Step One: Recognize and Name
“Awareness is like the Sun.
When it shines on things, they are transformed.”
Sophie was on a tear. Pulling clothes from the closet, trying them on, taking them off in fits of exasperation, the bedroom littered with an array of rejected outfits. Her interview was less than an hour away and she couldn’t find anything to wear that felt right. I’m such a basket case, she thought to herself. And then, with more than a note of sarcasm: This is really going to go well!
Sophie had woken up that morning feeling out of sorts and it just kept getting worse. Was it the interview that was making her feel so stressed? It would be a big deal to get this position. But isn’t that what she wanted? She had been looking forward to this interview for a while, and although it made her a little nervous when she thought about it, up until last night she’d been feeling excited.
Was it something else?
On the surface, everything seemed fine in Sophie’s life. Her career was moving along, she’d been enjoying her friends, and most importantly, things were going well with her boyfriend, Mike. In fact, at his suggestion they’d been talking about moving in together. Sophie loved that Mike had initiated the conversation on his own and seemed eager to take the next step in their relationship. It’s what she had been hoping for. Then last night when Sophie casually mentioned that she saw a “for rent” sign on a building two blocks over from where she was living now, Mike seemed aloof.
“Should I call and see when we can look at it?” Sophie tentatively asked.
“Sure,” Mike replied, half-heartedly.
A twinge of panic flashed in Sophie’s chest, and she got a sick feeling in her stomach. But it was her worries that captured her attention. Is he having second thoughts? she wondered. Did I do something to upset him? Is he mad at me? Her thoughts quickened as she played over the last few days in her mind, searching for a clue. They’d just had a fun weekend away together and Mike had been so sweet and caring. But ever since they’d gotten back to town, Sophie had felt a bit on edge, worried that something bad might happen. What if it doesn’t work out? What if he changes his mind?
She wanted to tell him she was feeling vulnerable and wished he would say or do something to reassure her. Show her some sign that everything was fine between them. But she couldn’t bring herself to say anything, worried that she might annoy him, that she’d seem too needy or desperate. Instead, hoping Mike would snap out of the haze he seemed to be in, she tentatively asked, “Um, are you okay?”
“Yeah. Sure. I’m just tired,” he said, yawning. “I should get ready for bed.”
“Um, me too, I guess.” Sophie said with a feigned smile as she watched Mike get up and go into the bedroom. She sat silently on the couch for a moment, disappointed, anxious, confused. He’s had a long day, she told herself, trying to shake off her distress. But he’s staying over tonight, so that’s a good sign. Right? Why am I getting too worked up over this? She took a breath and tried to put the whole thing out of her mind.
Yet the feelings rumbled on inside her, disrupting her sleep. Sophie woke up the next day, bleary-eyed and irritable, and as the morning quickly passed, she found herself feeling annoyed with Mike. Why did he have to stay here the night before my interview? I would have slept better and had the morning to get ready on my own. Now look at me! she thought as she angrily buttoned her shirt.
Mike sauntered in the room, dressed and ready for work. “What’s the matter?” he asked, sensing that something was wrong. “Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not okay!” She snapped in frustration, heading back to the closet. Then, startled by the force of her own feelings, she tried to soften the edge in her voice and offered, “I don’t know. I just … I just hate how I look.”
“What are you talking about?” Mike said. “You look great!”
Sophie turned to look at him for a brief moment, tears of distress welling in her eyes, and then hurried to gather her things. She realized she’d somehow failed to see the look of compassion on Mike’s face. “I don’t know. I guess I’m more nervous about this interview than I thought,” she said as she hurried past him and headed for the door.
From the outside looking in, this might seem like an easily avoidable situation. If Sophie would just talk with Mike and share with him that she feels anxious that he may be getting cold feet about moving in together, perhaps he might reassure her that everything is okay. Or maybe he’d admit that he was slow to respond because he is feeling nervous. After all, moving in together can be anxiety provoking for a couple, no matter how great things are going. Or maybe he has an avoidant attachment style and closeness feels threatening to him. In any case, they’d be in a much better place to navigate the feelings that are coming up for them.
We can’t constructively deal with our emotions unless we recognize and pay attention to them. But Sophie feels conflicted about her feelings. She questions and doubts herself, tries to dismiss her fear, and then, invariably, erupts in a tangled mix of distress, anger, and hurt. Not at all a recipe for getting her needs met. Not at all a recipe for getting back to good with Mike.
You might have guessed that Sophie has an anxious attachment style. In general, it’s hard for her to trust in the security of her relationship as the threat of possible abandonment looms large in her psyche. She learned early on in life that loved ones won’t be there reliably when she needs them and suspects that, sooner or later, she’ll do something to upset the applecart and everything will fall apart. So when Mike fails to respond with total enthusiasm to her mention of the available apartment, her nervous system jumps to attention. Her brain sends out a warning signal that she’s in danger, and her old emotional programming takes over.
