WEBVTT
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Happens to your brain when you experience painful emotions.
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I didn't know when I first started this journey either.
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I just thought I just was having big emotions and they were coming from who knows where and they were happening for who knows why.
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But what I learned through this process, especially through my own grief process, is that big emotions are telling us that our brain is hijacked.
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Our brain is no longer functioning in that adult, sophisticated way that we're thinking logically and reasonably.
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But when we have those big emotions, the brain science is that we're moving from our frontal lobe to our amygdala, to our fight or flight part of our brain, often called the child brain or the primal brain, because we're we're moving out of being able to think logically, we're moving more into an irrational space.
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And I loved learning about the brain because it made so much sense to me.
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Even though I do emotional health, I teach people about their emotions and how to identify them and become aware of them and what to do with them, I kind of didn't start out being a super emotional person.
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I'm actually very logical as well.
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So just like Brian, when I was experiencing emotions, or even more so, when other people were experiencing big emotions, I just thought there was something wrong with them or there was something wrong with me.
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I just said something's broken.
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We're having really big emotions right now.
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But what I realized, and just like Brian's explaining in this episode, is that there's brain science at work.
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Our brain is not functioning at a hundred percent, and it's seeing things and feeling things on a such a high level that it's really hard to understand what's going on with us.
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So if you've ever had a hard time knowing what your emotions meant or why they were happening, or what to do with them, this episode's for you.
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So pay attention as Brian's sharing about the brain science and sharing about his journey with how he learned about his own brain and what to do when he had such big emotions.
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Have you ever wondered why people do the stupid things that they do?
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How about yourself?
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Have you ever wondered why you do the stupid things that you do?
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I want to tell you a little story that happened about three weeks, or excuse me, three months before my great awakening that I talked about in the last episode.
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My wife and I were uh attending ministry school, California, as I mentioned, and we were back home for the summer.
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And we had to drive back to California for the fall session.
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And that's a 30-hour drive.
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So if you've ever been in a long car ride with your family, you know that all kinds of interesting things can happen.
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Well, um, I'm a planner and I strongly believe when you're traveling that you should make as few of stops as possible.
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Because if you made all the stops that my family would like to make, you would simply never arrive at your destination.
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You would just be driving forever and you would never get there.
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In fact, that trip that we made all those years ago, we'd still probably be driving if we made all the stops that my family would like to make.
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I'm being a little over the top here, but that's actually what we're talking about today.
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Those times in our lives when we get a little bit over the top.
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So my wife wanted to stop at a Starbucks.
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And I said, you know, if we wait like 60, 70 miles and stop at this other Starbucks step further down the road, it'll time up better for when we need gas so that we won't have to stop and get gas any more times than is absolutely necessary.
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And she kind of like begrudgingly went along with it.
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However, as we passed the exit to the Starbucks in question, I quickly learned that she was not okay with passing that Starbucks.
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And this Starbucks became the root of an argument that was very, very, very big.
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Very big.
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So big that at one point I thought a divorce attorney would have to get involved.
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And I'm not joking.
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I'm very, very thankful that my children had headphones on and were asleep in the backseat and did not have to hear their parents arguing like five-year-olds in the front seat.
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So eventually things calmed down a bit.
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I think the next Starbucks stop helped pacify that.
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But why do sometimes things get so big?
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Things that are little.
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If we get in our right mind, we can step back and look at it and be like, gosh, why did I get so bent out of shape about that?
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That was just silly.
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What was I thinking?
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That's probably happened to you.
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If it hasn't, well, you're fortunate because it feels like it happens to me all the time.
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It happens to me a lot less now because I'm much more aware of what's happening inside of myself in those moments.
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So when I first met Laura, one of the things that I was introduced to was uh some brain science.
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And it was actually this discussion that Laura had around brain science that was incredibly impactful to me because my logical brain looked at some of the things Laura did, and I thought they were a little weird, to be honest.
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I didn't relate.
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You know, learning to speak compassion to yourself, learning to love yourself, um, getting to know yourself, it just all sounded kind of strange to me.
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But when she started talking to me, or actually it was a seminar that I was in as a workshop, when she was speaking at that workshop and she spoke about brain science and what was going on in your brain in the moments like I had in the car uh over the Starbucks incident, when she started talking about the brain science, what was happening, it really, really made a lot of sense.
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And as I mentioned, I had before I met Laura, I had pursued a lot of other or several other counseling options.
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Uh, because that was one thing when I had got to go on to the ER that they were very adamant that I do was pursue counseling options.
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So I had pursued some and and nothing was really landing.
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It all kind of just sounded like mumbo jumbo.
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Now that's not a slight on any of those people, it's just where I was at, because in a different frame, perhaps they could have been very helpful to me.
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But in the frame I was in, it wasn't.
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But I recognized when I met Laura and she started talking to me from a scientific standpoint, that really resonated.
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And Laura being so difficult to get into, um, she did say I had to wait a while to meet with her one-on-one.
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But I was able to go to one of these workshops.
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And at that workshop, she taught me um the brain science behind what happens to me when I'm triggered.
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So let's start off talking about what a trigger is.
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So I'm gonna read from uh from above all else, and I'm just gonna read what I wrote about a trigger.
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So, according to the compassion method, which is the method that Laura uh devised, a trigger is an irrational response to a rational or irrational person, situation, or circumstance.
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It's that disorienting space of time when we're not fully present with ourselves, when we're not okay, clear-minded, tender hearted, or at peace.
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That's how the compassion method defines being okay.
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When you're clear-minded, tender-hearted, or at peace.
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That definitely described both my wife and I in that incredibly triggered moment regarding the Starbucks.
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And a lot of times, these triggered moments, you look back at them and you laugh, because I can totally laugh about that.
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Like, that was so silly.
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But man, at the time, it's anything but silly.
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It is so, so high stakes.
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And when you can learn to start recognizing your triggers, that's one of the dead giveaways.
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When something feels so high stakes that if it doesn't happen, like life on earth is gonna end.
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And that's what that Starbucks incident was for my wife and I.
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So I'm gonna read on.
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When Laura first taught me this concept, her explanation of the brain science being a triggered reaction spoke directly to my logical mind.
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When we're triggered, we're operating from our primal brain, the survival-wired part of us where our fight or flight mechanism lives, centered in the amygdala.
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Humans develop this part of their brain first, which is why it's called the primal brain.
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And uh other people in the science world also call it the child brain for that reason.
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And it's not just because when we're there, we're acting like a child.
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Uh, it's also just because it was the first to be formed.
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And then the frontal lobe, which is up here, your primal brain's more at the base of your head, your frontal lobe is up here.
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Uh, this is where more complex behaviors are.
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So behaviors like planning and decision making, uh, and it develops much later.
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So, like for me, it maybe was going to develop next year, but for most, it's going to develop in their early 20s.
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And so when you think about it, the um, you know, when some of the frustration we have with teenagers and some of those types of things, in some cases, you're just dealing with somebody that does not have their fully developed frontal cortex.
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So you're thinking, why can they not get this?
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Why can this not, why does this not click for them?
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So, as uh the way God designed things with parents, you know, we're supposed to help them and be the adult brain for our children.
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They don't have that part of their brain.
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So we get to be that part of their brain for them as theirs develops.
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We then pull back and we no longer be that need to be that part of their brain.
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Which me having children right now in the range from age 15 to 29 and seeing that gamut, I wish I knew for my poor 29-year-old what I know now.
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I mean, I feel really bad.
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Uh, I feel really bad because she was the test tube dummy.
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You know, she she was the guinea pig, so to speak.
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And um, my wife and I got to try out all of our parenting hacks on her and learn what worked and what didn't work.
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But it has been really fun as my children age, and now that I'm more aware of this, I can learn to start pulling back.
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Like when they ask me questions that, you know, when a 15-year-old asks a question, I'm gonna answer it a little bit differently than when a 25-year-old answers asks that question.
