Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - The Truth About Triggers

Episode Date: March 30, 2022

On this episode of “The Language of Love,” Dr. Laura Berman talks about triggers. You’ve probably heard the words “triggered” or “trigger warning” a lot in recent years. And, for good reason: As a nation we are becoming more aware of mental health battles and the importance of being compassionate and supportive when it comes to people’s ‘triggers,’ i.e. those hidden trauma wounds that can be opened up by certain conversations or experiences. But in this episode, Dr. Berman challenges everything you *think* you know about triggers. She will teach listeners: • The difference between being triggered and simply being irritated or upset. • The value of paying attention to our triggers. While we have a knee-jerk reaction to run away from pain or discomfort, Dr. Berman says that our triggers often hold our deepest opportunities for growth and healing. • Realizing that we sometimes use “triggers” as an excuse to avoid difficult conversations or moving out of our comfort zones. • How we can learn our partner’s triggers and navigate those tricky waters as we support them without forcing them to accept help or healing before they are ready. Make sure to tune into this timely episode so you can learn the truth about triggers and how you can better control as well as learn from your ‘trigger’ points. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

hey i'm dr laura berman a sex and relationship therapist and for the past three decades i've been helping people learn how to love and be loved better that's what we're doing here on the language of love where i get to answer calls and emails from people just like you my goal with the language of love is to help you discover more meaningful emotional and physical intimacy and to help you build more awareness of how precious and sacred your sexuality really is. Be sure to email me or reach out with your very own love sex relationship questions

and I might just answer them live on the air. It's time we all become fluent in the language of love. Today's discussion is for my podcast, The Language of Love, which I would love for you to subscribe to, listen to every week a new one comes out. all about sex, love, relationships, learning to love and be loved better from a mind, body, and spirit perspective. So I'm really excited to talk to you about this topic that I feel

affects every single one of us. I don't think anyone, I don't know a human being that isn't triggered sometimes. So I wanted to talk about the anatomy of the trigger. What are triggers, first of all, and how do they affect us? How do they affect our lives? What are they really? And most importantly, what I think has become so apparent to me over the past 10 to 15 years working with so many people and also doing so much of my own personal work is that triggers are seen in society. Oh, I'm triggered. It's seen as something really bad or for people who are really unconscious. And of course, if your triggers run your life and they can, you know, then that's a problem. But regardless, the cool thing about triggers are that they are our

greatest teacher. They have so much to teach us about what wants to be healed, about what's important to us, about what we value. And it can inform you so much in creating the love life that you most desire. So definitely give me a shout if you have a question or something that you want to share on this topic. I always want to answer your questions. Just start with what a trigger is. First of all, it's something that causes agitation, discomfort, and moves you out of flow or out of integrity. It creates a reaction that doesn't serve you. And it's usually unconscious. And it usually, if not handled in the way we're going to talk about, causes at the very least some friction or some anxiety, but very often causes a big blowout or

argument. When we are in a triggered state, to a certain extent, we're not of sound mind and body. So even if you are someone who isn't easily triggered, if you love someone or care about someone who gets triggered easily, you probably already know that trying to have a conversation with someone when they are in their trigger is not going to go too well. I always like to say, even though that person is by no means insane, you are talking to a part of them that is not completely of sound mind and body. So trying to have a rational conversation with yourself when you're in a trigger or with someone else is really difficult. And triggers can actually, the triggers themselves. We get triggered by a trigger. When we are triggered, that's when we're

out of integrity. That's when we often are in that state of agitation, anger, fear, anxiety. The things that trigger us, there is a huge, endless selection of, and each of us is very unique in what triggers us. There are certainly those internal triggers, like let's say you're lonely or when the house is empty or when there's a storm outside, if something horrible happened to you during a thunderstorm, then maybe every time you hear a thunder, you'll feel a little triggered until you resolve that, right? Or any time, like for me for many years, extended physical pain was a trigger. I would go into panic if I had like a spasm in my back that wasn't resolving and that no amount of stretching or pressure was going to resolve, I would start to like