While the manner in which Sophie behaves might seem a bit extreme, at its core her fear is quite universal. As you know, our need for a secure connection with a loved one is innate, wired in by millions of years of evolution. Any sign of a potential loss of connection with a romantic partner can stir fear in us. If we sense that something is awry in our relationship, our attachment system gets activated—our needs for safe connection come online, and we’re inclined to reach out and makes things better. That’s how we’re wired.
Those of us with a secure attachment style experience such moments as if they’re just bumps in the road that we’re able to navigate, and then get back on track with our partners. We feel our feelings and respond in a healthy way. But for those of us with an insecure attachment style, our early experiences in life mucked with our emotional wiring. Consequently, we’re not only hypersensitive to emotional cues in our relationships, we have a sort of phobic response to the feelings that they engender in us.1, 2 We react to them as though they’re dangerous. Emotions begin to stir in us, and without us knowing it, our nervous system gets activated and, for better or worse, we respond to our feelings and their associated needs and desires as our early history conditioned us to respond.
Sophie has no clue as to what’s going on for her. She doesn’t realize that she’s been triggered—that an emotional hot button has been pushed and her old programming is running the show. If she did, she might understand that more than Mike’s response, it’s her fear that’s getting the best of her. Perhaps she’d recognize she was falling into well-worn patterns of behavior and responding defensively. She might then handle her feelings and the situation very differently. But unaware of what’s happening for her emotionally, she doesn’t have a choice. She’s powerless.
That’s how it goes for many of us. We don’t recognize when we’ve been triggered internally. We get so swept up in our reaction that we can’t see what’s actually going on. We don’t notice or understand the underlying dynamics that are driving our emotional experience. We don’t get that the activation of our nervous system is a blast from the past and as such has little to do with what we’re facing in the present moment. And when something happens that disconfirms our assumption, like Mike’s look of compassion, we disregard it.
If we’re going to be able to turn things around, we need to recognize when we’ve been triggered. We need to slow ourselves down and start paying attention to what’s going on inside of us. We need to become intimately acquainted with and adept at recognizing and handling the forces inside of us. In short, we need to develop our capacity for emotional mindfulness.
Emotional Mindfulness
I’m guessing that “mindfulness” is a term you’ve heard. While the practice of mindfulness has been around for thousands of years, it’s been getting a lot of airtime lately. In recent years, it’s made the front page of the New York Times, the cover of several major magazines, and was the featured topic on a number of popular talk shows. Just scan an online news feed and I’m sure you’ll come across an article that makes some reference to mindfulness. Why is that? One reason likely has to do with the mental and emotional cost of living in an age of digital distraction and social unrest. While technology has certainly enhanced our lives in many ways, the steady barrage of emails, text messages, and distressing news updates, all vying for our attention at once, can be overwhelming and stressful. Many of us are seeking a way to quiet the buzz of our overstimulated nervous systems, regain some sense of equanimity in our lives, and focus on what’s important.
Yet the primary reason we’re hearing a lot about mindfulness these days likely has more to do with a veritable explosion of research findings attesting to its many benefits. Study after study is showing that practicing mindfulness improves our physical, mental, and social well-being. In particular, it’s been proven to be effective in reducing stress, rumination, and emotional reactivity, and to enhance immune functioning, insight, intuition, the ability to focus, cognitive flexibility, compassion, and relationship satisfaction.11 Sounds like something to consider!
What then are we talking about when we refer to mindfulness? That’s a good question. Depending on the context and who you’re talking to, mindfulness can take on different meanings, and that has led to some misunderstandings. Fundamentally, and for our purposes, mindfulness is about paying attention to our present moment experience in an accepting, nonjudgmental manner. It involves actively focusing on our unfolding experience—sensing, observing, and allowing—without having to change it or respond in any particular way. It’s about accepting what is and allowing it to be.
The practice of mindfulness seeks to strengthen our capacity for focused attention and increase our conscious awareness. By “paying attention on purpose”12 with acceptance, we come to see that all experience is transient and constantly changing and, if we face and stay present to it, eventually passes. We come to see that when we stay open to our experiences, we can move through them and get to a better place. It frees us from being wedded to the past or worrying about the future and enables us to be more wholly present and engaged in the here and now.
One common misconception about mindfulness is that it’s about getting in a zone in which we’re not affected by anything, impervious to the vicissitudes of life. Well that’s just not true, nor is it even desirable. As emotional beings, we are wired to feel. If we didn’t, our lives would be devoid of energy, color, and richness. What would be the point of that?
Mindfulness is not about achieving some detached way of being. That would be deadening. Rather it’s about finding a healthy balance between experiencing and observing what’s happening for us without being pulled too far in any one direction—a stance that’s been referred to as “participatory-observation.” It’s about getting different regions of our brain—the emotional part and the thinking part—to work together.
When we are mindful, we are more integrated. We can both feel and see more clearly what we’re experiencing and how we’re habitually inclined to react. We can more readily recognize when we’ve been triggered and manage our experience without being forced to play out conditioned patterns of responding that are no longer helpful to us. We can get ourselves unhooked.