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Because now that I know more about brain development, I know more how to answer that question and really more of what they're capable of knowing in that moment.
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But anyway, um, so that that part of our brain develops later.
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So um, that fight or flight part back here, you know, we absolutely want fight or flight to kick in if a lion is really chasing us.
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That's rational.
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But when it's firing during an argument about whose turn it is to do the dishes, that's irrational.
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The bigger your triggered reaction, the deeper you are in that primal mode, the more you're operating from this part of your brain.
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Or another way to look at it, the younger you are, because you're operating more and more out of that child brain or that primal brain.
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So in that car ride, my wife and I were very, very stuck back here.
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The fact that what we were doing was so illogical and so silly and trivial, which up here knows we had no access to that.
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We were stuck.
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We were five-year-olds.
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It's like our primal brain, or our our it was like our adult brain, our frontal lobe didn't even exist.
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Okay.
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So the more we're stuck in that primal brain, the younger we are, the littler we feel, and kind of like the younger developmentally, you know, we're trapped in that spot.
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And the further removed we are from who we were truly created to be, our true self.
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So shortly after learning all of this, like literally, it felt like it was just a few days after that seminar that I was at, where Laura, Laura taught this.
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I found myself in the kitchen with my uh daughter, who was at the time probably 18 or 19, I think 18.
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And um this particular daughter, of course, I have several daughters that are this way.
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But anyway, when they go through the kitchen, it's kind of like a tornado just went through.
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So we were having a conversation about the tornado and the results of the tornado, the aftermath of the tornado that went through the kitchen.
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So we're having this argument about picking up after herself.
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And yes, it's good that people pick up after themselves.
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However, this conversation, um, this argument, so to speak, kind of devolved into kind of a bickering match back and forth.
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And all of a sudden it hit me.
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There was no longer a 40-some-year-old adult and a uh teenage daughter, you know, in the kitchen arguing with themselves.
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It was it was two four-year-olds bickering.
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And uh what I said in the book, um, it was convicting and revelatory in equal measure.
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So that argument was both convicting and revelatory in equal measure.
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So I write on, I said, Have you ever thought to yourself after doing something really stupid, how could I have done such a thing?
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I know better than that.
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That's likely true.
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You do know better than that.
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But when you're stuck in your primal brain, you're hijacked.
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You're stuck in that survival-wired part of your brain, you're hijacked.
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And your access to your adult, sophisticated brain gets cut off.
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I wrote, you may be the utmost authority on emotional health.
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But if your amygdala has taken the wheel, the primal brain, if it's taken the wheel, that wisdom is locked away, useless in the moment.
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This explains why some of the most brilliant people still make tremendously poor choices and messes of their lives.
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So learning that, and and I hope you hear me on this, that learning that is not an excuse for your trigger behaviors.
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It is not an excuse for when you do something stupid.
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But what that understanding brings you is awareness.
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Because I think for a lot of us, myself especially, I saw my trigger behaviors as who I was.
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I'll give you another example from a workshop with Laura.
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And this was the first workshop I took my wife to.
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I shared with her that these workshops were really helpful.
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And she was all on board to help me in whatever way uh she could.
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So she came along with me more as moral support than anything.
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So she comes to the workshop, and I had been to, I think this was probably my third workshop.
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And I, Laura, if you've ever been in any type of a one-on-one session or a group session with Laura, she is going to ask for uh audience participation.
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So she was looking for examples, and uh I agreed to be her uh example for the day.
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So um she was look she was challenging us to identify times where we had uh triggered behavior.
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And I shared a time with the family where I was really grumpy.
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And I said these words.
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I said, I am just a grumpy person.
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And then I went, I was gonna go on and share the example.
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And she stopped me.
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She didn't let me go any further.
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She stopped me, looked me dead in the eye, and said, You are not a grumpy person.
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That is not who you are.
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You're just hurting.
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And in your pain, you're stuck in that primal part of your brain, and it comes across as being a grumpy, irritable person.
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And I felt like number one, I could just feel the compassion come over me.
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I was just overwhelmed with it, like, oh my god, I thought this is who I was.
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But maybe it's not who I was.
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Maybe it's not who I am.
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Maybe it is just a reaction.
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And I looked at my wife and she actually kind of had her head down.
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She was being convicted as well.
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Because you see, um, in my grumpy and irritability, my family playfully had developed some names for me.
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And one of them was the fun sucker.
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Um, because when I would walk into a room or get home from work, I would suck all the fun out of the room.
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So they would tell me things like, Dad, put away your straw.
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Because I was just sucking the fun right out of the room.
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And when I was looking at her, I could tell she was getting convicted too of like, oh, I kind of reinforced that, those feelings that he potentially had of that I am a grumpy person.
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But we were all learning, we were all growing, and it was incredibly impactful to think of the fact that no, I'm not a grumpy person.
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That's not who I am.
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That's just where I go to in my triggered reactions.
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So the whole point of this is not to make excuses for what we do.
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One of the things Laura says a lot, and that's really always resonated with me, she says, what you do matters, but who you are matters more.
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So what we do matters.
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If we did something, if we made a mess and we need to apologize or we need to clean up our mess, none of what we're talking about excuses any of that.
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And totally do not hear that from me, because that is not what we're talking about.
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We're not talking about not owning your mistakes.
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But if you do the work of comforting your heart, the work we're going to be talking about in the coming episodes, and then I talk about it above all else, and that Laura's dedicated her life to teaching.
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If you do that work, your request for forgiveness will be real.
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They'll be genuine.
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You won't just be doing it because it's the right thing to do.
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You'll be doing it for the right reasons, because you recognize you made a mess, that your triggered self made a mess, and that's not who you are.
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And you'll be able to own it without shame.
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Just be like, hey, I made a mistake, but I'm not a mistake.
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In the past, sometimes my forgiveness was 100% coming from my shame or my request for forgiveness, because I was almost kind of like begging the other person in a way to not look at me and to not reinforce my shame.
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That if I say I'm sorry, you know, I can get like some penance for my shame.
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Um, so really my forgiveness I found was sometimes more about me than about truly, genuinely grieving over the hurt that I caused another.
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Now, when I have to ask for forgiveness, it's from a much clearer space.
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It's from a place of being okay, clear-minded, tender hearted, and at peace.
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Because I still make mistakes, I still have triggers, but if there's anything that I have grown in throughout this compassion method process and through my above all else journey of learning to guard and steward my heart, as is talked about in Proverbs 423.
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If there's anything that I have learned, it is, or anything that I've really grown in, it's an awareness of when I'm triggered.
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So, and that helps me tremendously because knowledge is power, and this is a case where um knowing that can help me start to, okay, I'm not gonna just keep feeding this trigger.
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I'm gonna start working the process that I learned throughout the compassion method to take care of the trigger.
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As I work through the compassion method that Laura developed and teaches, I broke it down into three simple steps to help me kind of come to help me make sense of it.
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The first one is awareness, learning to become aware when you're in your trigger, learning to become aware when your primal brain has taken over and you no longer have access.
00:24:43.240 --> 00:24:49.079
The second one is uh comfort, learning how to bring comfort to your triggered self.
00:24:49.400 --> 00:24:55.480
Because if you think about it, your triggered self is in that fight or flight, frantic state.
00:24:55.720 --> 00:25:01.400
But if you can bring comfort to it, you can come back to yourself.
00:25:01.720 --> 00:25:03.880
Engage your frontal lobe.
00:25:04.519 --> 00:25:05.880
You can come back to yourself.
00:25:06.039 --> 00:25:17.640
So think about a drowning man, and one of the big rules they say if a person's drowning is that you can't just swim up to them to try to help them because they'll drown you.
00:25:17.799 --> 00:25:22.759
You could be an expert swimmer, and in their franticness, they will drag you right down with them.