have a panic attack and that would be a trigger for me. So there are sort of internal triggers and then there are external triggers like the ending of a relationship or let's say you move or you visit a certain location. So one is sort of an internal experience that triggers you emotionally and another is an outside influence that triggers you emotionally. One of my favorite teachers and authors is a man named Michael Singer. He wrote this beautiful book called The Untethered Soul. In it, he talks about emotional thorns, which are basically his beautiful way, and it's become my favorite way, of talking about triggers because he likens it to emotional thorns, right? We're all covered in these emotional thorns. If you think about it,

most people I know, myself included, when we were at some point in our life, usually when we were little, we touched a cactus out of curiosity or by accident or whatever. My kids certainly did it out of curiosity. And you see those big thorns that go into the finger and you pull them all out, as many as you can get out. And then later on, you go to touch something and you go, it still hurts because there are those microscopic invisible thorns there that you can't see that no one else can see with the naked eye. And that's what our emotional thorns are. We are covered in these microscopic thorns that when touched create a reaction in us. And so why is this important? It's important for several reasons. One, to just live a more conscious life that is

more in flow and more in integrity and more enjoyable because being triggered is not fun. You know it's not a trigger if you're feeling on top of the world, right? Because triggers do not make you feel good. They make you typically feel very scared or very angry or sometimes very sad. But something has happened externally or internally to remind you of something and touches that thorn, that invisible thorn. So when you're in relationship with someone, certainly becoming more and more aware as you get to know them, what those invisible thorns are. Like I know this is a silly one, but I know for my husband, me buying him clothes is a trigger. In fact, he knows that trigger. Like he told me that when we were first dating,

we've now been married almost 20 years. He said, I think it was in a holiday or an occasion. He said, whatever you do, don't buy me clothes. And I said, oh, really? Why not? Because I would have liked to buy him some clothes. Like so many women, we like to kind of redo the style over time. And he said, no, my mother used to always buy me clothes and then it would be a big issue. And she would get all aggressive with me when I didn't want to wear them. And it's just like this big thing for me. Don't buy me clothes. The few times I did buy him clothes, it didn't go well. I tested the theory. I mean, he didn't get angry, but he certainly was not happy about it. Knowing what triggers your partner is really important, but also not being a slave to your

partner's triggers is part of it. You know, this is what we see in abusive relationships. That's an extreme of a triggered person. A person who is abusive emotionally or physically is typically that way when they get triggered because they don't have the self-regulation or modulation or emotional training or experience. And they have so many thorns all over them that create so much anger and rage in them. And that's how the abused victim feels. You hear so often from abused victims, well, if I hadn't said that thing, if I had cleaned the table better, If I, you know, these crazy things that the abuse victim starts to believe, right, that's an extreme case. What they're basically doing is tiptoeing around their partner's triggers and it's impossible with an abusive partner. With an otherwise healthy partner and a non-abusive relationship, sure, you know, you want to be aware of your partner's triggers and not go around pushing them or prodding them or poking them. but it also doesn't mean that those triggers should rule your life. It depends on what they

are, right? So if your partner has a trigger that they don't want you to buy them clothes, okay, what's the big deal? So you don't buy them clothes. If they have a trigger that they can't get into a car with someone else driving, or they can't go to a grocery store or, you know, something that's related to trauma or something that's really limiting your relationship, your life. In those cases, I think you don't want to build your life around that. You want to get treatment. Now, in a perfect world, we would get treatment for all our triggers and all of us would be trigger-less. But I think in order to do that, you have to be like a guru living on a mountaintop in a bubble because we're human beings. Now, where do those triggers come

from? Of course, many of them, especially the big ones, come from trauma, abuses, abandonments, things that you got in trouble for things where you had a serious injury or a serious emotional injury you know those things stick with us but what's always been fascinating to me and you know those thorns are not really even that invisible what's really fascinating to me are the invisible ones the ones that seem to become all of a sudden apparent it could be like you're driving down the highway and all these different cars have cut you off. But when a blue car cuts you off, you just become full of rage. And then you realize later, I was just talking to someone recently about this, you realize later that actually their first boyfriend who abandoned them and broke their