Practicing mindfulness leads to greater self-awareness and psychological flexibility. It cultivates mental space within us, enabling us to gain a larger, more open-minded perspective, and consider how best to respond to our experience. Our range of options broadened, we are freer to make wiser choices that are more aligned with how we want to be.
Moreover, when we intentionally focus our attention on practicing new and positive behaviors, we are practicing what neuroscientist Jeffrey Schwartz aptly calls, “self-directed neuroplasticity.”13 We’re harnessing the brain’s capacity to rewire itself so that it can work on our own behalf. We’re updating our neural circuitry. In a way, as psychologist Rick Hanson suggests, we’re using our minds to change our brains.14
“Emotional mindfulness,” as the phrase implies, is mindfulness with a particular emphasis on our emotional experience. Remember, while our early relational wiring is evident in the ways in which we respond to our feelings, the whole process is largely unconscious. We don’t realize what’s going on inside of us—that we’re having feelings and responding to them in unhelpful ways. We don’t realize that we’ve been triggered, and internal working models for dealing with our emotions in our relationships have taken over. But we need to. The way out of this trap is through attending to our emotional experience.
Practicing emotional mindfulness serves as an antidote to our struggles by helping us to see and shift the emotional dynamics that have been unconsciously governing our behavior more readily. It grows our awareness of our feelings and increases our capacity to abide and work constructively with them. In turn, we’re better able to regulate our distress and objectively see and respond to what’s happening within us and before us. When we approach our practice with a healthy dose of kindness and compassion for ourselves, it makes it easier for us to deal with whatever we may encounter.15
When we are mindful, we are freed up to develop new ways of relating to ourselves and to others. When we are mindful, we can love, and be loved, like we mean it.
Sounds good, huh? It is, but just as it is when we’re learning any new skill, it takes some work. After all, we’ve been unknowingly responding to our emotions in a particular way for a long time, so those patterns have become entrenched and automatic. They’re well-worn paths that we travel down without even thinking. It takes some effort to get and keep things moving in a different direction. But the more we practice them, the better our abilities become.
To that end, some people find that developing a daily meditation practice helps them to grow their mindfulness skills more readily. It does. But while meditating regularly is immensely helpful in that regard, and I highly recommend it, it isn’t the only way. Practicing emotional mindfulness can be done anytime and anywhere. In fact, research shows that repeated experiences in small doses—“little and often”—is what builds strong neural pathways in our brains.16 With intention and skill, we can repeatedly take a few minutes throughout our day to build and strengthen our emotional mindfulness circuitry. All we need to do is bring our attention to our felt experience and be with it, over and over again.
The four steps that I teach are all about growing our capacity for emotional mindfulness. They are:
Step One: Recognize and Name
Step Two: Stop, Drop, and Stay
Step Three: Pause and Reflect
Step Four: Mindfully Relate
We begin with Step One, “Recognize and Name,” which is about cultivating our awareness and ability to observe our present-moment experience. The main goal in this step is to become mindful of times when an emotional hot button gets pushed and our old programming takes over. In order to be able to do things differently, we need to see what’s happening for us emotionally when it’s occurring. After all, we can’t change something we’re not aware of. We need to be able to recognize when we’ve been triggered and label it as such. As the saying goes, we need to name it so that we can tame it.
To that end, let’s get an understanding of what’s going on under the hood when we get triggered.
A Hijacking of Sorts
Evolution has programmed us to be on the lookout for danger. Without us knowing it, our amygdala—the “threat detector” that we talked about earlier and one of the oldest and more primitive parts of the brain—is constantly scanning our environment to assess our level of safety and alert us to signs of trouble. It’s a basic survival mechanism with the goal of protecting us and keeping us safe. It was especially useful to us in prehistoric times when the threat of physical danger loomed large. Because of its central location and the way our brains are wired, the amygdala can bypass the prefrontal cortex, the “executive center” and more newly evolved part of our brain, and rapidly alert the body to danger. When trouble’s afoot, the amygdala “hijacks” our brain and we spring into action before we’re even aware of what’s going on.
Here’s what happens: When our amygdala detects that we may be in harm’s way, it sends out a distress signal, our nervous system gets activated, stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol get released, and our body is put on high alert. The sympathetic branch of our nervous system, an accelerator of sorts, revs us up and readies our body to fight off a threat or flee to safety—the “fight-flight-or-freeze” response. Our awareness heightens, our breathing quickens, our muscles tense up, and we take action. Or when escape from danger seems impossible, our body shuts down, and we become immobilized as a way of protecting ourselves. In any case, the whole process happens in a flash, before our slower moving prefrontal cortex weighs in with an assessment of the meaning and significance of the situation. When it’s clear to our brain that we’re no longer in danger (“Ha! That’s a twig, not a snake!”) the parasympathetic branch of our nervous system steps on the brakes, and our system calms down and returns us to a state of rest.
The amygdala’s ability to hijack our brain is a nifty trick when our survival is dependent on our being able to respond in a flash and without thinking. I know I’m grateful for its talents when, seemingly out of nowhere, I find myself slamming on my car’s brakes and avoiding a near accident (and a costly trip to the repair shop, for that matter). I’m willing to wager a bet that you do as well!
