 We're back. It's us Lawrence folks cats and we got a whole full house today. We do we do Hopefully they'll make an appearance. I Yeah, if you bring the cats on I'm gonna get my dog. So we'll see I Like it. Anyway, welcome back everybody to our little ongoing series Oh, I got to tell you a fire nice story. Remind me Fire nice I ran across it today and again, I'm laughing like a fool by myself. Nobody knows why So anyway, we are we are fire and I are officially fire and ice now that is the name of our disco band. So welcome to our show and Joining me as always on this side is lauren rosin lmft License marriage family therapist from the great state of california. Welcome back. Thank you And if you're joining from my end of things, oh, no, it's not you mirrored it man You fooled me. I was so excited that I was on it That is drew lincellata the anxious truth the dot anxious dot truth on instagram. Go check him out Yeah, thank you. So today we're gonna do something a little different We're gonna talk about what to do. This was lauren's idea. By the way, she gets full credit for an excellent idea What do you do when you get triggered? like Yeah Yeah, like down there and you let the flames envelope you. No, I'm just kidding um Yeah, a little bit. I'm not a huge fan of that trigger. I mean look triggers are real I'm not saying they're not real, but I'm always if I'm always wary of the term trigger Because usually in online circles, it's used as an avoidance term like uh trigger warning This might trigger you can't get triggered. So that's such a good point. I actually uh Kelly frankie and I were on kevin foss's podcast fearcast talking about just that the the problem with trigger warnings and that It makes it seem like there's something Wrong with being triggered, which Is not true. Actually, it's a very it's actually I posted out this just this weekend. It's a great sign It's a great sign of your triggered. It means that you are out and that you are living your life and Yeah, correct and a trigger is just an opportunity to practice in the end. So absolutely Yeah, the trigger better Okay, so let's talk about it. How do you practice so that the question would be like okay now you get triggered You were hoping not to be of course somebody wants to get triggered, but you do your anxiety is triggered. What do we do? so Yeah, so and we were talking about in the context Going into some examples and like in the context of agoraphobia um, you brought up an excellent example of You know, you're sitting minding your own business when you get a call and there's a meeting that you have to go to and and And all of a sudden it's like, oh Yeah, oh no, I'm triggered. Yeah full blonde. Okay, we could use that. We were talking about okay We'll try and give a specific example. So we'll talk to agoraphobia. That was that was definitely my issue and so typically for me it would be Wake up in the morning and this is before I was actually Getting better and doing what I had to do and my life was just full avoidance It would be like let's just keep our fingers and toes crossed today that nothing comes up That will force me to do scary things So I lived in constant fear that the phone would ring or something. I was in the technology business I mean, I still am but you know a little more hardcore at the time My data center was full of servers and racks and racks and racks of servers and those things would go down because it happened sometimes Oh my god, please there let there not be a problem at the data center Please let me not have to go three miles away to my office. Please. Let me not have to whatever So typically that's how I would start today hoping that I would be able to get through it without having to do anything scary but sometimes That wasn't that didn't happen that way and the phone might ring. It's on the ring. Yeah One would ring or an email would come in or I would get a text message from the network monitoring system It's telling me that there's a problem of some kind and that that problem required my in-person interaction Couldn't do remotely couldn't do it on the phone. There was no zoom. There was no zoom at the time. So Yeah, had to do had to do it. So that was a trigger for sure. Yeah, so What when that happened for you I can imagine that a lot of thoughts and feelings would come about as a direct result of the email or the phone call they is something like I'm and I I don't know specifically what would come up for you but oftentimes of the core for agoraphobia more generally it's I'm I have to leave. I'm going to have a panic attack. I'm going to lose control. I'm going to go crazy. I'm going to die Right, like some variation of those fears because I have to leave my home Yeah, pretty much nailed it. Yeah, I would immediately as soon as I knew that I had no choice So if I was It's interesting. There would be potential trigger. Okay. Here's a possible situation That's going to make me do a scary thing and if I was able to wiggle around it I would be able to remote it or something. Well, you know, somebody else could take care of it. Okay Disaster averted. Yeah, as soon as I was faced with a potential trigger Immediately my level of agitation would rise immediately my physical level of discomfort would rise My heart would begin to pound. I would begin to sweat. I would begin to breathe very deeply All of those things would start to happen. I get real a little bit Derealized and a little bit disoriented. So Even if I thought I might have to go to the data center or get McCarron Drive