00:25:23.400 --> 00:25:25.319
They have to be calm.
00:25:26.039 --> 00:25:47.640
And once they can get calm, if a person that's struggling and drowning can get calm, even if they don't know how to swim, they can find that their body actually floats, that keeping your head above the water is work, but not nearly as much work as when we're stuck in that frantic state.
00:25:47.880 --> 00:25:52.839
And that is exactly the situation with us when we're in our triggered space.
00:25:53.079 --> 00:26:06.279
If we can bring calm, if we can calm down, if we can come back to ourselves, we'll start to connect with that frontal lobe and we'll start to recognize that hey, this argument we just had isn't really about Starbucks.
00:26:06.759 --> 00:26:16.680
It's not really even about the dishes not being done, it's about something deeper inside my heart that those things are pressing on.
00:26:17.160 --> 00:26:19.559
And I want to go after the deeper.
00:26:20.039 --> 00:26:26.200
Because at the core, that's learning to steward your heart, that's guarding your heart.
00:26:26.519 --> 00:26:33.400
It's about befriending your depths and going deep and seeing what's really under the hood.
00:26:34.599 --> 00:26:38.039
And you're gonna learn that there's much more to your story.
00:26:38.359 --> 00:26:52.039
You're not just a grumpy or irritable person, you're you're not uh someone who's just over the top, you're not too much, you're not all these things that your triggered behavior presents.
00:26:52.759 --> 00:26:55.559
There's a reason why that behavior is presenting.
00:26:55.799 --> 00:26:57.559
There's something more going on.
00:26:58.359 --> 00:27:05.960
That second step is learning to provide comfort, and then the third step that we'll talk about more in the next episode is discovery.
00:27:06.759 --> 00:27:10.039
Learning to discover who you truly are.
00:27:10.440 --> 00:27:13.000
Your triggered self is not who you are.
00:27:13.880 --> 00:27:21.000
They're just behaviors, they're just what happens when your pain is running the show.
00:27:21.319 --> 00:27:24.279
Your true self, that's who you are.
00:27:24.440 --> 00:27:27.079
And that's what we'll talk about in the next episode.
00:27:27.640 --> 00:27:34.359
So, a real practical tip on just how to start to begin, and I talk some about some of these in the book, but here's just a few.
00:27:34.519 --> 00:27:39.160
Here's a few things for me that I've learned to recognize when I've fallen into triggered behavior.
00:27:39.400 --> 00:27:43.960
Number one thing I've noticed is that uh my whole body kind of heats up.
00:27:44.279 --> 00:27:48.359
And I'll even notice some uh sweat starting to trickle down my back.
00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:59.799
And um, I first noticed this, you know, as I was learning all of this, I had a kind of a tense phone call and I got off the phone call and I just kind of recognized that, you know, my back is wet.
00:27:59.960 --> 00:28:01.000
What's going on?
00:28:01.160 --> 00:28:03.960
Like, and I was like, oh, okay.
00:28:04.440 --> 00:28:06.680
I I went into my primal brain.
00:28:06.839 --> 00:28:12.279
I went into fight or flight on that call, and that's one of my indicators.
00:28:12.599 --> 00:28:19.240
Another big one for me is when I can't see any hope in a situation, when I get stuck in hopelessness.
00:28:19.480 --> 00:28:24.759
That is a huge dead giveaway for me that I am uh in my triggered brain.
00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:26.200
That's a big one for me.
00:28:26.359 --> 00:28:31.480
Next week, we're going to talk about the part of you that was never broken, your true self.
00:28:31.799 --> 00:28:33.720
The trigger is just the door.
00:28:34.120 --> 00:28:40.680
The full map, every chapter, every turning point is in above all else.
00:28:41.160 --> 00:28:43.480
Until then, thank you.
00:28:44.039 --> 00:28:49.559
Brian just helped us understand more about what's going on with brain science, which wasn't that helpful.
00:28:49.799 --> 00:28:55.000
I really enjoy hearing it, even though I know a lot of this and I've taught Brian a lot of this.
00:28:55.160 --> 00:28:58.279
I just love hearing it from people's different perspectives.
00:28:58.519 --> 00:29:03.319
And one of the main things that he was highlighting was kind of our responses.
00:29:03.400 --> 00:29:09.880
You know, once we recognize what part of our brain we're in, we recognize more of that brain science, now we're into our reactions.
00:29:10.120 --> 00:29:17.720
So, you know, when we're in that part of our brain, our amygdala, we're in that, like there's a predator chasing you, there's a bear chasing you.
00:29:17.960 --> 00:29:26.680
And unfortunately, often in our triggers, the people that we feel are those bears chasing us are the people closest to us.
00:29:26.839 --> 00:29:34.599
It's the people that we love the most that actually get the closest to our pain and often cause us to have the biggest reactions.
00:29:34.839 --> 00:29:41.640
And so we can see how we can love someone so much, like a spouse or a family member or a child.
00:29:41.880 --> 00:29:46.359
And when we're in those big emotions and we're in pain, how we can push away.
00:29:46.599 --> 00:29:57.880
We can have these reactions that we don't want to be close to them, we don't want them to do whatever they're doing, and we end up pushing people away because our pain's coming up and we're reacting.
00:29:58.359 --> 00:30:07.240
And the four ways that most people react is fight, flight, freeze, and fawn.
00:30:07.799 --> 00:30:25.720
I'm gonna go into a little bit more detail about each one of them, but as I'm doing that, I would love for you to be thinking about what's my response when I experience pain, when I experience big emotions, and I'm reacting, and that person feels like it's happening, whatever they're doing is happening to me.
00:30:26.279 --> 00:30:28.039
What's my response?
00:30:28.200 --> 00:30:29.880
What's my reaction?
00:30:30.279 --> 00:30:31.720
So fight.
00:30:32.519 --> 00:30:35.799
Fight is that reaction that just kind of blindsides us.
00:30:35.960 --> 00:30:46.759
Sometimes they can come out of nowhere, and we go from having a great day, they said that one thing, and all of a sudden we're triggered, and we have a big fight reaction.
00:30:46.839 --> 00:30:53.480
We've got to defend ourselves, we've got to prove, we've got to fight them because we're in pain.
00:30:53.720 --> 00:31:08.039
Similar to like if an animal, like if a dog had like a wound or had like a splinter in its paw, and it was loving and kind, but when it had that pain come up, when we walk over to try to pet that dog, what would happen?
00:31:08.279 --> 00:31:17.160
They would start to bark and bite and fight because that pain's causing them to react in more of a fighting way to protect themselves.
00:31:17.480 --> 00:31:21.319
So, do you go into fight when you have big reactions?
00:31:22.120 --> 00:31:26.920
Second is flight, and that's the I want to run away.
00:31:27.079 --> 00:31:29.079
I want to get out of this situation.
00:31:29.480 --> 00:31:31.799
I just want, I don't want to be here.
00:31:32.200 --> 00:31:39.640
And it makes us want to do anything we can do to protect ourselves from the pain we're feeling by getting out of it.
00:31:40.279 --> 00:31:43.079
Do you feel like you try to get out of those moments?
00:31:43.480 --> 00:31:48.200
If maybe somebody's reacting and fight towards you, does it make you want to flight?
00:31:49.480 --> 00:31:58.120
The third is freeze, and we become frozen, we might go silent, we might not have anything to say.
00:31:58.519 --> 00:32:06.759
Our brain might go blank, we might get very small, very quiet, shut down, numb.
00:32:07.799 --> 00:32:12.039
Have you ever felt that freeze when your emotions get so big?
00:32:12.759 --> 00:32:20.599
It may not always be fight, it may not always be flight, we might just freeze and not know what to do and shut down.
00:32:21.480 --> 00:32:26.359
And the fourth one, which a lot of people don't really know about, is fawning.