But in general the kinds of “threats” we encounter in our modern-day lives are more symbolic (like someone cutting in front of us in line, getting dissed by a coworker, or an angry look on our partner’s face), than the life-threatening scenarios our early ancestors faced (cue the saber-toothed tiger). Unfortunately, our amygdala isn’t so great at telling the difference, and we get thrown into survival mode when it’s not really warranted. Here’s where our rapid-fire, nonthinking response to a perceived threat can be a liability, especially when it comes to navigating our emotional experiences in our relationships.
Remember, our amygdala perceives threats based on past experience. When we start to have certain feelings, needs, or desires with our partners, and our experience is similar in any way to emotionally charged memories of situations in which we got negative responses in our early lives, we get triggered. Regardless of whether our perception is accurate, our amygdala sounds the alarm that we’re in danger, our nervous system responds accordingly, and our defenses spring into action. Although the original threat of loss (and death) no longer exists, we respond as though it does and become unwitting contributors to our own suffering.
Minding the Gap Between Impulse and Action
When you met Sophie at the beginning of this chapter, she was missing the initial cues that she’s been triggered by her boyfriend’s lukewarm response to the idea of looking at an apartment for the two of them. Within a heartbeat her old programming was up and running.
Like Sophie, when we’re triggered we go from stimulus to response in a nanosecond. A button gets pushed and our default programming takes over. It all happens so quickly. But if we could slow things down, if we could widen the gap between impulse and action, we’d afford ourselves some necessary space to be able to do things differently.
The key to being able to do just that lies in aligning with our prefrontal cortex, which resides in the upper part of our brain. The prefrontal cortex has been likened to an orchestra conductor. It oversees all the different “players” and gets them to work together to create beautiful music. Similar to a conductor’s ability to guide, balance, and shape the sounds coming from different sections of the orchestra, the prefrontal cortex has the capacity to calm our amygdala, regulate our nervous system, and say “no” to instinctive survival responses—essential skills for navigating the emotional terrain of our relationships.
But the top-down neural connections that run from our prefrontal cortex or “higher brain” to the subcortical regions or “lower brain” where our amygdala resides are not as strong as the bottom-up connections that run in the other direction. That’s how the amygdala can so easily get the upper hand. That’s how we’re designed. Fortunately, our top-down circuitry can be strengthened and we can tip the balance in our favor. Mindfulness helps us do just that by strengthening our capacity for self-observation.
We can enlist the help of our prefrontal cortex intentionally by bringing our “observer” online. Our observer is the part of us that’s able to see, watch, and identify what’s happening. It’s not thinking, it’s not assessing or judging, it’s just watching. For instance, imagine gently holding your experience in an outstretched hand where you can examine it in front of you. You can turn your hand to consider it from different angles. When we observe and describe our experience, we create a little space between us and it. Instead of being completely absorbed in our distress, we step out of it just enough so that we can turn and look at it more objectively. We can then identify and name our emotional experience, which also helps to shift the power back to our prefrontal cortex. By using our higher brain to manage our lower brain, so to speak, we can more accurately see what’s happening in the moment and avoid being controlled by our old programming.
When we’re triggered, we’re at risk of getting overwhelmed and helpless to do anything about it. Observing changes our relationship with our emotional experience. It becomes something that’s happening for us rather than the totality of who we are. We can look at our feelings without being unduly affected by them. In the doing, we not only change our relationship with our feelings, but our experience itself changes as well.
So where do we start when it comes to observing our emotional experience? And how do we make sense of what we’re observing? There is a tool that I would like to share with you now that can help us do just that.
Through the Lens of a Triangle
Ever since I began my training as a psychologist, I’ve been interested in understanding how best to help people change. While I’ve gained a lot of insight and skill over the years, one tool stands out as being foundational to my work and informs everything I do. Now you might think that something so significant would be a complex concept or intervention, but the funny thing is it’s actually just a simple diagram.
“The Triangle of Experience,” or what we’ll call “the Triangle” for short, is a graphic depiction of our internal working models for dealing with emotion in relationships, the programming that’s been governing our experience. By illustrating what happens when anxiety-provoking feelings, needs, or desires get activated in us, the Triangle shines the light of awareness on what’s been going on behind the scenes. While the Triangle has been invaluable to me in my efforts to understand people’s struggles and help them overcome the fear they have of their feelings, many of my clients have been helped by learning about it as well. By identifying and graphically separating out the main aspects of their emotional experience and then illustrating how they relate to one another, the Triangle helps them to see and make sense of their emotional dynamics. It provides a lens through which they can step back and observe what is happening for them on a moment-to-moment basis. In turn, they’re better able to notice when they’ve been triggered and identify what’s happening for them. They’re able to interrupt the process and get back in the driver’s seat instead of being blindly taken for a ride. That’s precisely why I’m sharing it with you.
