Here are some of my thoughts on the idea/experience of co-triggering and triggering in general I don’t mean this to sound preachy or teachy…I’m really just thinking out loud for the most part and I am so grateful that this online resource exists where I can feel safe doing this and also know that I will get a polite and thoughtful response that will hopefully challenge and add to my current thinking.
I think so much unwanted experience is a matter of metaphorical confusion and why I think an understanding of how metaphor works and how to determine when metaphor is occurring is a fundamental skill. The way I’ve sorted this out for myself is probably largely a result of my NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) background. As a result I’m always interested in modelling how things work…the underlying structure or mechanics of an experience. I also think there is a huge opportunity to include facets of what Rick has described as our ‘Energetic Blueprint’ in all this. I haven’t included that but I’m inserting that understanding into a lot of different experiences in my life now and getting a lot out of it.
My sense is we run on a very simple ‘program’ as mammals. I think the fundamental mammalian OS is basically ‘Safe/Not Safe’. We have asked a lot of that simple program given the complexity that we’ve developed over the last 250,000 years or so. The complexity of our relationships with our environment and with other beings (communities, cities, countries) is no longer obvious or simple. For reasons of survival physical safety is the prime concern of the 'Safe/Not Safe OS. Emotional/psychological safety is secondary to physical safety in terms of survival for obvious reasons. If we no longer physically exist then there is no need to be concerned about our emotional/psychological state. Physical safety is primary.
So here’s where I think the ‘Safe/Not Safe’ OS meets it’s limitations…when physical safety gets confused with emotional safety. I think it plays out something like this: if someone hits me with a shovel and wounds me I can quite rightly and accurately say that I was injured by that person’s actions. There is a very obvious and demonstrable ‘cause/effect’ in play. I can point to my injury…I can touch it. However, if someone aims words at me or a look (instead of a shovel) and I feel ’ hit ’ (or ‘wounded’ or ‘injured’) by those words (or that look) an important distinction becomes necessary IMO. ’ Hit ’ becomes metaphorical and not literal. The experience of being ’ hit ’ is not the same thing as being hit. That can be proven very easily and quickly if you want to fetch me a shovel…
But because we feel it in our body (uncomfortable emotional sensations) our very simple primitive OS gets triggered ’ as if ‘’ (the metaphor appears!) we’d been actually hit and the physical survival program kicks us into our primitive survival brain/responses. All the physiological stuff kicks in…the cortisol…the adrenaline for fight/flight…etc. Except there’s nothing physical to battle. The enemy is invisible and essentially non-physical…it’s conceptual…it’s only words which are sound waves that hit our eardrums (a true physical impact of sorts, not metaphorical) or a facial expression that triggers us which is simply a pattern of light impacting our retinas…not really a physical threat. So to keep congruent with the primitive OS, which can only perceive in terms of a physical threat, we attribute that threat to the person that spoke the words or cast the glance. Now we have something physical to battle which is congruent with our primitive OS. We behave and react as if the metaphor was literal.
As a result of feeling uncomfortable sensations in the body being emotionally ’ hit ’ is interpreted as being essentially the same thing as physically hit by our very simplistic OS. This is the state I observe that many if not most people live in a lot of the time. They haven’t acquired the skill to be able to separate a metaphorical experience from a literal experience. So to my mind that’s a HUGE area to sort out in order to find emotional freedom. To recognize the metaphorical experience as opposed to literal. In fact, maybe the difference between living in survival/primal brain vs thrival/emotional freedom is the capacity to sort actual threat from perceived/metaphorical threat.
And this is why ‘the pause’ is of critical importance. It’s the opportunity to perceive from a different OS, a more evolved and more recent system that has the capacity to understand metaphorical experience and distinguish it from literal experience. It can distinguish between ’ hit ’ and hit. It’s an OS that is not so primal and not so insistent that everything is life or death…that there are other experiences and therefore other responses beyond the physiological reactions of adrenaline and fight/flight/freeze…there is thriving. The breath and the pause provides that opportunity.
I try my best to be aware of how I function and am affected in a world of potential triggers and how I quite often allow myself to get pulled into the survival OS. I’ve had a lifetime of practice! But there always remains the opportunity for the pause and the breath.
Interesting. You’re bringing out an aspect of harm discernment.
