Podcast Episode #28 – Taming Your Triggers
Taming, Transforming, and Transcending Your Triggers
We’ve all had them. Some are small, others overwhelming. If you’re here, you’re a step ahead in that you’re aware that you have them. Parenting brings them on in full force. We’re talking about triggers with guest parenting expert Carrie Contey.
Triggers are those situations that uniquely activate your stress response. They’re personal and based on individual perceptions. Triggers are so unique and personal because they touch on past pain, often from childhood. The same situation can have one parent outraged while another simply laughs.
Triggers wait in the depths of our subconscious programming until a seemingly random event lights them ablaze and we find ourselves emotionally reactive. Consciously parenting calls us to examine these emotional triggers in the light of our awareness and acceptance.
Taming triggers involves recognizing that others will find your buttons and repeatedly push them. Parenting especially creates stress, in that our children are constantly growing and developing, and may not have the capacity to handle their own emotions. Therefore, we need to handle our own emotions to both model and be available to guide. Daily demands take a real toll, and parents are more prone to being triggered when exhausted, overwhelmed, or not taking care of their own needs too.
Taming triggers is an “inside job.”
We’re not meant to control our kids, our environment, and all conditions in life until we no longer get stressed. We’re meant to take responsibility and evolve personally to recognize our triggers both during the stressful reaction, and eventually before we even react. While all of our personal triggers will never completely disappear, awareness truly holds the power to shift programmed reactions towards conscious responses.
This is an important and truly life-changing topic that is at the forefront of conscious parenting today. It is a seminal step away from historic and mainstream parenting that focuses on punishing our children for triggering us, and moves us towards personal integration and healthy family life. Join Carrie and me as we walk through the “how to” steps that begin the essential parenting work of taming our triggers.
Carrie Contey, PhD is an parenting coach, speaker and author. Her background offers a unique perspective on children, parenting, family life and what it means to be a healthy, happy, whole human being. In her work with thousands of parents all over the world, she guides, supports and inspires her clients to live with a wide-open and courageous heart so that they can approach parenting with both skill and spaciousness.
Links:
www.carriecontey.com
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