heart had a blue car. And there was the combination of being disrespected and cut off and the blue car of the same model that triggered them. So that was a small trauma in the larger spectrum of what traumas could be, getting your heart broken and dumped really unceremoniously by someone who really hurt you. But then years later, 20 years later, when you're driving with your spouse in the car, you still have that hitch that you didn't even know was still there. And that's where it becomes really instructive because if you can start to become aware, if you can start to become the observer, and this is one of the best ways to start addressing your triggers is to the intention and to start working toward, for all of us, creating more distance

between the trigger and reaction. Because those of us who are the least conscious will react as soon as we're triggered. The first step is recognizing when you're triggered. You may not even be able to control your reaction yet. You may not even be able to pull yourself back from the trigger yet. The first step is in recognizing when you are triggered. How do you know when you're triggered? When you have unreasonable, you know, if someone insults you or does something horrible to you, of course, you may be angry, sad, scared, any number of things. But if it's something where the reaction doesn't really fit the trigger, someone cuts in front of you or doesn't go fast enough when the light turns green and you fly into road rage,

that is a trigger. Or you're having a conversation with someone, a group of people, and they don't notice that you want to say something and you find yourself so pissed off, you're probably being triggered. And so recognizing that, oh, that's the first step. Oh, I'm triggered. You don't even have to do anything for a little bit beyond that. If you just spend a few weeks noticing, any time you notice yourself feeling angry or scared, especially in reaction to something where the crime doesn't really match the punishment you want to give, then you can start to create that distance between action and reaction, trigger and response. I want to get to some of your questions. I have a lot more to say about this, but I also don't want to just sit here as a talking head. I see, Kat, did you want to weigh in here?

I shared with you earlier today when I had my aha moment for a trigger for myself was with like weight loss. And if I'm talking to someone and they're like eating a sugary snack right in front of my face, I'm like, all I can think is I need to get out of here. I need to get out of here. And recognizing that that was a trigger for me allowed me to say, okay, let me take the next step. So I'm curious as to what the next step would be with something like that. You're absolutely right. That's a great example of a trigger, right? You're on a diet or you've decided to start eating healthy, right? That's the explanation behind the trigger. You don't even necessarily notice in the moment that that's why, right? You're feeling in scarcity around struggling with controlling your impulses, right? Which all of us on a diet feel. And what's great is that you first notice like, oh, I'm having a reaction to this guy eating in front of me. So your mouth started watering and you wanted to eat. So you wanted to run. You were feeling anxious and you wanted to flee. So that's a great example, right? When we are triggered,

and I'm glad you brought this up, we do what is in our ancient DNA to do. We fight, flee, or freeze. We either fight the saber-toothed tiger, we run away from the saber-toothed tiger, or we turn into a deer in the headlights. Those are our kind of impulse stress responses when our brain is not in the driver's seat and our trigger is right so you were feeling scared anxious wanted to run because you were noticing that you were having a reaction to seeing him eat something that you would really like to eat but can't because of your diet and it's obviously so what that tells you right if you were someone who really found it easy to diet and you could be in ease and flow with it. And you probably didn't have, and I don't know if this is true

with you, but I'm guessing it is since you were triggered by this. You didn't have a lot of failed diets in your past and you didn't have experiences where maybe you were shamed for wanting to eat certain things or shamed yourself for wanting to eat certain things. If none of that was in your history, then you probably wouldn't have been triggered by this guy eating something yummy in front of you. You might have been thinking, oh, I wish I could eat that, but you wouldn't have been triggered by it. So what do you do about it, right? You have several options. So there's the physical things you can do about it. Let's just talk about that too, right? One obvious one that they teach you in behavioral therapy 101 are those deep belly breaths. So you're sitting with him

and you just kind of try to slow down your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. You take those deep belly breaths, you slow down the breaths, you maybe inhale for seven, hold for seven, exhale for seven, or you do the seven, eight, nine breath where you breathe in for seven, hold for eight and breathe out for nine. And you could do that in a subtle enough way that he wouldn't necessarily notice. I mean, if you sat there and lied down on the floor and were taking big belly breaths, he might, but if you did it more subtly, that would sort of be the first tier, especially with someone you don't know and you didn't feel comfortable directly saying, which would be the second tier, address it directly and say, listen, I just got to