What if the ’ hit ’ is coming from a parent? “I hate you and wish you were never born!” I do think that the primal operating system includes mammalian threats that are visual-only and auditory-only and combined and body postures.
While there isn’t a physical hit, there is a threat that isn’t necessarily even acted upon. Still, when I watch monkeys who have been treated to such displays of aggression, they CHANGE. The way they move, where they move, how they hold their eyes… there is a LOT that happens even without the physical hit.
And I’m not even including pheromones and other primal scents that indicate threat/dominance and warning… aspects of non-physical violence that are still behavior changing.
The Pause and The Breath
As you noted, regardless of the mix of primal signals our primitive OS detects and starts reflexively acting upon, we see there are pathways that send this information to the Thrival OS for discernment. If something isn’t really a reactive threat, there’s the potential for upgrades… and the removal of triggers.
That gives me a LOT of hope for our emotional freedom. The more we make the truth of triggers part of our awareness and conscious exploration, and use tools like Tapping to help craft Responses rather than Reactions, our life and relating really can change for ease and safer connection.
I realized when I was writing out my thoughts that I was, at times, painting in broad strokes and I did have some niggling thoughts concerning what you’re mentioning regarding the quote below.
Of course I’m not discounting what you’re describing. I’m wondering about the mechanics of it…how does that work? How do words, voice tone and posturing create an ‘as if’ response? How do those things feel like an actual hit. I think it’s the primacy and intelligence of the physical survival OS that turns any sign or sense of threat (verbal, postural etc) into the sensation of physical contact…which makes complete sense to me. The sensation aspect is what is critical in this I think. In order to get the organism to take action (fight/flight/freeze) having only a conceptual interpretation of ‘threat’ is not enough…the primitive OS creates the physical sensation of it…it’s as if it moves the threat forward in time to include an actual physical contact…? Survival strategy wise that makes more sense than waiting for actual contact to be made to determine a physical threat is present I think. It also presents some complexities when dealing with sensations of threat when there really isn’t a survival threat. That takes a lot of threat discrimination skills!! Sometimes a ‘pause and a breath’ might be enough of a gap to get you physically hurt. What criteria do we employ to make an accurate discrimination? Just thinking out loud here.
My understanding of primitive brain and reactions related to threat do not necessarily link a stimulus to a specific experience. Unless perhaps there is past trauma?
For example, a loud angry vocalization is generally interpreted as a threat. It activates us, perhaps more to run and get away, avoid the threat.
What we can see is if a vocal threat has been followed by a physical hit, the two become associated. If running away failed last time, and resulted in physical violence (or intense emotional violence), now a loud vocalization would more likely to result in freeze or fawning.
Not actual hits physically are required. And my sense and memory of studies is not that we imagine being chomped on by the tiger – we just “know” or learn about predators and how to respond to them. And yes, activation chemicals and sensations can be hard to discern the difference.
And since we’re physical beings, as you noted, the primitive OS has to create physical sensations through chemical release, nerve pathways, breathing, muscle reactions, the whole works.
I suspect we’re on the same wavelength here. Perhaps some different entry points into what and how and where the sensory inputs (which are at least primarily physical including vision) lead to physical reactions and cascades of impacts.
I’m using the word ‘hit’ in a very broad way. What I’m meaning is that words or a look can feel like some kind of negative, unwanted physical contact or even physical harm. Our language contains numerous metaphors that describe that experience…of emotions feeling like unpleasant physical contact. “When she said that to me it was like a punch in the gut”“When I heard the news it was like the ceiling came crashing down on me.” “It was like being stabbed in the back.” “I had my heart broken/ripped out.” “Hearing that was like having the wind knocked out of me.” “If you don’t stop talking my head’s going to explode.”…and on and on. Those metaphors aren’t just fanciful, poetic language…it’s describing a sensory experience by the speaker. Words and looks don’t literally hurt us in the way a punch or kick does. It’s a completely different mechanism at work. Some part of that process is metaphorical…‘as if’ physical contact was made. What is that process and why is it? What I’m pondering is this: is this the primitive OS communicating to us in it’s only language…the language of physical survival…creating the sensations of physical danger or physical suffering from non-physical interaction with things like words and looks for the intended purpose of alerting us to pay attention to our safety/survival?