anywhere by myself I would start to experience that when it did become an actual trigger. Like no, I really have to do it Those things would ramp instantly into full panic Yeah, so I like that's a pretty accurate description I would get very anxious and then if I knew I gotta go boom instantaneous panic So I would go right from level six to level 15 This one goes to 50 Yeah, so that's what it would look like for me and I'm guessing that this is probably generalizable In general terms across multiple disorders Totally and I think that that's a good point. Like if we touch upon how it could be made manifest You know, we look at OCD and I'll I'll even take an example from my own history because that's the game we're playing today. I think uh So if when I had I had my primary obsession When I entered treatment was if I had relapsed on a piece of tiramisu because I had been sober for several years at the time and Hey, this piece of tiramisu and I wasn't sure what my intentions were about eating this piece of tiramisu So I spent, you know, two years trying to sort through and figure out What my genuine intentions were and whether or not I had relapsed And so if I were going throughout my day in the midst of that I I actually were driving on The valley and there's a restaurant That's called tiramisu And so I I lived in the valley for a time If I were just sort of like driving along and and mining my own business and all of a sudden I'd see that sign It would be oh my gosh You may have forgotten this but you might have relapsed on this piece of tiramisu that you ate several years ago what if you did or even That's the the wild thing about triggers is that The longer that you have the disorder the more associations they build And so I could Talk to somebody who I knew from my job at california pizza kitchen. That's right. I used to work at california pizza kitchen and I The place where I ate the tiramisu was at somebody's Bridal shower who worked at california pizza kitchen too. So if I'm now thinking about california pizza kitchen Well, now I'm thinking about the tiramisu, right? um Yeah, or somebody talks about Being genuinely honest with themselves. Well now I'm Am I being genuinely honest so it can trigger you because anything and at that point my Stomach would drop my my heart would start to to beat more quickly But more than anything that that strong urge to figure things out would just completely overtake me and I'd either You know ruminate about it for a while and try and sort it out internally or I'd you know make a phone call to One of the the few people who was still willing to talk to me And ask for some reassurance about whether or not I you know, it was it did constitute a relapse Okay And I like you know, this is really good. So the for me we're talking about sort of an agoraphobia trigger, but really And I mean you could probably confirm this as an of working clinician Underneath the agoraphobia is generally very few people have agoraphobia without panic disorder, right? That's an extremely rare such a circumstance So I mean, I know it can exist, but it's pretty rare for me the panic disorder led to the agoraphobia. So really It was a panic trigger. It wasn't an agoraphobia trigger And when you say that your range of triggers began to expand Okay, now this reminds me of tiramisu this reminds me of that this reminds me of that Same thing would hold true for me. So yes, we're specifically talking about today I got triggered because I got a phone call and I had to run to the data center in 2006 and I was afraid to do that But really my range of panic triggers got bigger and bigger also An argument a feeling really happy I remember the New York Giants won the the Super Bowl and I had a panic attack after the game It was super exciting. It came down to the very end. They beat the Patriots like eat it tom Brady Like as a lifelong giant fan, it was very exciting But it triggered panic after the game. Yeah So like that just anything you phone would ring a different sound like anything Everything would begin to like, oh no, I might I might feel a thing and then I'm afraid of that and it would just roll into panic So I agree with you a deeper Broader the range of potential triggers and that's what leads to that avoidance of like No, no, no, I just have to make sure that I try to keep it on the straight level No big emotions. No big feelings in my house. That's what we need. That's what today should be Let's keep our fingers crossed. So anyway, totally Yeah, well, that's yeah, there becomes more and more over time to your point to be avoided And then your life gets increasingly smaller and smaller and smaller um And that doesn't always happen with OCD, you know, I certainly avoidance comes up as as a way to deal with the anxiety, but um it's I I certainly avoided things. I transcended to fears about it my Contaminated that I was friends or something like that So avoid going to a party or something that would that would trigger that but one way or another You're even if you're there physically if you're caught up doing compulsions Whether in conversation with somebody or mentally, you're not really there. You're not Or if we take something else like being triggered in the context of Contamination concerns, you might not go not because you're avoiding the place but because you're too busy washing Right, you might not be connected in your life because or with locking compulsions, right? You might be over and over again with the door and you're not willing to leave not because