tell you that popcorn you're eating looks so good and I'm on a diet and I just have to out the fact. I mean, this is what I would do, honestly, Kat, because I don't have much of a filter and it works well for me with my triggers. I just call them out. And I would say to him, that popcorn looks so good that you're eating it. wait, let me just take a few breaths here because I am noticing that I really envious and I'm feeling like I almost want to run away because my mouth is watering and I do not want to eat

any. And his first thing will be like, oh, do you want some? No, don't offer it to me. Let me just take some breaths and calm down here. And that's one of the cool things about these thorns and these triggers, because what you resist persists. And so it's just like with anxiety in general, Anyone who's suffered with significant anxiety knows this. When you try to pretend it's not happening, it's almost like trying not to laugh in class. You remember when you weren't supposed to laugh and something was a little funny? You were going to laugh. You know, your body is shaking.

It makes it so much harder not to laugh. It's kind of the same dynamic here. The more you push against the anxiety and pretend it's not happening, the bigger it seems to get. So sometimes just calling it out loud, and this is what's really helpful to do in relationship is to call it out loud. So when I notice I'm being triggered, which absolutely happens in my love relationship, anytime my husband comes across as trying to push an opinion on me, for instance, and you know, he's not necessarily doing that, but I experience him

that way. That's a trigger for me, for sure. Men controlling me like the slightest smell of that. And I get really defensive. And so I know that about myself. And I know my husband isn't someone who's trying to control me. And I know he knows this about me. So I will just say, oof, I'm having this trigger, like I'm feeling like you're trying to push your opinion on me and I'm just wanting to rebel. And he'll say, oh, OK, well, you know, that's not what I'm doing. And I'll say, no, I know it's not. But I think we should table this conversation till I just calm down a little bit and shift. Shifting is the next thing you can do. So, Kat, when you were talking about wanting to get up and run away, you were thinking about a very natural shift, removing yourself from the

situation. Moving your body is an amazing way, not even necessarily leaving the situation, just physically moving one's body in new ways, shaking yourself off. If you think about an animal, a dog, when your dog gets spooked by something or hurts themselves a little bit or another dog barks at them all of a sudden and scares them, what do they do? They shake it off, literally. The book that I think is wonderful is called Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine. He is the father of somatic experiencing, of healing trauma that is underneath our triggers, right? Any kind of trauma. That can be trauma with a big T trauma like huge abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, abandonments, or it could be little t traumas, times that you were humiliated

or your boundaries weren't really respected or you were dumped unceremoniously or something that, you know, you almost got hit by a car, but weren't, you know, things like that are still not huge t traumas, but still traumas and they stay with us. And so when you can move your body in a way to release the tension and the energy of the trigger, It's an amazingly effective way of shifting yourself back into awareness because remember what I said, when you're in your trigger, unless you create some distance and bring awareness, which happens through grounding your body with the belly breaths, you can also imagine that a light as you breathe in flowing in through the top of your head and

as you breathe out flowing out your tailbone. So you're breathing your belly breaths. You can breathe light in. You can articulate, speak what's happening, and or you can move your body and get out of the situation. And when you're in a love relationship, what's really important, and I was starting to talk about this before, is not only to recognize each other's triggers, but not to try to have a conversation about the situation when one of you is in their trigger or both of you,

God forbid, are in your trigger. And we'll get to that in a second. But before we do, Kat, I want to make sure I answered your question. Yeah, I feel like next time it happens and I'm able to identify it, I'll be able to know better what to do. I think the reason you got so anxious is because you couldn't say anything. You were trying to portray this very, you know, you wanted to come across as together and whatever else. And you didn't want him to think less of you. And then that just heightens the anxiety.