00:32:26.680 --> 00:32:44.359
And fawning is our the out of control little self, our little selves, that part of our brain where we're in that child state that just wants our caregiver, just wants the person that's unhappy or triggered in front of us to be okay.
00:32:44.680 --> 00:32:55.000
So maybe if I can say the right thing, if I can make them happy, if I can apologize, if I can make it better, they're gonna stop and I'm gonna feel safe.
00:32:55.160 --> 00:32:58.359
Uh, people pleasing, that's where that comes from.
00:32:58.599 --> 00:33:07.079
We're trying to please that person so that they can calm down, so they can stay with us in our pain.
00:33:07.480 --> 00:33:11.319
And that was actually that was what I did a lot growing up.
00:33:11.480 --> 00:33:13.160
I didn't fight very often.
00:33:13.319 --> 00:33:18.200
I did a little bit of flight, I didn't freeze, but mostly I would want to fawn.
00:33:18.519 --> 00:33:22.359
And in fact, when I was little, my nickname was Beamer because I just smiled all the time.
00:33:22.440 --> 00:33:23.880
That's my dad nicknamed me.
00:33:24.039 --> 00:33:36.759
And so I literally can remember being like six or seven, and and um, we didn't have a lot of um like like a conflict that was like you know, overt because both my parents were a lot more passive.
00:33:36.920 --> 00:33:47.480
But you know how it is, even if someone's not fighting, but they're both freezing or they're both in flight and they're not really present, you can still feel that feeling even if it's not yelling.
00:33:47.640 --> 00:33:52.359
So I could feel the quiet, I could feel the silent treatment, I could feel the shutdown.
00:33:52.519 --> 00:33:57.480
And so my job in my little child brain was to make everybody happy.
00:33:57.640 --> 00:34:10.680
So I can remember specifically feeling that feeling, reacting because it scared me, and I felt alone and separated because everyone was disconnected and hiding in their pain.
00:34:10.840 --> 00:34:14.920
They were freezing or they were in flight, and that scared me a lot.
00:34:15.160 --> 00:34:32.280
So I would literally walk around just smiling, and because that brought people joy, a lot of times my dad or my mom or both would see me and be like, oh, beamer smiling, and then they would kind of like brush it off or get over it, or they would smile too, and they would re-engage with me.
00:34:32.440 --> 00:34:34.680
And that was what my fawning looked like.
00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:43.400
And so, like for some of them, like you know, with fight, it's so like you know, strong and it's so much that people are like, oh yeah, that person's totally triggered.
00:34:43.639 --> 00:34:49.799
But if you're freezing or if you're fawning, it may look actually, especially fawning, it may look good.
00:34:50.039 --> 00:34:59.000
It may look like you're actually doing the right thing, but it's coming from the same exact pain and the same exact um root issue.
00:34:59.239 --> 00:35:02.839
It's just manifesting differently, it's just coming out differently.
00:35:03.079 --> 00:35:13.079
And so what I recognized is I need to take when I'm fawning, I need to take it just as serious as I would if I started getting super angry and fighting everyone.
00:35:13.319 --> 00:35:16.119
They're both coming from the same pain.
00:35:16.679 --> 00:35:29.239
So if this has been helpful or if Brian's episode really connected you to some of your the brain science and some of your reactions as well, he talks more about it in his book, which is so helpful.
00:35:29.479 --> 00:35:32.679
And also he does a lot of application.
00:35:32.839 --> 00:35:40.599
So you can go through the book and apply it by being able to hear his story and make it your own story and apply it for yourself.
00:00:29.230 --> 00:00:32.829
Happens to your brain when you experience painful emotions.
00:00:33.549 --> 00:00:36.429
I didn't know when I first started this journey either.
00:00:36.590 --> 00:00:42.829
I just thought I just was having big emotions and they were coming from who knows where and they were happening for who knows why.
00:00:43.070 --> 00:00:53.629
But what I learned through this process, especially through my own grief process, is that big emotions are telling us that our brain is hijacked.
00:00:53.710 --> 00:01:01.549
Our brain is no longer functioning in that adult, sophisticated way that we're thinking logically and reasonably.
00:01:01.709 --> 00:01:22.030
But when we have those big emotions, the brain science is that we're moving from our frontal lobe to our amygdala, to our fight or flight part of our brain, often called the child brain or the primal brain, because we're we're moving out of being able to think logically, we're moving more into an irrational space.
00:01:22.349 --> 00:01:28.109
And I loved learning about the brain because it made so much sense to me.
00:01:28.269 --> 00:01:40.509
Even though I do emotional health, I teach people about their emotions and how to identify them and become aware of them and what to do with them, I kind of didn't start out being a super emotional person.
00:01:40.670 --> 00:01:42.670
I'm actually very logical as well.
00:01:42.909 --> 00:01:52.989
So just like Brian, when I was experiencing emotions, or even more so, when other people were experiencing big emotions, I just thought there was something wrong with them or there was something wrong with me.
00:01:53.149 --> 00:01:54.670
I just said something's broken.
00:01:54.829 --> 00:01:57.069
We're having really big emotions right now.
00:01:57.310 --> 00:02:04.829
But what I realized, and just like Brian's explaining in this episode, is that there's brain science at work.
00:02:04.989 --> 00:02:17.710
Our brain is not functioning at a hundred percent, and it's seeing things and feeling things on a such a high level that it's really hard to understand what's going on with us.
00:02:17.950 --> 00:02:28.830
So if you've ever had a hard time knowing what your emotions meant or why they were happening, or what to do with them, this episode's for you.
00:02:29.069 --> 00:02:40.750
So pay attention as Brian's sharing about the brain science and sharing about his journey with how he learned about his own brain and what to do when he had such big emotions.
00:02:44.030 --> 00:02:51.069
Have you ever wondered why people do the stupid things that they do?
00:02:52.909 --> 00:02:54.349
How about yourself?
00:02:55.229 --> 00:02:59.710
Have you ever wondered why you do the stupid things that you do?
00:03:01.150 --> 00:03:12.590
I want to tell you a little story that happened about three weeks, or excuse me, three months before my great awakening that I talked about in the last episode.
00:03:13.549 --> 00:03:20.990
My wife and I were uh attending ministry school, California, as I mentioned, and we were back home for the summer.
00:03:21.229 --> 00:03:26.349
And we had to drive back to California for the fall session.
00:03:26.669 --> 00:03:29.389
And that's a 30-hour drive.
00:03:29.710 --> 00:03:36.669
So if you've ever been in a long car ride with your family, you know that all kinds of interesting things can happen.
00:03:36.990 --> 00:03:47.629
Well, um, I'm a planner and I strongly believe when you're traveling that you should make as few of stops as possible.
00:03:48.430 --> 00:03:57.469
Because if you made all the stops that my family would like to make, you would simply never arrive at your destination.
00:03:57.710 --> 00:04:02.189
You would just be driving forever and you would never get there.
00:04:02.430 --> 00:04:11.150
In fact, that trip that we made all those years ago, we'd still probably be driving if we made all the stops that my family would like to make.
00:04:12.669 --> 00:04:17.470
I'm being a little over the top here, but that's actually what we're talking about today.
00:04:17.710 --> 00:04:22.430
Those times in our lives when we get a little bit over the top.
00:04:23.230 --> 00:04:26.750
So my wife wanted to stop at a Starbucks.
00:04:27.069 --> 00:04:42.829
And I said, you know, if we wait like 60, 70 miles and stop at this other Starbucks step further down the road, it'll time up better for when we need gas so that we won't have to stop and get gas any more times than is absolutely necessary.
00:04:44.590 --> 00:04:48.990
And she kind of like begrudgingly went along with it.
00:04:49.310 --> 00:05:01.950
However, as we passed the exit to the Starbucks in question, I quickly learned that she was not okay with passing that Starbucks.
00:05:02.189 --> 00:05:12.590
And this Starbucks became the root of an argument that was very, very, very big.