What I’m suggesting is more in the realm of an energetic blueprint I would say. You don’t need past experience in your personal history to act out of an EB it seems to me. I’m suggesting and considering that perhaps the intelligence of this particular blueprint (the primitive OS) is that any perceived non-physical threat, such as angry words, is felt in the body as an unsafe and dangerous physical contact. Since that primitive OS/blueprint thinks and acts strictly in the realm of physical safety/survival it makes sense to me that it would communicate it’s message to us (danger!!) using/creating unpleasant physical sensations (labelled as emotions) which are then communicated verbally by someone through physical contact/harm metaphors even if no physical contact was made as in responding to a threatening word or a look, like in the above metaphors…???
Again, I’m thinking out loud here…wondering about the structure of experience…I appreciate your thoughts…
I’m getting this image of the road that carries both people out for a Sunday drive, smiling and seeing trees and skies and wonder. And then the same road carrying emergency vehicles racing to a place where trauma is happening (or could).
Images, metaphors… and even the language you share above activates mirroring in my body, helps me appreciate and understand (empathize) with the experience of another human.
And indeed all those descriptions feel accurate, the As If being so close to true to what the physical action might feel like that they are useful in shared understanding (and self-awareness).
Indeed, with tapping I’d be drawn to saying “Even though I was stabbed in the back…” and going with the sensation and feelings that flowed from that, even though physically the person wasn’t stabbed in the back. (And even writing that I wonder… if we’re energetically stabbed in the back, isn’t that physical ? Hmmm…
Yes, I would say it is…in some shadow realm sort of way…?? The mechanism (for lack of a better word) of injury is different than a direct physical wounding but the result is something similar…(I can’t get myself to type that the result is the same) and it’s certainly well documented and understood that an energetic/emotional wounding has negative physical consequences that can ultimately be as deadly and devastating as an actual physical wounding.
I’ve learned that the metaphors we live by have a primary influence on our experience of ourselves and the world at large…they are largely responsible for how we make meaning out of ‘everything’ it would seem. I’m aware of a lot of written research on metaphor these days and much interesting work being done in that realm therapeutically…exploring and altering ‘client generated’ metaphor…where the metaphor is acted upon as if it is literal and not fanciful or imaginary as you’ve noted…because energetically it is experienced as real.
My current thinking is that all of our experience is metaphorical. Beginning with our senses. We know that our sensory organs filter out far more information than they permit to enter. We are aware of only a minute portion of the frequency spectrum that brings us sound and vision for example. So already we act from a severely impoverished map of the world…a metaphorical map. And then language is completely metaphorical…it doesn’t just contain metaphors. Every word is simply a symbolic representation of the actual ‘thing’. A sort of place holder.
It makes me think that metaphor is our most fundamental experience…we’re immersed in metaphor. It could drive a person barking mad to go down that rabbit hole for too long!!
Or it could be really comforting. The relating of language to metaphor makes a lot of sense, especially when one parses differences between words use to express feelings in different languages…
Te quiero - I love you in Spanish, literally “I want you.”
Interesting, eh, when we also explore feelings of being “unwanted” and “unloved” to bring that awareness in…
Could the emotional hit actually have a concrete effect on the brain that is only measurable in a lab??
The only related study I could find this morning measured strengthening a muscle (concrete) by mental practice without any physical activity (abstract). The study confirmed the theory. From mental power to muscle power
I have no doubt that an emotional ‘hit’ has concrete effects on our physiology. Both metaphorical and literal hits have measurable effects physically, emotionally etc. for certain. But that does not make them the same thing. Feeling ‘as if’ I’ve been hit is not the same thing as being hit. And, to my mind, that’s a very important distinction to make for myself. My experience is that when I acknowledge that the ‘hit’ is not literal (I was not actually physically attacked) I can calm down my Primitive Brain. It’s my PB that is reacting as if I was actually hit and then will likely go into fight, flight or freeze. If I can…pause…and sort out that the ‘hit’ was not physical I can uncouple from that PB response because I haven’t really been physically attacked or threatened…my physical survival is not actually in jeopardy so I can modulate my response to something more in line with what is actually occurring in my environment. There’s much more of an opportunity for me to respond with calm confidence. Of course if someone is actually seriously threatening to do me physical harm then it would not be reasonable to disengage entirely from the PB response. The context I’m speaking of is not that one,
I find this general topic very interesting to consider. I think of it as dealing with the ‘physics of living things’ which is very different from Newtonian physics which is the equal and opposite reaction sort of physics…the physics of the inanimate. If I kick a ball and I know all the various aspects of everything like mass of the ball, friction of the surface, force and direction of my kick etc., I can predict with great accuracy where that ball will end up… If I kick a person, however, I can know all those same measurements and still have no idea of the reaction my kick will set in motion. So, there’s something that’s important in that for me. And for me it begs the question ‘why do we use the language of Newtonian physics to describe animate internal emotional experience’? We like to say and feel things like “You made me feel angry!” “The look you gave me made me feel so judged” These are all, IMO, expressions that more closely resemble ‘causation’ as described by Newtonian physics…X caused Y to happen…but we aren’t inanimate objects. Our feelings and emotions are not simply the predictable effect of some external causation. I AM NOT A BILLIARD BALL DAMN IT!!!