Was this a business situation or a date situation? It was a party situation. Well, so that's the perfect situation. The stakes weren't even that high. That was the perfect situation to just out what you were feeling. Take it from a recovering people pleaser. Nothing will cause more anxiety

than walking through life, trying not to offend people. And it doesn't work. So thank you. Thank you for weighing in and keep listening. And if you have a question, you can always ask it here. You can go to languageoflovepod.com

and you can get all the ways to ask me questions. You can ask voicemail questions. You can ask email questions. You can ask whatever's on your mind. I always want to hear from you. But right now we have Natalie on the line. What's your comment or question, Natalie? Hi, I would love for you to just expand

a little bit more about home frequency and how that can help us. So that's such a good question for two reasons. First of all, it can definitely help in the moment of trigger. it's another strategy you can use. But second of all, there's like a warning here. So let me just say the warning first, because home frequency that Natalie's talking about is what I describe in Quantum Love in my book. It's our natural place that we're born into. We're born in home

frequency, which is a very high frequency. It's that state of being you feel when all is right in the world and you're in flow. It's how that feels in your body. That's how we're born. That's we're designed to be, but life and the screwy families we're born into kind of condition it out of us. But it's a very natural state, and it's not hard to get back into once you start practicing it. However, what I see a lot in kind of new age spirituality is this thing I called bypassing. And by the way, I would put the emotional freedom technique, the tapping technique. I love tapping, but it is in the category of bypassing. And I'll tell you what I mean by bypassing

as it pertains to triggers or anything, really. Spiritual bypassing is this whole movement to always go right to the better feeling feeling. Don't you wish you could just hit skip on the worst parts of your life? You know, the same way you can skip an ad. I get it. I'm Siaya and I live in Ice Cove.

I've made some questionable decisions that didn't end up the way I planned. And today, I'm still figuring it out. Somehow, things usually get worse before they get better. Apparently, that's how I roll. So bundle up and come along for the bumpy ride. Stream a new episode of North of North Tuesdays on CBC Gem. So I'm triggered.

I'm really upset about something. I'm just going to think about sunshine and flowers and not think about this thing that is clearly upsetting me, affecting me, deeply rooted, needs to be healed. I'm not going to heal it. I'm just going to put a Band-Aid on it to feel better. That's what spiritual bypassing is. And what distinguishes bypassing from using these techniques in a healthy way is that you can use the healthy way is, sure, use them in the moment, especially if you're on a date or a cocktail party or a business meeting or a situation where you kind of have to keep it together and it's not okay to be triggered. But that does not mean that you don't go back

and seek to understand and heal the root cause of the trigger. So that's my caveat. So now in terms of using that in a situation, you use it in two ways. First, in the moment of the situation, the example Kat was giving, she's at a cocktail party. She's really like committed to dieting. She's got some anxiety about her ability to maintain this diet, right? She maybe has failed before or been shamed before. There's a guy eating popcorn. She doesn't feel like she can say anything to him. She feels trapped watching and experiencing the temptation. In that moment, while he's still talking, she can move herself into home frequency in the ways that I talk about in Quantum Love. And briefly here, I'll just mention that the way that you do that

is through practice. And so you wouldn't necessarily try this for the first time in that situation. You will have practiced it beforehand. And then in this situation, you do that. What you do, the easiest way to get into home frequency is to think of a time in your life where you felt all is right in the world, peaceful, surrounded by love, in love, nothing to worry about. And you just go there in your imagination as if it's happening right here, right now in first person. So you're watching the guy eat popcorn, you're feeling the anxiety, you're sitting there nodding along, but in your mind, you're thinking about lying out in the sunshine on the beach, hearing the ocean waves. And it only takes a few moments, especially if

you've practiced because your body naturally knows how to do this. Even better is to practice what I refer to as kind of this biofeedback method. So what you would do is you would practice at home separately and you build the skills. So now I can move into home frequency without thought, without having to imagine anything or anyone to move my body into this state because I've practiced this a lot. But it happened very quickly because, like I said, it comes so naturally to us. So it's not like you have to practice for years before you can master this. But what you do is you move yourself into home frequency. You imagine that scene. you're there in first person as if it's happening right here, right now, your body and your brain

don't know the difference between reality and rehearsal. So you're moving your frequency into that open-hearted home frequency zone. And then you just really marinate in that for a minute or two. And then you move to a thought or a situation that is stressing you out. That's always an easy one to come up with, right? And then you notice how that's feeling in your body. You don't even have to put yourself there in first person. You immediately feel the constriction. You immediately feel the anxiety. You immediately feel the anger, whatever it is. Then, after a few moments of that, move yourself back from there to home frequency, and then back to anger, anxiety, fear, scarcity, whatever that is, and then back to home frequency. Over 10 minutes, you can do this,