00:05:13.310 --> 00:05:14.110
Very big.
00:05:14.350 --> 00:05:19.310
So big that at one point I thought a divorce attorney would have to get involved.
00:05:19.550 --> 00:05:21.230
And I'm not joking.
00:05:21.950 --> 00:05:34.750
I'm very, very thankful that my children had headphones on and were asleep in the backseat and did not have to hear their parents arguing like five-year-olds in the front seat.
00:05:36.350 --> 00:05:40.510
So eventually things calmed down a bit.
00:05:40.670 --> 00:05:44.590
I think the next Starbucks stop helped pacify that.
00:05:44.990 --> 00:05:48.270
But why do sometimes things get so big?
00:05:48.510 --> 00:05:50.030
Things that are little.
00:05:51.070 --> 00:05:57.870
If we get in our right mind, we can step back and look at it and be like, gosh, why did I get so bent out of shape about that?
00:05:58.189 --> 00:05:59.630
That was just silly.
00:05:59.950 --> 00:06:01.470
What was I thinking?
00:06:03.230 --> 00:06:04.910
That's probably happened to you.
00:06:05.150 --> 00:06:09.790
If it hasn't, well, you're fortunate because it feels like it happens to me all the time.
00:06:10.030 --> 00:06:19.070
It happens to me a lot less now because I'm much more aware of what's happening inside of myself in those moments.
00:06:20.189 --> 00:06:29.390
So when I first met Laura, one of the things that I was introduced to was uh some brain science.
00:06:29.710 --> 00:06:47.710
And it was actually this discussion that Laura had around brain science that was incredibly impactful to me because my logical brain looked at some of the things Laura did, and I thought they were a little weird, to be honest.
00:06:48.030 --> 00:06:49.470
I didn't relate.
00:06:49.630 --> 00:07:02.030
You know, learning to speak compassion to yourself, learning to love yourself, um, getting to know yourself, it just all sounded kind of strange to me.
00:07:02.510 --> 00:07:28.750
But when she started talking to me, or actually it was a seminar that I was in as a workshop, when she was speaking at that workshop and she spoke about brain science and what was going on in your brain in the moments like I had in the car uh over the Starbucks incident, when she started talking about the brain science, what was happening, it really, really made a lot of sense.
00:07:29.310 --> 00:07:39.790
And as I mentioned, I had before I met Laura, I had pursued a lot of other or several other counseling options.
00:07:40.030 --> 00:07:47.710
Uh, because that was one thing when I had got to go on to the ER that they were very adamant that I do was pursue counseling options.
00:07:47.950 --> 00:07:51.070
So I had pursued some and and nothing was really landing.
00:07:51.150 --> 00:07:53.870
It all kind of just sounded like mumbo jumbo.
00:07:54.030 --> 00:08:03.870
Now that's not a slight on any of those people, it's just where I was at, because in a different frame, perhaps they could have been very helpful to me.
00:08:03.950 --> 00:08:06.830
But in the frame I was in, it wasn't.
00:08:07.310 --> 00:08:15.870
But I recognized when I met Laura and she started talking to me from a scientific standpoint, that really resonated.
00:08:16.270 --> 00:08:23.230
And Laura being so difficult to get into, um, she did say I had to wait a while to meet with her one-on-one.
00:08:23.870 --> 00:08:26.189
But I was able to go to one of these workshops.
00:08:26.270 --> 00:08:33.309
And at that workshop, she taught me um the brain science behind what happens to me when I'm triggered.
00:08:33.629 --> 00:08:36.830
So let's start off talking about what a trigger is.
00:08:37.230 --> 00:08:43.629
So I'm gonna read from uh from above all else, and I'm just gonna read what I wrote about a trigger.
00:08:43.870 --> 00:09:01.629
So, according to the compassion method, which is the method that Laura uh devised, a trigger is an irrational response to a rational or irrational person, situation, or circumstance.
00:09:03.069 --> 00:09:17.629
It's that disorienting space of time when we're not fully present with ourselves, when we're not okay, clear-minded, tender hearted, or at peace.
00:09:18.110 --> 00:09:21.549
That's how the compassion method defines being okay.
00:09:21.789 --> 00:09:26.750
When you're clear-minded, tender-hearted, or at peace.
00:09:29.149 --> 00:09:36.829
That definitely described both my wife and I in that incredibly triggered moment regarding the Starbucks.
00:09:37.149 --> 00:09:43.230
And a lot of times, these triggered moments, you look back at them and you laugh, because I can totally laugh about that.
00:09:43.389 --> 00:09:45.949
Like, that was so silly.
00:09:46.189 --> 00:09:50.029
But man, at the time, it's anything but silly.
00:09:50.429 --> 00:09:53.629
It is so, so high stakes.
00:09:54.350 --> 00:09:59.789
And when you can learn to start recognizing your triggers, that's one of the dead giveaways.
00:10:00.029 --> 00:10:07.149
When something feels so high stakes that if it doesn't happen, like life on earth is gonna end.
00:10:07.709 --> 00:10:11.709
And that's what that Starbucks incident was for my wife and I.
00:10:12.750 --> 00:10:13.789
So I'm gonna read on.
00:10:13.870 --> 00:10:21.549
When Laura first taught me this concept, her explanation of the brain science being a triggered reaction spoke directly to my logical mind.
00:10:22.269 --> 00:10:34.509
When we're triggered, we're operating from our primal brain, the survival-wired part of us where our fight or flight mechanism lives, centered in the amygdala.
00:10:35.789 --> 00:10:41.230
Humans develop this part of their brain first, which is why it's called the primal brain.
00:10:41.789 --> 00:10:48.829
And uh other people in the science world also call it the child brain for that reason.
00:10:49.149 --> 00:10:53.709
And it's not just because when we're there, we're acting like a child.
00:10:53.870 --> 00:10:57.230
Uh, it's also just because it was the first to be formed.
00:10:58.429 --> 00:11:05.789
And then the frontal lobe, which is up here, your primal brain's more at the base of your head, your frontal lobe is up here.
00:11:06.350 --> 00:11:09.949
Uh, this is where more complex behaviors are.
00:11:10.429 --> 00:11:16.189
So behaviors like planning and decision making, uh, and it develops much later.
00:11:16.509 --> 00:11:26.269
So, like for me, it maybe was going to develop next year, but for most, it's going to develop in their early 20s.
00:11:26.669 --> 00:11:41.789
And so when you think about it, the um, you know, when some of the frustration we have with teenagers and some of those types of things, in some cases, you're just dealing with somebody that does not have their fully developed frontal cortex.
00:11:41.949 --> 00:11:43.709
So you're thinking, why can they not get this?
00:11:43.870 --> 00:11:46.589
Why can this not, why does this not click for them?
00:11:47.149 --> 00:11:57.549
So, as uh the way God designed things with parents, you know, we're supposed to help them and be the adult brain for our children.
00:11:57.789 --> 00:11:59.949
They don't have that part of their brain.
00:12:00.189 --> 00:12:05.469
So we get to be that part of their brain for them as theirs develops.
00:12:05.789 --> 00:12:11.309
We then pull back and we no longer be that need to be that part of their brain.
00:12:11.629 --> 00:12:23.789
Which me having children right now in the range from age 15 to 29 and seeing that gamut, I wish I knew for my poor 29-year-old what I know now.
00:12:23.949 --> 00:12:25.469
I mean, I feel really bad.
00:12:25.629 --> 00:12:29.069
Uh, I feel really bad because she was the test tube dummy.
00:12:29.149 --> 00:12:32.189
You know, she she was the guinea pig, so to speak.
00:12:32.509 --> 00:12:39.389
And um, my wife and I got to try out all of our parenting hacks on her and learn what worked and what didn't work.
00:12:39.709 --> 00:12:48.509
But it has been really fun as my children age, and now that I'm more aware of this, I can learn to start pulling back.