First let me give you the lay of the land. As you can see in Figure 1 on the next page, each corner of the Triangle represents one of the three main components of our emotional experience—our feelings, anxiety, and defenses. These are the elements of our experience that we need to be on the lookout for and be able to identify.
In the bottom corner are our core feelings, along with their inherent needs and desires (F). Their position at the bottom of the Triangle makes intuitive sense as our emotional truth often resides somewhere deep inside of us, and thus arises from our core—from the “bottom up.” It also speaks to the innate, wired-in aspect of our emotions and needs for connection, love, and safety.
The upper right-hand corner (A) represents the anxiety, fear, and distress that through our early experiences with our caregivers became associated with our core emotions, needs, and desires. (To simplify things, we’ll refer to all these feelings under the rubric of “anxiety.”)
On the left-hand side (D) are our defenses, which are all the thoughts, behaviors, and reactions we’ve developed to protect ourselves and manage the anxiety our emotions have come to engender. These are coping strategies that we use to “defend” against our core emotional experience; they try to hide or keep feelings at bay. It’s our defenses and anxiety that tell us when we’ve been triggered. Their location at the top of the Triangle indicates how in real life they occur on the surface and cover or mask our core emotions.
Figure 2 illustrates what happens when we get emotionally triggered. Let’s walk through the process step by step.
In relationships, something happens that gets our attention and evokes an emotional response in us. It could be any number of things—a thought, comment, look, or tone of voice, the lack of a response when we try to connect, our partner seeming upset or indifferent, and so on. If the emotion, need, or desire that then gets evoked is one that we learned to fear, our amygdala sounds the alarm that danger is drawing near. Our nervous system gets activated, our body responds, and we feel uncomfortable (A). As our distress increases it prompts us to do something, anything, to restore a sense of safety. Our defenses rush to the scene and mount a counterattack by either pushing our feelings back down or amping up other, more “acceptable” feelings (D). In either case, our core emotions, needs, and desires get suppressed or distorted just enough so that the associated fear dissipates, and for a moment “safety” is restored. That is, until we start to experience another anxiety-inducing feeling, and the whole pattern repeats itself. Maybe not with the same defenses, but with the same triangular dynamic.
Let’s come back to Sophie’s story to illustrate what this process looks like in real life.
When Mike has a lackluster response to Sophie’s suggestion that they check out an apartment together, these dynamics get set in motion. A wave of fear rises up inside Sophie along with a desire to reach out for comfort and get reassurance from Mike that all is well (F). With that, an alarm bell goes off inside her to warn her that she’s moving into dangerous waters, and she then feels anxious and conflicted (A). “No, no, no, don’t let him know what you’re feeling!” her implicit memory, shaped by her early thwarted attachment attempts, reminds her. “You know where that will go!” With that, Sophie begins to question her feelings, tries to shrug them off and act like she’s fine (D). In turn, her anxiety lowers a bit but keeps threatening to break through. Finally, when she can no longer contain herself, she acts out in a jumbled mix of anger, hurt, and distress (D). What’s important to recognize here is that the feelings she acts out—anger and hurt—although they are feelings, are not her core feelings. Rather, they are defenses against her core emotional experience of feeling afraid and desiring reassurance, connection, and closeness.
And there you have it: a bird’s-eye view of Sophie’s emotional programming, the neural coding of her early conditioning laid bare in black and white. Sophie’s Triangle reveals an internal working model that prevents her from expressing her true feelings. If Sophie was able to back up a bit and observe what was going on for her, she might recognize a familiar pattern. She might notice that she’s been triggered and how she’s inclined to respond. She might recognize when she’s getting defensive, rein herself back in, and try something different. At the very least, she might be able to make some sense of what happened to her.
With the Triangle, she can do all of these things—as can you. First, you can use it as a frame of reference to help you make sense of your emotional experience. Sketch out a Triangle on a piece of paper and try mapping out some of your relationship experiences on it. Try to observe your interactions through the lens of the Triangle—noting when you’re having feelings, seeing when your anxiety arises, and recognizing how you’re inclined to respond in a defensive manner.
The more you do it, the more you’ll be able to parse out the different elements of your experience and identify what’s been going on for you. Next you can see and name what’s happening. For instance, you can say, “I just got triggered,” or “I’m getting defensive,” or “I’m feeling hurt.”
This step is actually quite powerful. As research by psychologist Matthew Lieberman and his colleagues has shown, labeling our emotional experience gets our prefrontal cortex engaged and calms down our amygdala.17 It helps to regulate our nervous system and makes it easier for us to get unhooked and think through how best to handle the situation.18
When we recognize and name what’s happening for us, we’re bringing in a dose of reality. We’re separating out our past from the present moment and helping ourselves see it with clear eyes. In addition, when we repeatedly note and name our emotional experience, we start to see our patterns of behavior more clearly. We come to more readily see how and when we’ve gotten hooked and begin to do things differently in our relationships.
That’s a loving thing to do. We’re attending to ourselves in the way in which an attuned and caring parent would attend to a child and help them with their feelings. But what are we looking for? What are the cues that tell us we’re feeling anxious? How can we tell if we’re in a defensive mode? How do we know if we’re in touch with our core feelings? That’s where we turn our attention next.