And you'll find that you actually will find it easier and easier, the system is much more lubricated, let's just say, to move in and out of home frequency. So when you're in that situation in public or in a high-stakes situation, you can move your body into that home frequency. And if you're in a situation in a love relationship where you are being triggered or especially where your partner is being triggered, you can use this as well. So your partner is going on, they're getting triggered, they're upset about something. If you move yourself into home frequency without saying a word, they will almost always match you and start to come out of their

trigger a little bit. They won't come out of their trigger if you start arguing with them about it, or you join them, or you get angry at them for reacting, or you don't empathize with them. But if you move your body into that state, even without thought, it's like a Jedi mind trick. You'll find that almost everybody matches you there, especially your love relationships. But the key is not to have that argument when one or the other of you is in trigger. You take a break. Like I was saying, I say to my husband, listen, I'm noticing I'm getting triggered.

I know that's not what you want to do. I know this is about me, but I just need 30 minutes. Like, let's come back to this later. Shake it off. Move back into home frequency. Ground yourself. Take those deep belly breaths, whatever it takes. And don't abandon it and sweep the issue you were talking about under the rug, but come back to it when you are more grounded and not in your trigger. If your partner is in their trigger, it's not a good idea to say to them, you're triggered and we shouldn't be having this conversation. So when your partner is triggered, maybe ahead of time, you say, look, I noticed that one or both of us get triggered often. It leads to arguments.

We get upset and we can't have a rational conversation or resolve the conflict when that happens. So let's have a sign. When one or the other of us notices that someone is triggered, we raise a finger. Or if your partner has a really hard time with this, you just take responsibility for them being triggered. I mean, for yourself being triggered. Just say, I'm feeling triggered.

We got to take a break. Even if it's them that's feeling triggered, right? And I'm not saying you should always do this, but it's better to do that than to try to stay in the conversation and resolve something with someone who is not in a sound mind or body situation because they're in their trigger. Now, Adam just joined. Adam, what's on your mind? One, sometimes you're the one who's triggered and you're not able to step back like you were just describing. What was that word you said? Home frequency? Yeah. So you're the one that gets triggered.

Yeah. How do you get out of that? Well, so the key is in what you're saying right now is the most important, right? That you're recognizing. Now, obviously you're not in your trigger right now. So my guess is when you are in your trigger, you're not very open to someone saying, honey, I think you're being triggered right now. So that's the first thing. Now, what do you do when you get triggered? Do you get really angry? I mean, do you throw things? Do you yell? No, you don't throw. Yes, you yell. So and that I guarantee you, I don't know you at all, but I guarantee you you're married, right? I guarantee you your wife was raised by someone with anger issues because that's part of what attracted her

to you. As much as she doesn't like that you do this, she has her own wounds that get triggered when you move to anger. So you're triggering each other's wounds, which is why she's right that couples therapy would be so helpful for you because you're not going to be okay with her calling you to consciousness. You either have to make a promise and an agreement that she is allowed to make the sign, to raise the finger or say, honey, I love you, but we're in that tight spot right now. Maybe you don't even use the word trigger, but you have some sort of high sign together where you promise, even if you think she's being a total bitch and you're totally right, that you are going to listen to her because you know she's your ally and you know you can trust

her. And so even if in the moment you think she's being hypersensitive, that's because of your fears of giving up control and your own insecurities about your own self-worth. Because if you were to admit not being right in that, the reason you're so angry is because you're feeling insulted or less than. Something made you feel insulted or less than or demeaned in some way. That's, I'm guessing your main trigger. And then when she says something like that basically translates, she's not going to literally say this, but translates as you're not in control, then you feel further insulted. So that's why if you're not able yet to take that directive from her, that to me means you have some trauma healing to do. There is no such thing as a nasty person.