00:12:48.750 --> 00:12:59.789
Like when they ask me questions that, you know, when a 15-year-old asks a question, I'm gonna answer it a little bit differently than when a 25-year-old answers asks that question.
00:13:00.110 --> 00:13:08.829
Because now that I know more about brain development, I know more how to answer that question and really more of what they're capable of knowing in that moment.
00:13:09.309 --> 00:13:13.549
But anyway, um, so that that part of our brain develops later.
00:13:14.509 --> 00:13:24.189
So um, that fight or flight part back here, you know, we absolutely want fight or flight to kick in if a lion is really chasing us.
00:13:24.350 --> 00:13:25.469
That's rational.
00:13:26.189 --> 00:13:32.909
But when it's firing during an argument about whose turn it is to do the dishes, that's irrational.
00:13:34.829 --> 00:13:42.990
The bigger your triggered reaction, the deeper you are in that primal mode, the more you're operating from this part of your brain.
00:13:43.149 --> 00:13:52.509
Or another way to look at it, the younger you are, because you're operating more and more out of that child brain or that primal brain.
00:13:52.829 --> 00:13:58.509
So in that car ride, my wife and I were very, very stuck back here.
00:13:59.789 --> 00:14:10.189
The fact that what we were doing was so illogical and so silly and trivial, which up here knows we had no access to that.
00:14:10.429 --> 00:14:11.629
We were stuck.
00:14:11.870 --> 00:14:13.309
We were five-year-olds.
00:14:13.469 --> 00:14:18.909
It's like our primal brain, or our our it was like our adult brain, our frontal lobe didn't even exist.
00:14:20.029 --> 00:14:20.350
Okay.
00:14:21.469 --> 00:14:34.110
So the more we're stuck in that primal brain, the younger we are, the littler we feel, and kind of like the younger developmentally, you know, we're trapped in that spot.
00:14:36.110 --> 00:14:42.509
And the further removed we are from who we were truly created to be, our true self.
00:14:42.909 --> 00:14:53.309
So shortly after learning all of this, like literally, it felt like it was just a few days after that seminar that I was at, where Laura, Laura taught this.
00:14:53.549 --> 00:15:02.909
I found myself in the kitchen with my uh daughter, who was at the time probably 18 or 19, I think 18.
00:15:03.709 --> 00:15:10.269
And um this particular daughter, of course, I have several daughters that are this way.
00:15:10.429 --> 00:15:14.429
But anyway, when they go through the kitchen, it's kind of like a tornado just went through.
00:15:14.669 --> 00:15:52.200
So we were having a conversation about the tornado and the results of the tornado, the aftermath of the tornado that went through the kitchen.
00:15:52.440 --> 00:15:55.639
So we're having this argument about picking up after herself.
00:15:56.200 --> 00:16:01.399
And yes, it's good that people pick up after themselves.
00:16:01.560 --> 00:16:13.159
However, this conversation, um, this argument, so to speak, kind of devolved into kind of a bickering match back and forth.
00:16:13.399 --> 00:16:15.320
And all of a sudden it hit me.
00:16:16.200 --> 00:16:26.840
There was no longer a 40-some-year-old adult and a uh teenage daughter, you know, in the kitchen arguing with themselves.
00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:30.120
It was it was two four-year-olds bickering.
00:16:31.639 --> 00:16:39.320
And uh what I said in the book, um, it was convicting and revelatory in equal measure.
00:16:39.960 --> 00:16:44.759
So that argument was both convicting and revelatory in equal measure.
00:16:46.519 --> 00:16:53.799
So I write on, I said, Have you ever thought to yourself after doing something really stupid, how could I have done such a thing?
00:16:54.120 --> 00:16:55.799
I know better than that.
00:16:56.279 --> 00:16:57.879
That's likely true.
00:16:58.200 --> 00:17:00.039
You do know better than that.
00:17:00.360 --> 00:17:04.759
But when you're stuck in your primal brain, you're hijacked.
00:17:04.919 --> 00:17:09.240
You're stuck in that survival-wired part of your brain, you're hijacked.
00:17:09.319 --> 00:17:14.759
And your access to your adult, sophisticated brain gets cut off.
00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:21.480
I wrote, you may be the utmost authority on emotional health.
00:17:22.200 --> 00:17:31.240
But if your amygdala has taken the wheel, the primal brain, if it's taken the wheel, that wisdom is locked away, useless in the moment.
00:17:32.119 --> 00:17:40.759
This explains why some of the most brilliant people still make tremendously poor choices and messes of their lives.
00:17:42.919 --> 00:17:52.759
So learning that, and and I hope you hear me on this, that learning that is not an excuse for your trigger behaviors.
00:17:52.919 --> 00:17:58.200
It is not an excuse for when you do something stupid.
00:17:58.680 --> 00:18:02.359
But what that understanding brings you is awareness.
00:18:02.680 --> 00:18:11.000
Because I think for a lot of us, myself especially, I saw my trigger behaviors as who I was.
00:18:12.039 --> 00:18:15.799
I'll give you another example from a workshop with Laura.
00:18:16.599 --> 00:18:19.640
And this was the first workshop I took my wife to.
00:18:19.799 --> 00:18:23.000
I shared with her that these workshops were really helpful.
00:18:23.319 --> 00:18:28.039
And she was all on board to help me in whatever way uh she could.
00:18:28.200 --> 00:18:32.519
So she came along with me more as moral support than anything.
00:18:32.839 --> 00:18:38.359
So she comes to the workshop, and I had been to, I think this was probably my third workshop.
00:18:38.680 --> 00:18:50.200
And I, Laura, if you've ever been in any type of a one-on-one session or a group session with Laura, she is going to ask for uh audience participation.
00:18:50.440 --> 00:18:56.920
So she was looking for examples, and uh I agreed to be her uh example for the day.
00:18:57.160 --> 00:19:03.319
So um she was look she was challenging us to identify times where we had uh triggered behavior.
00:19:03.480 --> 00:19:07.000
And I shared a time with the family where I was really grumpy.
00:19:07.240 --> 00:19:08.519
And I said these words.
00:19:08.759 --> 00:19:12.279
I said, I am just a grumpy person.
00:19:12.440 --> 00:19:15.720
And then I went, I was gonna go on and share the example.
00:19:15.960 --> 00:19:17.559
And she stopped me.
00:19:18.120 --> 00:19:20.120
She didn't let me go any further.
00:19:20.440 --> 00:19:27.240
She stopped me, looked me dead in the eye, and said, You are not a grumpy person.
00:19:28.359 --> 00:19:30.440
That is not who you are.
00:19:32.039 --> 00:19:33.079
You're just hurting.
00:19:35.799 --> 00:19:46.039
And in your pain, you're stuck in that primal part of your brain, and it comes across as being a grumpy, irritable person.
00:19:50.039 --> 00:19:56.839
And I felt like number one, I could just feel the compassion come over me.
00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:02.359
I was just overwhelmed with it, like, oh my god, I thought this is who I was.
00:20:03.079 --> 00:20:05.160
But maybe it's not who I was.
00:20:05.480 --> 00:20:07.240
Maybe it's not who I am.
00:20:08.039 --> 00:20:10.359
Maybe it is just a reaction.
00:20:12.200 --> 00:20:19.640
And I looked at my wife and she actually kind of had her head down.
00:20:20.120 --> 00:20:22.359
She was being convicted as well.
00:20:22.759 --> 00:20:31.240
Because you see, um, in my grumpy and irritability, my family playfully had developed some names for me.
00:20:31.799 --> 00:20:34.599
And one of them was the fun sucker.
00:20:35.480 --> 00:20:42.120
Um, because when I would walk into a room or get home from work, I would suck all the fun out of the room.
00:20:42.359 --> 00:20:46.200
So they would tell me things like, Dad, put away your straw.