Getting a Clue
When Sophie got triggered, she experienced a wave of panic and got a sick feeling in her stomach. Her attention went straight to her thoughts, where she ended up trapped in the spin cycle. She was not aware of what was going on for her.
Awareness—knowing that something is happening when it’s happening—is a central component of mindfulness. The key to growing our emotional awareness lies in becoming more attuned to what’s going on in our bodies. Why? Because that’s where our feelings show up. They make their presence known through energy, sensations, and visceral reactions that register in our bodies, and we feel them. If we didn’t have a body, we wouldn’t have feelings. Mindfully tuning into bodily sensations increases our conscious awareness of our feelings, keys us into important information, and helps to reveal our core emotional experience.
Similar to Sophie, many of us are not accustomed to paying attention to what’s going on inside of us. We’re consumed by our thoughts, caught up in our distress, or focused solely on what’s going on in front of us. As such, we’re alienated from our felt experience. That’s a problem. When we’re not aware of what’s going on inside us we’re completely at the mercy of our faulty wiring.
But if we grow our awareness, if we become more attuned to our internal experience and can recognize when we’ve been triggered and are having feelings, we can turn things around.
So then, what’s it like for you when you get triggered? What are the signs? Here’s where the Triangle can help you sort out your experience. Remember, you get triggered when conflicting feelings, needs, or desires—the stuff at the bottom of the Triangle—start to come up. As you proceed through the four steps, you’ll be better able to recognize your core emotional experience as it’s emerging, but given how fast the alarm bell gets rung and your nervous system takes over, at this point in your process you’re more likely to get uncomfortable and fly right into defense mode. So it’s the stuff at the top of the Triangle—feeling anxious or behaving in a defensive manner—that you need to catch.
The ability to recognize both is important. They’re both indicators that you’ve been triggered. But if you can spot your anxiety when it first arises, it’s a little easier to slow things down and regain some control. By the time you’re in defense mode and up to your old tricks, it can be a bit challenging, although certainly not impossible, to rein yourself in.
For that reason, let’s focus first on being able to recognize when anxiety appears on the scene.
The “A” Corner of the Triangle
Physical discomfort is often the first sign that we’re anxious and that our nervous system is reacting as though we’re in danger. It’s telling us that we’re starting to have an emotional experience that our amygdala suspects will put us in danger. For instance, we begin to feel hurt, afraid, angry, in need of reassurance or support, or we feel compelled to express ourselves in some way, and the alarm bell starts to sound. In turn, we feel anxious, afraid, or distressed. We feel physically uncomfortable. It’s unpleasant. Why? Because it’s a threat signal. It’s trying to get our attention. It wants to get us to do something. If it made us feel all warm and fuzzy inside, we’d relax and settle in, but that’s not what anxiety’s about. Instead, the suffering it generates makes us want to do something to put an end to it, to make it go away.
Now with all this talk of alarms going off, you’d think that it would be fairly obvious when we’re triggered. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it comes on the scene with all the bells and whistles. Our muscles get tense, our heart rate quickens, and we feel restless, agitated, and on edge. But at other times, the experience can be very subtle. We might feel a slight sense of unease, a faint flicker of energy in our chest, or a quick, almost imperceptible twitch in our stomach. These sensations are distant echoes of past distress, sounding from somewhere in the deep recesses of our mind, body, and spirit. It’s like when our alarm clock first goes off and we’re still fast asleep. It comes to us softly at first, as if it’s far away. The difference is that eventually the clock’s buzzer breaks through and rouses us to attention; but anxiety signals, despite affecting our behavior, can fly under the wire and go unnoticed. Especially when we’re not attuned to our physical experience.
In addition to being subtle, anxiety can show up in a number of unfamiliar and confusing ways. In fact, there may be times when we’re feeling anxious, yet do not recognize it as such. In order to sharpen our senses and get better at detecting when anxiety is making an appearance, let’s familiarize ourselves with the different possibilities.
Below is a list of anxiety-related responses. As you read over the different descriptions, check off any that seem familiar to you and might be a part of your emotional experience.
SIGNS OF ANXIETY
Muscle tension or constriction (anywhere in your body)
Heart rate quickening
Restlessness, agitation
A desire to flee or withdraw
Shallow breathing, shortness of breath
Nausea, stomachache
Having to urinate
Confusion, difficulty focusing or thinking
Dizziness, lightheadedness, disorientation
Perspiring, cold hands/skin
Numbness, tingling, trembling, muscle twitches
As you can see, there’s quite a range of ways in which anxiety shows up. However, most people find that their own experience, whatever it may be, tends to be fairly consistent. For instance, Sophie typically feels panicky and sick to her stomach when she’s triggered. My experience is a little different. When a button gets pushed for me, I generally feel a kind of quivering sensation in my solar plexus, like a subtle electrical current quickly running down a wire. Sometimes it’s so subtle that it could buzz right through me without my noticing it. In fact, I’m sure it was going on for quite a while before I caught on. But the more I’ve paid attention to my inner experience, the better I’ve gotten at noticing it.