We act in nasty ways and in aggressive ways, not because we are aggressive people, but because we are beautiful people who have been wounded along the way and have never dealt with those wounds. And this is our way of dealing with them. And it's not successful and it's not productive, right? But the way that you resolve it is by healing those wounds and those emotional injuries that happened to you earlier in life where you were taught you weren't enough, where you were humiliated or demeaned or shamed or diminished or discarded in ways that made you feel so small and

powerless that when you get triggered now, you move to hyper power and hyper aggression. And you're not open to the cues that she's going to give you in the moment to go and shift and shake it off yet. But if you're willing to do a little bit of therapy, it is not a sign of weakness or being of weak character. It is a sign that for things that have nothing to do with you, you have been significantly wounded enough along the way that you're not acting in ways that A, serve your relationship or B, give your daughters a model of what a loving relationship with a man and a respectful relationship with a man looks like. And I know that you love and respect your wife

and your daughter, so it's not about that. So what you're gonna wanna do is get some healing. And the best form of healing for someone like you, and really for anyone who has a trauma history and anyone who doesn't like talk therapy is to go for somatic experiencing. That person will help you learn to regulate your emotions and your triggers, to move the energy out of your body, teach you skills for doing this.

And if you go to the website traumahealing.org, I believe is the website, that is the website for this somatic experiencing organization. And you can find people in your area that do this kind of work. They will help you identify and heal those earlier life traumas so that they don't have such a hold because what's happening is you're losing touch with reality in the moment of your anger. There's no rationalizing with you. There's no talking to you. There's no talking you down when you're in that trigger. And that's because you're literally re-experiencing traumas of the past that need to be healed. And what I would say to your wife is that when you're in those situations, she calls on you to stop yelling. Stop speaking to her, please, in a nice way. She

says, please stop speaking to me this way. Please stop yelling at me. And if you don't stop, she says, if you continue yelling at me and speaking to me this way, I'm going to leave the room. I love you, but I'm going to leave the room and I'm not going to come back and talk to you about this until you are calm and you're not yelling at me. And then she follows through with what she's saying. And that's going to be really scary for her because she's not used to setting those boundaries from her childhood. That's why it's so perfect that you chose each other. You see what I'm saying? You're going to help each other heal your wounds. Yeah. It sounds like in the way that you're experiencing it, it's a lot for the two of you

to do on your own. And you need the support of someone to work with you and or to work with both of you together to help resolve this. But it's totally resolvable. And God forbid you could leave this relationship today. And I promise you, you'll be in a similar situation with the next person. So this isn't going to go away until you address it. And the point I'm making is that it's not going away. It's not about your partner or this relationship, although that's part of it. It's not going away. And what the worst part is how much you probably beat up on yourself afterwards. Right. And so you're living in a cycle of beating up on yourself and then being angry at someone else. And she's living in a cycle that's similar. And so this isn't going

to stop until you do the work. It does sound like a lot if you've never been in therapy before and you've never wanted to be in therapy, but it's not that bad. If you go to traumahealing.org online, there's a place for find a practitioner. If you don't like that, then go for some anger management therapy. All right. Good luck to you. This is a great conversation. I mean, we could go into this forever, but I think the main key is to know that every single one of us gets triggered. Every single one of us has triggered. Every single one of us is covered in thorns. And the key is in recognizing what those thorns are, how they play out, and starting to create distance using some of those techniques I showed you. And there's so

much more to learn about slowing down enough between trigger and reaction so you can start to make other choices that we talked about. If you have more that you want to learn about this or anything else, definitely let me know. You can always go to my website, drlauraberman.com, where you can click on the links to either leave me a voicemail or email question. I always want to hear from you on the language of love. I want to make a move, I want to make a move,

but I'm too shy. I can't fall asleep without your arms around me. I guess I'm falling in love.