about nuance.

Just get through it.

Prove to you and your parts that your head will not actually explode.

Get some distance between you and that part.

No matter what you might think, it is NOT a good idea to go into an exercise like this and wing it. It's really, really, really helpful to go in with a script that you have thought about beforehand.

And as tempting as it might seem, do NOT do this without informed consent.

I also suggest that you CANNOT get informed consent from Muggles.

Find someone who understands the concept of gym work to stand in for your IRL trigger.