With practice, the same can happen for you. To that end, let’s do an exercise that will help sensitize you to your experience.
ANXIETY AWARENESS EXERCISE
Find a quiet place, free from distraction, where you can tune into what’s going on inside of you. Get in a comfortable, relaxed position that allows you to be in full contact with the energy in your body. In general, sitting upright with your back straight and supported and your feet against the floor is best. Close your eyes and focus inward. Take a moment to allow yourself to settle. Take a few breaths and just observe your inhale and exhale without having to change anything.
Then think of a relationship scenario with your partner that would bring you to the edge of your emotional comfort zone. If you’re not currently in a relationship, imagine being with a former partner or someone else from your life who is important to you. Picture a scenario that would require you to stretch outside of your usual way of being. For instance, you might imagine the prospect of openly sharing your sadness, disappointment, or hurt with a partner, letting your partner know that you’re feeling insecure or afraid and need their reassurance or support, or telling your partner how much he or she means to you, how much you love and depend on them. Or you might picture directly addressing a conflict, telling your partner you’re frustrated or angry about something they said or did and asking for what you would like to be different. You don’t have to picture yourself following through on any of these things. Merely anticipating that you’re about to do something that makes you anxious will likely be enough to get your nervous system to light up. That’s all we want.
Visualize whatever situation you choose in as much detail as possible. Imagine yourself getting ready to open up and express yourself. As you lean into the experience, pay close attention to what’s happening in your body—in your head, face, neck, shoulders, back, chest, in your arms, stomach, legs, everywhere. What happens inside of you as you anticipate being more open? Notice any areas of tightness, tingling, or discomfort. Notice where energy stops and where energy flows. Notice where you might feel warm and where you might feel cold. Just observe whatever you experience, whatever happens for you, without having to change it or do anything.
When you’re done, take a deep breath, and let it go. Shake off the experience. Feel it leave your body. Feel yourself come back to center. Then take a moment to write down the physical sensations that you observed.
What was that like for you? What did you notice? Perhaps you discovered a few things about yourself and how you react. Maybe you noticed some physical sensations that you weren’t aware of. If so, great! You’re becoming more aware. On the other hand, maybe you didn’t notice anything. Maybe it felt different or strange. That’s okay, too. Every time you turn your attention inward, no matter what you find, you’re growing your observation skills. You’re expanding your awareness and strengthening your ability to attend. The more you do it, the better you’ll get. Suddenly your efforts will pay off, and you’ll notice something you hadn’t seen before. Something that can be helpful to you.
Confession time. You know those pictures of astronauts walking on the Moon? All you can see is a little bit of rocky terrain and then everything drops off into an abyss of blackness? That’s how it seemed to me when I first started to go inside and attend to my emotional experience. I felt like I’d landed on an unknown planet and all I could see was darkness. I’m not kidding. But over time, the more I turned my attention inward, the light of awareness began to dawn and I began to make contact.
And that’s what you need to do: Tune into your felt experience repeatedly. Throughout your day, scan your body from head to toe and see what you notice. What do you feel? What sensations do you notice and where? Get into the habit of checking in with yourself especially when you’re interacting with your partner. Doing so will build your awareness of, and connection to, your inner experience.
Then when you notice that you’re feeling anxious, that you’ve gotten triggered, name it as such. Put a verbal label on it. You might say to yourself, “I’m triggered,” or “I’m having a reaction,” or “There goes my old wiring.” Whatever phrase helps you note it and see it for what it is. Keep it short and sweet so that you don’t get overly drawn into the experience and are able to keep it at a healthy distance. Naming when you’re triggered will reduce your anxiety and make it easier for you to get unhooked.
You might also be able to identify what feelings, needs, and desires are coming up for you—the stuff at the bottom of the Triangle. Or maybe not. Getting to the core of your emotional experience will be the focus of the next chapter. At this step in your process, it’s enough to know feelings are stirring in you that are making you uncomfortable. Some core way of being is daring to venture outside of your internal working models of how things “should” go in your relationship.
The “D” Corner of the Triangle
Short of recognizing when you’re feeling anxious, the other sign that you’re triggered is when you become defensive. As the stories of Karla, Craig, and Sheri from Chapter Two illustrate, the train has already left the station when we’ve reached this point, and our “fight-flight-or-freeze” response is up and running. We’re already engaged in some kind of behavior whose sole purpose is to get us away from our discomfort.
In response to the fear and needs for reassurance that stir in Karla when she doesn’t hear from Emily, she ruminates all day and then sulks at dinner. Craig recoils from Lydia’s show of affection, blames her for being too needy, and withdraws in response to the underlying discomfort his own needs for connection evoke. Sheri reacts to the distress her needs for closeness and safety provoke by either attacking Rick, running from him, or doing a number on herself. All three are unaware that they’ve gotten triggered and are caught up in defensive patterns of behavior.