00:20:46.759 --> 00:20:50.039
Because I was just sucking the fun right out of the room.
00:20:50.359 --> 00:21:02.039
And when I was looking at her, I could tell she was getting convicted too of like, oh, I kind of reinforced that, those feelings that he potentially had of that I am a grumpy person.
00:21:02.359 --> 00:21:14.120
But we were all learning, we were all growing, and it was incredibly impactful to think of the fact that no, I'm not a grumpy person.
00:21:14.359 --> 00:21:15.880
That's not who I am.
00:21:16.519 --> 00:21:19.559
That's just where I go to in my triggered reactions.
00:21:19.960 --> 00:21:24.279
So the whole point of this is not to make excuses for what we do.
00:21:24.519 --> 00:21:34.359
One of the things Laura says a lot, and that's really always resonated with me, she says, what you do matters, but who you are matters more.
00:21:34.680 --> 00:21:36.359
So what we do matters.
00:21:36.680 --> 00:21:49.079
If we did something, if we made a mess and we need to apologize or we need to clean up our mess, none of what we're talking about excuses any of that.
00:21:49.799 --> 00:21:54.519
And totally do not hear that from me, because that is not what we're talking about.
00:21:54.759 --> 00:21:57.880
We're not talking about not owning your mistakes.
00:21:58.680 --> 00:22:11.079
But if you do the work of comforting your heart, the work we're going to be talking about in the coming episodes, and then I talk about it above all else, and that Laura's dedicated her life to teaching.
00:22:11.400 --> 00:22:18.039
If you do that work, your request for forgiveness will be real.
00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:20.279
They'll be genuine.
00:22:20.440 --> 00:22:23.720
You won't just be doing it because it's the right thing to do.
00:22:24.279 --> 00:22:35.319
You'll be doing it for the right reasons, because you recognize you made a mess, that your triggered self made a mess, and that's not who you are.
00:22:36.440 --> 00:22:39.160
And you'll be able to own it without shame.
00:22:39.720 --> 00:22:44.279
Just be like, hey, I made a mistake, but I'm not a mistake.
00:22:44.759 --> 00:22:59.000
In the past, sometimes my forgiveness was 100% coming from my shame or my request for forgiveness, because I was almost kind of like begging the other person in a way to not look at me and to not reinforce my shame.
00:22:59.880 --> 00:23:05.240
That if I say I'm sorry, you know, I can get like some penance for my shame.
00:23:05.480 --> 00:23:16.359
Um, so really my forgiveness I found was sometimes more about me than about truly, genuinely grieving over the hurt that I caused another.
00:23:16.920 --> 00:23:21.799
Now, when I have to ask for forgiveness, it's from a much clearer space.
00:23:22.039 --> 00:23:26.759
It's from a place of being okay, clear-minded, tender hearted, and at peace.
00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:45.640
Because I still make mistakes, I still have triggers, but if there's anything that I have grown in throughout this compassion method process and through my above all else journey of learning to guard and steward my heart, as is talked about in Proverbs 423.
00:23:46.599 --> 00:23:55.720
If there's anything that I have learned, it is, or anything that I've really grown in, it's an awareness of when I'm triggered.
00:23:56.279 --> 00:24:10.279
So, and that helps me tremendously because knowledge is power, and this is a case where um knowing that can help me start to, okay, I'm not gonna just keep feeding this trigger.
00:24:10.440 --> 00:24:17.160
I'm gonna start working the process that I learned throughout the compassion method to take care of the trigger.
00:24:17.400 --> 00:24:29.160
As I work through the compassion method that Laura developed and teaches, I broke it down into three simple steps to help me kind of come to help me make sense of it.
00:24:29.400 --> 00:24:42.359
The first one is awareness, learning to become aware when you're in your trigger, learning to become aware when your primal brain has taken over and you no longer have access.
00:24:43.240 --> 00:24:49.079
The second one is uh comfort, learning how to bring comfort to your triggered self.
00:24:49.400 --> 00:24:55.480
Because if you think about it, your triggered self is in that fight or flight, frantic state.
00:24:55.720 --> 00:25:01.400
But if you can bring comfort to it, you can come back to yourself.
00:25:01.720 --> 00:25:03.880
Engage your frontal lobe.
00:25:04.519 --> 00:25:05.880
You can come back to yourself.
00:25:06.039 --> 00:25:17.640
So think about a drowning man, and one of the big rules they say if a person's drowning is that you can't just swim up to them to try to help them because they'll drown you.
00:25:17.799 --> 00:25:22.759
You could be an expert swimmer, and in their franticness, they will drag you right down with them.
00:25:23.400 --> 00:25:25.319
They have to be calm.
00:25:26.039 --> 00:25:47.640
And once they can get calm, if a person that's struggling and drowning can get calm, even if they don't know how to swim, they can find that their body actually floats, that keeping your head above the water is work, but not nearly as much work as when we're stuck in that frantic state.
00:25:47.880 --> 00:25:52.839
And that is exactly the situation with us when we're in our triggered space.
00:25:53.079 --> 00:26:06.279
If we can bring calm, if we can calm down, if we can come back to ourselves, we'll start to connect with that frontal lobe and we'll start to recognize that hey, this argument we just had isn't really about Starbucks.
00:26:06.759 --> 00:26:16.680
It's not really even about the dishes not being done, it's about something deeper inside my heart that those things are pressing on.
00:26:17.160 --> 00:26:19.559
And I want to go after the deeper.
00:26:20.039 --> 00:26:26.200
Because at the core, that's learning to steward your heart, that's guarding your heart.
00:26:26.519 --> 00:26:33.400
It's about befriending your depths and going deep and seeing what's really under the hood.
00:26:34.599 --> 00:26:38.039
And you're gonna learn that there's much more to your story.
00:26:38.359 --> 00:26:52.039
You're not just a grumpy or irritable person, you're you're not uh someone who's just over the top, you're not too much, you're not all these things that your triggered behavior presents.
00:26:52.759 --> 00:26:55.559
There's a reason why that behavior is presenting.
00:26:55.799 --> 00:26:57.559
There's something more going on.
00:26:58.359 --> 00:27:05.960
That second step is learning to provide comfort, and then the third step that we'll talk about more in the next episode is discovery.
00:27:06.759 --> 00:27:10.039
Learning to discover who you truly are.
00:27:10.440 --> 00:27:13.000
Your triggered self is not who you are.
00:27:13.880 --> 00:27:21.000
They're just behaviors, they're just what happens when your pain is running the show.
00:27:21.319 --> 00:27:24.279
Your true self, that's who you are.
00:27:24.440 --> 00:27:27.079
And that's what we'll talk about in the next episode.
00:27:27.640 --> 00:27:34.359
So, a real practical tip on just how to start to begin, and I talk some about some of these in the book, but here's just a few.
00:27:34.519 --> 00:27:39.160
Here's a few things for me that I've learned to recognize when I've fallen into triggered behavior.
00:27:39.400 --> 00:27:43.960
Number one thing I've noticed is that uh my whole body kind of heats up.
00:27:44.279 --> 00:27:48.359
And I'll even notice some uh sweat starting to trickle down my back.
00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:59.799
And um, I first noticed this, you know, as I was learning all of this, I had a kind of a tense phone call and I got off the phone call and I just kind of recognized that, you know, my back is wet.
00:27:59.960 --> 00:28:01.000
What's going on?
00:28:01.160 --> 00:28:03.960
Like, and I was like, oh, okay.
00:28:04.440 --> 00:28:06.680
I I went into my primal brain.
00:28:06.839 --> 00:28:12.279
I went into fight or flight on that call, and that's one of my indicators.
00:28:12.599 --> 00:28:19.240
Another big one for me is when I can't see any hope in a situation, when I get stuck in hopelessness.
00:28:19.480 --> 00:28:24.759
That is a huge dead giveaway for me that I am uh in my triggered brain.