you're anxious about Whatever it is you're going to but because You're unwilling to tolerate the anxiety that would come from leaving Yeah, that's a hundred percent on that from am I analog and that would be okay. I have no choice I have this is my business. I own the business and I don't and I won't go to it. I mean, it's terribly embarrassing Okay, I have no choice I have to go and I would just white knuckle my way through it and just grit my teeth and yeah, I was There but I wasn't really there because my entire focus was not on helping this particular customer or helping one of my employees or Taking your business my entire focus was on just trying to moderate and mediate and and flatten my my internal experience Internal experiential avoid I don't want to experience this thing internally which is triggered by this external thing So I'll go to the external thing, but it's really I'm just going to be completely internally focused Yeah, my body. Yeah, so yeah Yeah, it's not what I think I think it generalizes to beyond our two disorders, right? We're looking at Health anxiety same thing you get triggered around You know, you see something that reminds you of cancer and all of a sudden you're back to trying to figure out whether or not you have cancer Or when we're looking at specific phobias like with let's say dogs or spiders that you're going to find yourself avoiding those and Going and getting close to those things But the whole time you're doing all of these sort of more subtle safety behaviors that are keeping you from being Engaged Yeah So then the topic today is technically, uh, how do you navigate whence once triggered what happens then? I think it's the million dollar question that most people want to ask but tell me what to do then Yeah, normally phrased is how do I overcome? How do I handle but how do I can you give me tips on how to handle that? Yeah, so I think we're probably talking today about is handling How do you handle it when you do get triggered now too too bad now the snowball is rolling down the hill? You can't stop it. So what do you do? right right Well, and I imagine that you and I both have like slightly different variations on How how we would go about dealing with that But that I'm from my vantage point the first step is First of all recognizing that oh, I'm anxious like and I'm having thoughts Because without that recognition without recognizing that there are thoughts and feelings that are coming up here that you can't effectively navigate the circumstance I I agree with that So There's almost that you have to have an acknowledgement of this is the this is the situation I mean and there's almost that has to be almost an objective Which is hard to get to takes time to get to that an objective assessment of what's going on right now I'm experiencing extreme discomfort and fear because of these thoughts and sensations. Yes. That's it. Yeah That's the end of the story. That's the situation right now. I can't stop the story right there for me Yes, yeah Yeah, oh at 100 because then if you start going further into the story, you're going to actually end up kicking off more emotional challenges As opposed to just accepting the natural rise and fall By trying to mitigate the experience. You're actually making it worse Well, there you go. So mitigate the experience. I think is the key here for me What I would do initially when triggered was to try to mitigate the experience now. I have to find a way to Bring my heart rate down. I have to start find a way to Breathe slower. I have to find a way to not feel so flushed or hot or freezing because I would have these Crazy temperature swings. I was sweating and then I was freezing and it was no good So I would try to actively manage that or I would start to I would have thoughts like You know, how am I going to possibly get back to three miles back home if I go here? Now I have to get back How am I going to do that? Yeah, so and I would start to argue with myself and have what if scenarios? What if I have to call 911? What if I have to call for help? I was all I was trying to mitigate both the thoughts and the physical sensations. So that was my initial response when triggered So which I think leads to that's so perfect because the next step really is in After you've recognized that the thoughts and feelings are are present that you're not going to do anything to Try to fix control change them is the next step Yeah, but it did require that first step because the without that first step of acknowledging No, no, I have to boil this down to I'm thinking and I'm feeling that's all that's happening right now. I'm thinking of feeling I would focus on the the potential disastrous outcome. I'm stuck at the data center. I pass out. I have a heart attack I I'm dying Right That's not that none of that needed to be solved because none of that was actually happening I just had to relate better to the underlying thing which is I'm having an internal experience I'm thinking and feeling right Yes, and I'm unwilling to sit with the possibility that these things might come to pass Correct. Yeah. Yeah, the new way to navigate for me was Yes, I have to acknowledge what's going on and now I have to recognize that no, no, no I actually have to perform the task at hand now, which is I have to get a mic I have to put on my shoes. I have to put on my jacket. I have to tie my shoes I have to turn the key in the ignition I literally begin to breaking those things down into the tiniest little into all I have to do now is Was