And so I refuse to accept that people can say words and make facial expressions that cause me to feel a certain feeling or make me behave in a particular way. I am as much a participant in my reaction as the person that I might want blame for being the cause of my reaction. Now, it’s an entirely different discussion as to whether I do react to words and gestures and facial expressions ‘as if’ they are creating specific emotions and behaviours in me…because I do still react that way sometimes…in fact more than I’d like still…but I’m much quicker to recover from that idea when I notice I’m doing it and MUCH less likely, I find, to even begin to go down that road. And I like it better when I don’t go down that road.
Makes sense to me that your strong core skills would enable your brain to be resilient and safe.
And, it does seem that someone without those skills could experience the abstract hit as strongly as the concrete hit and maybe more strongly.
I couldn’t find any abstracts of the studies that the brain processes vivid imagining the same as physical experience (and it seems important to find the actual studies rather than the articles about the studies when discussing abstract vs concrete stuff). It does seem like vivid emotional experience would mirror vivid imagining… and could possibly explain why a person might experience both the abstract and concrete the same.
Personally, I can’t imagine that the brain processes those two very different experiences in the same way…there would undoubtedly be some overlapping similarities I would guess, however, they would likely each involve unique pathways of the nervous system I would imagine. For example I’ve never bled or bruised from an angry glance or angry words someone has ‘attacked’ me with…this is why I put attacked in quotation marks to indicate it’s metaphorical…and that was why I said that for me it’s really important to distinguish those two experiences from each other…because they aren’t the same even if a person experiences them as the same. And making that distinction, I think, is fundamental in acquiring some skill with what we’re describing. Our feelings are not always the most accurate judge of what is true or real.
No doubt many people aren’t yet capable of making the distinction between those two experiences and that’s really problematic for them and often it causes problems for the other people in their lives as well. I think, personally, that this is a very fundamental level of skill that oughta be taught in school…or taught somewhere. And I don’t mean to minimize the experience that many people have who feel words and glances like they’ve been hit by an object. I know that experience. And as you indicate this distinguishing ability is a skill and as such it can be learned and maybe a place to start for some people would be very simply getting them to notice the difference between a physical touch and being ‘touched’ by a word or a glance. There are bound to be differences. And the differences between being ‘hit’ and being hit are even more stark…and getting a person to notice those differences might be a good starting place…in a safe and non-triggering way of course. And that would no doubt be a very tricky thing to navigate with some people because of their personal history. And that can lead someone to having a very different relationship with words and gestures communicated to them…and especially when there is a realization of how much agency we each have over our reactions. But it has to begin, IMO, with making the distinction between the metaphorical and the literal because it is that which allows us to have some skill with modulating our Primitive Brain reactions.
This discussion of literal versus metaphorical injury is intriguing…
It does seem a valuable skill to be able to distinguish them (especially if it helps to calm the nervous system!), but I also know (from neuroscience classes in college and grad school) that there is plenty of brain research showing that, for instance, imagined movement/injury and metaphorical language do in fact stimulate the same parts of the brain associated with those physical sensations that an actual experience would stimulate… e.g., the motor region of the brain associated with the legs gets activated by hearing/reading the word “kick”, just as it does if we’re actually kicking a ball. Of course, other regions light up, too, but there is distinct overlap that’s worth acknowledging — no doubt that’s why words can elicit such strong bodily responses, whether painful or healing! (And, that’s why I tend to be picky about what I read or listen to, as my body/psyche/energy clearly responds, and I’d rather it tend toward healing than toward stress!)