00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:26.200
That's a big one for me.
00:28:26.359 --> 00:28:31.480
Next week, we're going to talk about the part of you that was never broken, your true self.
00:28:31.799 --> 00:28:33.720
The trigger is just the door.
00:28:34.120 --> 00:28:40.680
The full map, every chapter, every turning point is in above all else.
00:28:41.160 --> 00:28:43.480
Until then, thank you.
00:28:44.039 --> 00:28:49.559
Brian just helped us understand more about what's going on with brain science, which wasn't that helpful.
00:28:49.799 --> 00:28:55.000
I really enjoy hearing it, even though I know a lot of this and I've taught Brian a lot of this.
00:28:55.160 --> 00:28:58.279
I just love hearing it from people's different perspectives.
00:28:58.519 --> 00:29:03.319
And one of the main things that he was highlighting was kind of our responses.
00:29:03.400 --> 00:29:09.880
You know, once we recognize what part of our brain we're in, we recognize more of that brain science, now we're into our reactions.
00:29:10.120 --> 00:29:17.720
So, you know, when we're in that part of our brain, our amygdala, we're in that, like there's a predator chasing you, there's a bear chasing you.
00:29:17.960 --> 00:29:26.680
And unfortunately, often in our triggers, the people that we feel are those bears chasing us are the people closest to us.
00:29:26.839 --> 00:29:34.599
It's the people that we love the most that actually get the closest to our pain and often cause us to have the biggest reactions.
00:29:34.839 --> 00:29:41.640
And so we can see how we can love someone so much, like a spouse or a family member or a child.
00:29:41.880 --> 00:29:46.359
And when we're in those big emotions and we're in pain, how we can push away.
00:29:46.599 --> 00:29:57.880
We can have these reactions that we don't want to be close to them, we don't want them to do whatever they're doing, and we end up pushing people away because our pain's coming up and we're reacting.
00:29:58.359 --> 00:30:07.240
And the four ways that most people react is fight, flight, freeze, and fawn.
00:30:07.799 --> 00:30:25.720
I'm gonna go into a little bit more detail about each one of them, but as I'm doing that, I would love for you to be thinking about what's my response when I experience pain, when I experience big emotions, and I'm reacting, and that person feels like it's happening, whatever they're doing is happening to me.
00:30:26.279 --> 00:30:28.039
What's my response?
00:30:28.200 --> 00:30:29.880
What's my reaction?
00:30:30.279 --> 00:30:31.720
So fight.
00:30:32.519 --> 00:30:35.799
Fight is that reaction that just kind of blindsides us.
00:30:35.960 --> 00:30:46.759
Sometimes they can come out of nowhere, and we go from having a great day, they said that one thing, and all of a sudden we're triggered, and we have a big fight reaction.
00:30:46.839 --> 00:30:53.480
We've got to defend ourselves, we've got to prove, we've got to fight them because we're in pain.
00:30:53.720 --> 00:31:08.039
Similar to like if an animal, like if a dog had like a wound or had like a splinter in its paw, and it was loving and kind, but when it had that pain come up, when we walk over to try to pet that dog, what would happen?
00:31:08.279 --> 00:31:17.160
They would start to bark and bite and fight because that pain's causing them to react in more of a fighting way to protect themselves.
00:31:17.480 --> 00:31:21.319
So, do you go into fight when you have big reactions?
00:31:22.120 --> 00:31:26.920
Second is flight, and that's the I want to run away.
00:31:27.079 --> 00:31:29.079
I want to get out of this situation.
00:31:29.480 --> 00:31:31.799
I just want, I don't want to be here.
00:31:32.200 --> 00:31:39.640
And it makes us want to do anything we can do to protect ourselves from the pain we're feeling by getting out of it.
00:31:40.279 --> 00:31:43.079
Do you feel like you try to get out of those moments?
00:31:43.480 --> 00:31:48.200
If maybe somebody's reacting and fight towards you, does it make you want to flight?
00:31:49.480 --> 00:31:58.120
The third is freeze, and we become frozen, we might go silent, we might not have anything to say.
00:31:58.519 --> 00:32:06.759
Our brain might go blank, we might get very small, very quiet, shut down, numb.
00:32:07.799 --> 00:32:12.039
Have you ever felt that freeze when your emotions get so big?
00:32:12.759 --> 00:32:20.599
It may not always be fight, it may not always be flight, we might just freeze and not know what to do and shut down.
00:32:21.480 --> 00:32:26.359
And the fourth one, which a lot of people don't really know about, is fawning.
00:32:26.680 --> 00:32:44.359
And fawning is our the out of control little self, our little selves, that part of our brain where we're in that child state that just wants our caregiver, just wants the person that's unhappy or triggered in front of us to be okay.
00:32:44.680 --> 00:32:55.000
So maybe if I can say the right thing, if I can make them happy, if I can apologize, if I can make it better, they're gonna stop and I'm gonna feel safe.
00:32:55.160 --> 00:32:58.359
Uh, people pleasing, that's where that comes from.
00:32:58.599 --> 00:33:07.079
We're trying to please that person so that they can calm down, so they can stay with us in our pain.
00:33:07.480 --> 00:33:11.319
And that was actually that was what I did a lot growing up.
00:33:11.480 --> 00:33:13.160
I didn't fight very often.
00:33:13.319 --> 00:33:18.200
I did a little bit of flight, I didn't freeze, but mostly I would want to fawn.
00:33:18.519 --> 00:33:22.359
And in fact, when I was little, my nickname was Beamer because I just smiled all the time.
00:33:22.440 --> 00:33:23.880
That's my dad nicknamed me.
00:33:24.039 --> 00:33:36.759
And so I literally can remember being like six or seven, and and um, we didn't have a lot of um like like a conflict that was like you know, overt because both my parents were a lot more passive.
00:33:36.920 --> 00:33:47.480
But you know how it is, even if someone's not fighting, but they're both freezing or they're both in flight and they're not really present, you can still feel that feeling even if it's not yelling.
00:33:47.640 --> 00:33:52.359
So I could feel the quiet, I could feel the silent treatment, I could feel the shutdown.
00:33:52.519 --> 00:33:57.480
And so my job in my little child brain was to make everybody happy.
00:33:57.640 --> 00:34:10.680
So I can remember specifically feeling that feeling, reacting because it scared me, and I felt alone and separated because everyone was disconnected and hiding in their pain.
00:34:10.840 --> 00:34:14.920
They were freezing or they were in flight, and that scared me a lot.
00:34:15.160 --> 00:34:32.280
So I would literally walk around just smiling, and because that brought people joy, a lot of times my dad or my mom or both would see me and be like, oh, beamer smiling, and then they would kind of like brush it off or get over it, or they would smile too, and they would re-engage with me.
00:34:32.440 --> 00:34:34.680
And that was what my fawning looked like.
00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:43.400
And so, like for some of them, like you know, with fight, it's so like you know, strong and it's so much that people are like, oh yeah, that person's totally triggered.
00:34:43.639 --> 00:34:49.799
But if you're freezing or if you're fawning, it may look actually, especially fawning, it may look good.
00:34:50.039 --> 00:34:59.000
It may look like you're actually doing the right thing, but it's coming from the same exact pain and the same exact um root issue.
00:34:59.239 --> 00:35:02.839
It's just manifesting differently, it's just coming out differently.
00:35:03.079 --> 00:35:13.079
And so what I recognized is I need to take when I'm fawning, I need to take it just as serious as I would if I started getting super angry and fighting everyone.
00:35:13.319 --> 00:35:16.119
They're both coming from the same pain.
00:35:16.679 --> 00:35:29.239
So if this has been helpful or if Brian's episode really connected you to some of your the brain science and some of your reactions as well, he talks more about it in his book, which is so helpful.
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And also he does a lot of application.
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So you can go through the book and apply it by being able to hear his story and make it your own story and apply it for yourself.