tremendously helpful to me all I have to do in the entire world right now is put my key in the ignition I key yeah in those days. So um, I still I still have that Because I have nav keys. What am I gonna say? But yes, all I have to do is this so instead of being focused on trying to prevent this imagined outcome I just had to bring my focus back to what I'm doing now and recognize like no my heart is going to pound now I My breathing is going to be ragged. I can try to control my breathing But not frantically and if I can't I can't I will shake. I will feel disoriented I'm just gonna have to do these things one at a time while I feel that Yes Yeah Yeah, so in terms of like making it a stepwise process as to what we've spoken about thus far first we Notice that we're having thoughts and feelings. We're able to be happening And there are allowing Those experiences to be present instead of resisting them So While the desire the urge to mitigate what's happening really that may come up We're not going to do that instead Quite to the contrary. We're going to go toward More thoughts and more feelings on purpose because in the direction of more thoughts and feelings is life Is doing the things that matter to you that are meaningful to you that that are necessary if you want to you know Keep doing the things that matter It's an excellent point because I was avoiding doing things that I really desperately did want to do Yeah, I don't I don't want to be stuck in. I don't want to hide in my house I didn't want to worry about the phone ringing. I didn't want it. I didn't want to live that way Yet I was avoiding the very things that that was I was avoiding the thing that I actually wanted to go toward As crazy as that is it sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud. Well, but that is the power of Of the the experiential avoidance these thoughts and feelings that we don't want to have And and if it really boils down anything to the goal Because if the goal is comforted at any cost Then of course we're going to do that Right if that's what the end game is that we just want to feel good Then we are going to be constantly buffeted and battered by our feelings If the goal is I want to live a full life regardless Then that changes the whole the the whole Experience because now you're like, okay. Well, I'm going to be I'm going to feel My heart pounding while I tie my shoe And I'm going to allow myself to sweat as I walk toward my car Yeah, which is what I had to do. So now it's funny because when we talk about Navigating through the trigger once triggered What I and I think this probably holds true for most of the community listening what I would have told you was navigating Was definitely not navigate So I think most people when they if they're going to tune into this and that this is the clickbait title of the youtube video Like oh, they're going to tell me how to navigate my anxiety triggers They're probably hoping to hear this is how you calm down This is how you ground. This is how you make it stop. This is how you make the panic go away This is how you calm your thoughts or change your thoughts But that's not navigating That's eradicating that's a wrap. We've already been there. We're not gonna we're not gonna eradicate. We're gonna navigate Right. So I think what I was thinking was navigation was really focused on eradication to bring it back to our last video Like so interesting. Yeah. Yeah, if I look back on that I'm like, oh navigating to me was how do I make this stop How do I make this go away? But really that's not navigating at all No, that's such a good point and I think as you're continually as As you are navigating the experience one thing I want to point to Is that you don't stop having thoughts and you don't like we've been talking a lot about the emotional experience That sort of continues throughout as evidence by all of these physical symptoms that you're having But in addition Every step I imagine even if you weren't engaging with the thoughts was You might not make it home. You might have a panic attack. You might, you know, you might get stuck. You might and I again It's choose your own adventure at this point, right? And then I die a horrible death because I have a panic panic attack while I'm driving and I can't focus on The road or whatever Whatever thing your brain comes up with in that moment But part of taking those steps like walking toward your car Is being willing to have this Guy in your brain screaming at you that all of these bad things are going to happen Yeah And the answer from my perspective to that as you're accepting the feelings and part of accepting the feelings accepting the uncertainty Accepting the experience is saying I don't know I don't know what's going to happen Yeah for me was And this only came from experience by the way, so I think we could tell you like well here This is really what navigating truly means. This is what I did to really navigate But that didn't happen after my second panic attack that took Many many panic attacks and unfortunately for me multiple year many years Of doing it the wrong way and remaining stuck So I can't you know, it's not like oh, yeah, okay. No problem. I just figured out how to do this But for me part of that was Not just accepting the unknown, but I would literally begin to think show okay now show me Yeah, I'm so tired of living in my house and not and not being and being afraid to go to my own place of business that I own You're okay, so every time that little voice would say oh my god