Now, to switch perspectives, I’ll bring in the Chinese medical model, which is where I have more clinical experience…
The classical Chinese medical model does NOT differentiate between physical and emotional issues the way western minds tend to do.
Rather, Chinese medicine looks at everything as energy. Some energy manifests on the physical plane, some emotional or mental, but the same energetic principles apply, and there is constant overlap and feedback between ALL areas. The whole ecosystem is taken into account, and there’s an understanding that physical trauma can induce emotional challenges, just as emotional struggles and stress can impact physiology, depending on the terrain and tendencies of the person and environment.
“Blood stagnation” can refer to an obvious bruise, OR to physical pain that doctors may fail to find any reason for on a scan (and then tell the patient it’s “all in their head”), OR to emotional pain that elicits constricting sensations in the chest — it’s said that “emotions are carried in the blood,” which many of us feel acutely! (This is especially important in gynecological issues, as the uterus fills and empties its blood and emotions each month…)
The same types of herbs and acupuncture points will be used for any of those forms of blood stagnation (depending on other factors as well) — usually remarkably effectively!
And, quite often, when patients take strong blood-moving herbs for healing from physical trauma, they also find that past emotional trauma comes up for deeper healing in the process. The two are not as easy to separate as we might think! Eastern medicine honors that.
It’s a matter of perspective, whether we see our energetic body as more or less primary (or worthy of protection) than the physical body.
Definitely not everyone would agree with that! Many people choose to sacrifice their physical safety to try to maintain or regain some emotional or psychological safety or integrity…We are complex mammals, and there are also many aspects of safety to consider — having a sense of “belonging” is sometimes prioritized over other types of safety, even if there’s physical pain… it gets complicated!
Is the body a “mere” vessel or a “sacred” vessel for our soul?
Does that judgment call make us prioritize our physical safety more or less than our emotional well-being? It’s different for everyone, depending on their perspective!
Qi, in Chinese medicine, is what forms the body as well as the emotions. Without the initial energetic blueprint, our bodies wouldn’t exist as they do — including all the tendencies and triggers we each have that are unique to us!
And, fortunately, we can work with our energetic blueprint to find better ways of managing our energies and emotions — both the ones we came in with (our basic personality as well as our inherited patterns — both physical and energetic, including intergenerational trauma we may not be consciously aware of), and the emotions/energies/triggers acquired in this lifetime, as we’ve experiences traumas (big & small, physical & emotional) and gained new skills, ideas, and beliefs. Examining those beliefs and tendencies is, of course, vital for shifting them, so we can pause and respond in more supportive ways than primitive reactions tend to allow!
Also, yes, all experience can be considered to be metaphorical, created by the individual…
Indeed, Chinese medicine agrees, and uses metaphors of nature constantly in how it describes all of our physical and emotional experiences! And, we are only aware of small portions of what’s really going on…
“The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao…”
And, energy follows intention and awareness, so where we bring consciousness, we can change the patterns of energy flow. As one of my teachers used to say, when anyone was freaking out about what was happening in their body-mind-spirit-life:
“It’s all just energy. It keeps transforming if we let it.”
What happens when we acknowledge that all of our experiences and thoughts are mere symbolic representations?
Does that allow us more emotional freedom, to be less triggered, to take things less seriously, to return to peace more easily??
(Byron Katie would say so…)
How do we really know something is “true” or “real” — and who are we when we believe that?
Are our thoughts, beliefs, interpretations of “reality”, and triggers helping us (& those around us) be safe and/or live a thriving life?
Thanks Jem for your elaborate reply…I always enjoy and benefit from your thoughts. I’ll take some time to go through your response again because I feel drawn to reply specifically to a few things. This is really the only ‘place’ that I get to discuss these sorts of ideas and observations. Thanks!
Little reminder (for me) that it can take AWHILE when we’re triggered to re-regulate. While tapping helps me enter the process and stay in it, if I’ve been triggered it’s 10-30 minutes before my heart is restored and my adrenals are calmed. Yes, co-regulation helps that happen deeper (even if not always faster).
