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So, the other day, I was going through a trigger from a minor incident with a stranger.
It honestly wasn’t a big deal at first until later on, I had realized what the stranger said to me actually did rub me the wrong way even though it was out of pure good intentions.
Yes, I know.
I got triggered.
Why the heck would I admit this?
Well, let’s talk about the idea of being triggered and easy ways to calm your nervous system.
We all experienced being triggered, even though I’m sure many people don’t want to admit this. Whether it’s because of Ego, fear of feeling vulnerable, or just coming from pure delusion, we are all (in the most lovingly way) walking trauma projectors.
People don’t get triggered until it hits an unhealed portion of themselves that has gone unnoticed for too long.
You see, I’m sure many of us were taught at a young age to not react to things that upset us. Some of our parents may have yelled at us, threatened us, or unfortunately, resulted in abusive tendencies.
However, all feelings are warranted and it is each individual’s job to handle and process charged feelings in a healthy manner that doesn’t harm yourself or others around you.
Many of us were taught to suppress our emotions which can result into serious consequences to our mind, body, and spirit. Our bodies will naturally react to our emotions whether that’s in fight, flight, fawn, or freeze mode.
Charged emotions is just energy that needs to be processed through the body. This is why vagus nerve activation is so important.
Vagus nerve activation can help you regulate your emotions so that you are not overwhelming your nervous system and doing things that you may do or say and regret it later on.
When you practice this, you help create a feeling of safety within in the body, which like I’ve mentioned with the fight, flight, freeze, fawn mode, we go into these states because our safety is feeling threatened.
Once we are safe, we are able to look at situations in a different perspective and make decisions that aren’t from a charged, emotional state.
Now, there are many ways to calm your nervous system; however, when it comes to being triggered and needing to calm down in the moment, whether you get triggered from a family member, a random stranger, your coworker, or whoever, it’s probably not ideal to be able to walk away and do a breathwork session.
Nor are we able to whip out our journals and just write down our feelings in the middle of our shift, right?
And I don’t want you to sit in your feelings and let them simmer into your body and mind where you have to drag yourself through work or sit at that family gathering feeling absolutely miserable.
So, I’m giving you four quick ways to calm your nervous system that you can do right away or walk away for a bit to do them in private.
This is also known as tapping.
I’ve talked about EFT so many times. Seriously, at this point, I’ve been a broken record talking about EFT (but it’s just that good)!
For short, this technique originated from Chinese acupuncture, except you are doing it without the needles! You are using your fingers to tap onto the energy meridian points of your body where emotions, thoughts, and beliefs are said to be attached.
Like I said before, charged emotions is just energy that needs to be let out of our bodies, which EFT can help with just that.
This practice can easily be done in less than ten minutes, so if you are on lunch break or need to excuse yourself from the room and go into another room, bathroom or whatever, than you’ll be able to do this practice in private.
I love Brad Yates on Youtube. It was his Youtube channel that introduced me to EFT and he has videos for all types of situations.
So, check his videos out, save them on your playlist, and refer back to them when you need to!
Check out: Brad Yate’s Youtube channel
Any type of movement is a great and fast way to regulate and calm your nervous system.
It can be from dancing, to yoga, to even shaking and raging.
You can easily do this in the bathroom, in another room, or yes, right there in the open.
Look, I will admit.
I have totally started dancing and twerking in the middle of my work shift at the last job I was at when someone had really p*ssed me off. It sounds ridiculous and probably looked ridiculous as well, but I was just naturally doing it and it made the situation way less serious to me versus the person on the receiving end of this interaction.
I’ve learned this from a course I have taken (before I actually knew it was a thing where I was already using movement to calm my nervous system) that humans struggle with completing the cycle of trauma, which prevents us from removing stuck energy within our bodies.
Animals shake it off all the time in the wild after they have been chased or even hurt by a predator. They can easily go about their day like its nothing.
It’s as if they have just forgot that they were in a flight situation and continue to live out their life.
With humans, we get so stuck in our traumas (again, walking trauma projectors), past, and charged emotions where it can affect us for days, week, or even our entire life.
You see toddlers so this all the time where they stomp around when they are upset.
Unfortunately, many parents yell at their children when they do this when all toddlers are doing is processing stuck energy and emotions. They are just trying to remove this energy throughout their body.
I’ve heard from yogis that trauma can be held within the hip area so hip movements, sacral yoga poses, and even dancing has helped people process this stuck energy.
Whatever movement you decide to do can quickly calm your nervous system, whether it’s doing a little dance, shaking your body, working out, yoga, or even if you need to stomp around like a toddler in the privacy of your room.
You do what’s best for your nervous system.
Deep breathing is a quick and easy way to calm your nervous system and well, is always available to us at any time.
Shallow breathing, a tight chest, and an increasing heart rate is using associated with the feelings of a dysregulated nervous system. Thus, deep breathing can help with all of this and you’d be surprised how many of us aren’t breathing properly.
The trick to deep breathing is to take a nice, deep breath (about four seconds) and let it out slowly (for about eight seconds) like you are blowing air out of a straw.
You can obviously do this yourself or you can carry a breathing whistle.
I have one myself that I was able to buy at a metaphysical store, but you can also buy it online if there aren’t any in your area!
I have the Komuso breathing whistle in rose gold. I’ve had it for quite a few years now and it’s held up so well. It’s waterproof and made out of quality recycled stainless steel material.
You can even wear it like a necklace and/or keep it in your pockets!
Either way, deep breathing is an accessible way to calm your nervous system!
Singing, chanting, or humming can also quickly help you calm your nervous system.
Now, I’m not entirely sure how this works, besides knowing that the frequency of your voice while it’s humming, chanting, or even singing can take you out of the mental pace that a trigger is bringing you.
I know people have done chanting in meditation, where they have said that they have been able to bring themselves into a deeper, trance-like state. So, it must calm your nervous system pretty well if people get great results from chanting.
Some have said chanting or humming certain chants can raise your vibrations, which can help you get out of low-frequency emotions like fight, flight, freeze, and fawn.
I’m not a singer, but I have a friend who would sing very loudly whenever he got really p*ssed off at work and has said himself that it was his way of calming down. So, it must work at some capacity.
Again, I’m not a singer. And if you aren’t someone who sings, chanting and humming to yourself is still a great, quick way to calm down your nervous system.
How do you get through a trigger? Share your ways in the comment section below!
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