This is so this has to be something really wrong now Now it really feels like I'm slipping away when I would get to realize it We feel like it was slipping away or disintegrating in some way. This this has to be happening now My response became I'm going to keep moving forward. Show me then you keep saying that now you're going to have to show Yeah, yeah that helped at all that was it for me. That was a framing statement. Show me Yeah, well because it empowers you Right and when you No, no, that's For sure, but but it it is If we're working towards something then empowerment is certainly something that is worth Working toward and that actually has sort of a positive emotional output not that we do it for that but the the sort of willingness to feel all of that stuff is It feels good It does feel good and the way I was able to change my definition of navigation and I swear we're going to get back to navigating but The way I changed the definition and actually began to more successfully and productively navigate was I had to reach a certain level of Head-up-ness. It's a word. I just coined it. Yeah, so I had to be annoyed enough angry enough Just enough enough of everything no more. I'm not doing this anymore That I would be able to frame that with like, okay You're gonna have to show me this time you're going to have to kill me And if you really do try then I guess I'll call 911 and hopefully they save me But that's what it's gonna because I'm not gonna back in that Yeah, so yes Yeah, did you have that any of that in your when you I had a point where I was like, this is not I'm not gonna let this completely control me anymore. Like I'm just not um, and I think there had to be a well and It was interesting because I realized I really wasn't living I wasn't living my life based on my values Or what was most meaningful to me um So ultimately, you know, just disengaging from the questioning was me saying like Okay, well, I'm gonna do this. I'm I'm not gonna have the answer. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna Continue to figure it out and I I think that that was in my own way my defiance of like I guess and I certainly since and Then had experiences where it's like Bring it on, you know, like I Okay because and I think having Reed Wilson talks about this a lot. He talks about the idea of wanting the anxiety yeah, and It sort of strikes me as a similar flavor but I I love But I do really love this idea of like You're gonna have to kill me Then like that's that's the option that I'm taking and that's Essentially anytime that I ask the client to accept uncertainty about whether or not they want to murder their families or whether or not they're secretly a pedophile or You know What have you that I'm saying you have to accept that the worst case scenario is on the table Because it's that unwillingness to accept that that's been keeping them in the loop And so while it may not be I you're gonna have to kill me. It's like you may find yourself like well If that's it, then I guess we'll see I guess I guess we'll find out I guess I'll kill my family and go to jail then and like that's Sounds horrifying Right to somebody but What is the other choice and when your brain has basically taken you hostage? Uh, that's great the hostage thing because I think in the end that's what it was It was you'll have to kill me was essentially like I am not I'm not gonna have you drag me up and down anymore Right. This is just the way it's gonna have to be but I think and I wrote about this too and I wrote my books like People will say all the time, but I don't understand. I get it. I know I'm not gonna kill my family Like I'm sure most of your clients would say well, but I know that that's not really true But it feels so true That yes, we're asking people to accept the unknown or accept the uncertainty of something that in in most likelihood And I you know, I know we want to say this if you don't want to do that reassurance thing But it's not gonna happen But you can't hang your hat on it's not gonna happen But your brain is telling you no no no It's gonna happen So from an internal experience standpoint, I am literally accepting death Even though you know from the outside looking in true, you're not gonna die I know you're not gonna die and you're okay now But my internal experience is I am choosing to intentionally go and die Yep, that's why it's so hard and that's why you're having a hard time navigating most likely To you I it is legitimately you are choosing this horrible fate that you believe is real Because your brain has taken you hostage and told you that it is Yeah Yeah, and I do try to bring back people to the uncertainty because of the fact that we don't we don't want people to live in Oh, I'm gonna murder my family because that's also not true, right like You could is is really and like just like you could die and of course Yeah, I I think The the point that you make about most people know right at some level Is true and most people who are in it will Say on one level they don't believe it and then on another level They're still terrified that it's that it's secretly true or that they're Deluding themselves or so it's it's a tricky thing and that's where it's like And I I have to tell people and in session this all the time. I'm like, but you don't know Right, that's the problem is the I know this isn't gonna happen I'm like you don't though and that's that is what's keeping you stuck Is that you don't know and you're unwilling to not know so You can say that you know, but realistically, that's just not the case. So let's let's get better at not knowing And so navigation through the trigger when it happens for me was just to kind of bring it back to the original premise here was the acceptance of okay, this is what's actually happening and now I'm Now you're gonna have to kill me. So I'm gonna have to accept this possible Situation that I'm so afraid of that has never actually happened But in my brain, I'm accepting okay Go ahead let this happen and then it was action Then it was action toward what I really wanted to do which in that moment I didn't want to drive out away from the house. I didn't want to do that But on the bigger picture of my life that is what I wanted to do So I had to choose to move slowly relaxed mindfully as best I can relax not calm Relax and calm are two different things try to be relaxed as best I can and move toward things that were actually Long-term goals, which is not normal for human beings. We want to act based on what we want now It was hard to get into that group But it's like nope if I go and do this now. I know that I will be happy. I will thank myself in three months Yes Yeah, so I that was navigating navigating was I'm not going to try to navigate through this circumstance right this minute That feels so important. I'm going to try to navigate toward What's what's waiting for me in three or six months? Oh, I love that. That makes sense Yeah, because well because what you're talking about too We're looking at the idea of navigation as a whole is that you've got your compass bearings on the thing that you want and Simultaneously you may that may mean you'll hit a rough patch immediately as a as a direct result that you're not going off course because that that would Deterry you from the things that matter um yeah Yeah, and just to sort of bring it back because I love that you We've you know Pull it pull it all back together Um, if we're looking at it from the ocd perspective in my own experience that navigating those moments looked like Oh, I'm having thoughts that I might have relapsed and that maybe I'm lying to myself and that I'm a terrible person And that I'll live a lie right these were the the things that my brain did And then I'd have this surge of anxiety and this really strong desire to figure it out I'd I'd be aware right let me start with the awareness Then go into okay. This is what's happening acceptance and then I would go toward maybe Maybe maybe I did relapse. Maybe I am a horrible person. Maybe maybe I'm gonna live a lie May maybe no one will ever know the real me. Okay I'd maybe I don't know I'm but I'm gonna keep um Driving because that's what I'm doing right now. So I don't have time to Figure that out. I've got I've got more important things So I'm gonna make space for the the thoughts that are here that I'm a liar and that I'm a terrible person And I'm gonna accept the feelings too the the dropping in my stomach and the tightening in my chest and what have you So that I can continue on And it feels risky because I need to sort this out, right, but I'm not gonna Yeah, and it feels risky because it feels like I need to sort this out right now Right now right now. I need to be focused on the here and now. I'm uncomfortable right now. I'm uncertain right now I'm afraid right now So I think if anything and I I don't know if you would agree with this or not The best navigation tip the internet is completely chock full of like here and now feel better this minute navigation tips So we're not going to do that. You can go find them somewhere else And and I hope you don't but in the end the navigation is not in the here and now the navigation is pointed toward the future Please don't Please don't do that. Um So does that yeah That's that's what I mean Those things are not necessarily productive. So if you came here hoping to find, you know, 10 things to make your panic attacks I'm sorry that we disappointed you but navigate toward where you want to be as a recovered person That's navigation through the trigger Yes Take the steps that you That the person that you want to be Very good, you know, even though that compass is there's a big magnet behind you that keeps changing your compass Yeah, hey, but wait go over there. It's going to be better. No Oh, we are having internet problems. Well Probably on my end and I apologize gang, but That's all right. We're at 34 minutes another great chat Yeah, it's always fun and these always go a little bit off the rails But then I think we bring them back. So hopefully it's been helpful for everybody listening or watching Fingers crossed Fingers crossed I will put up for those of you who do not know miss lauren This is where she is at at the obsessive mind or are you the obsessive mind dot com is your website too? I remember that is actually my website as well. Yes, you nailed it So that's how you get it. So if you do not follow lauren then go and do that Oh, I guess I got to put mine up to you Yeah, you got to put yours up and this if you can hear me still is Drew's information you can find him at the dot anxious dot truth And uh, it's the anxious truth.com too, isn't it? Yeah, if it is it happens to be the anxious truth.com. So there you go. There you go All right peeps. Thanks for coming by. I'm sure we'll do this again next month Like we always do don't know what we're going to talk about but we'll be back It's going to be a surprise fire and I coming at you Coming at you again. So anyway, all right guys. We'll see you next time. Thanks for coming by