It can be hard for us to recognize when we’re responding defensively. These behaviors can be so ingrained that they just seem to be an aspect of who we are, or part of our very nature. We don’t realize what we’re up to or that our reaction is actually a learned self-defense, a coping strategy that can be changed.
In general, the kinds of defenses that we resort to in our relationships tend to fall into two categories: hyperactivating or deactivating. Respectively, we’re either turning up the volume on certain feelings (as in a temper tantrum like the one I described Sophie having earlier), or we’re trying to make them go away (as when she questioned and doubted her feelings). In short, we’re either “fighting,” “fleeing,” or “freezing.” In any case we’re avoiding expressing our core feelings, needs, or desires.
While each of us may respond to our feelings a bit differently, certain defense strategies seem to be more common than others. Becoming familiar with typical defenses will help you begin to recognize these sorts of behaviors in yourself.
Below is a list of some of the typical ways in which we respond to the sense of threat we experience when feelings arise in our relationships. We all behave in these ways from time to time, some more than others. As you read over the different descriptions, check off any that could possibly be ways in which you respond when you’re triggered.
COMMON RELATIONAL DEFENSES
“Acting-out” our feelings rather than expressing them in a healthy manner (e.g., blaming, criticizing, making demands, having a temper tantrum)
Leading with one feeling over another (e.g., getting angry when we’re actually feeling hurt or afraid, or becoming tearful or hopeless when underneath we’re feeling angry)
Changing the subject, averting our eyes, or turning away when feelings emerge
Talking rapidly, or so much, that our partner can’t get a word in edgewise
Not talking at all—going silent
Being dismissive of our own or our partner’s feelings; trying not to care
Withdrawing, detaching, shutting down
Self-criticism, blaming ourselves
Being passive-aggressive (i.e., expressing our anger in passive ways such as not responding to texts or phone calls, showing up late, “forgetting” to do something)
Making excuses, justifying, or “rationalizing” away our behavior
Distracting or busying ourselves, zoning out (e.g., checking our phone, surfing the internet, over focusing on work, and the like)
Avoiding specifics, being vague, or denying how we feel (e.g., “I’m fine.” “Nothing’s the matter.”)
Any addictive behavior (e.g., alcohol, drugs, food, sex, gambling, shopping, and such)
Intentionally pushing down or suppressing our feelings
Do any of these defensive behaviors sound familiar to you? Might they be ways in which you respond when you’re feeling anxious? Are there other things you do that might also serve a defensive purpose? Give it some thought.
It might help to make a list. Writing down our defenses can help us see them more objectively (as coping mechanisms) and recognize them more readily.
If you’re having trouble recognizing when you’re getting defensive, there are some telltale signs that can clue you into when you’ve gotten hooked. For instance, when the emotional tone of your experience suddenly shifts and goes from neutral to hot or cold; when your voice gets louder or tense, or quiet and fading away; or when your thinking and behavior become rigid or your reaction is out of proportion to whatever is happening.
These are all signs that you’re in a “reactive state,” responding with a sense of threat. Your perception has narrowed in on what’s upsetting you, you’re completely absorbed in your distress, and you can’t see the forest for the trees. You’re in self-defense mode and aren’t receptive to others or able to see or hear them accurately. You’ve dug in your emotional heels and aren’t about to budge. You’re closed off.
In contrast, when you’re in a “receptive state” you’re open and flexible, able to hear your partner and consider different points of view. That doesn’t mean you’re not having feelings; you often are. But they’re regulated, and you’re able to stay connected and explore different ways of relating. When you’re in an integrated, more balanced state, the thinking and feelings parts of your brain are working together. As Diana Fosha says, you’re “feeling and dealing.”19
Knowing the difference between how it feels to be in either a receptive or a reactive state can clue you into when you’re triggered and being defensive. Here’s a simple exercise developed by psychiatrist Daniel Siegel that can help you tell the difference.20
Find a quiet place where you are free to focus in on your felt experience. Settle in and feel yourself grounded. There’s not a lot to this exercise. All you’re going to do is say two words and notice how you feel. First, firmly and slightly harshly, say the word “no” out loud seven times. As you say it, notice what it feels like inside, how you feel in your body. Notice the energy, the sensations, the physical reactions. After you finish, pause and note what your experience is like. Okay. Take a breath and let it all go.
Next, in a kind and soothing tone, say the word “yes” seven times. As you do, notice again what your experience inside is, how it feels. After you finish, pause and note what you observed. Take a breath, and let it go.
Pretty striking difference, huh? “No” evokes the experience of how a reactive fight-flight-or-freeze state feels. Your muscles get tense, your walls go up, and you pull inward; you resist. When you’re in this state, change and collaboration are practically impossible. Saying “yes,” in contrast, relaxes your reactivity, you open up, and you are able to receive. It is here when the echoes of the past recede from your nervous system and you can come more fully into the present moment. The capacity to shift into and to be in this state is what you want to grow. When you are receptive, your best and most integrated self can show up. This is who you want to bring to your relationships.
So here’s what you need to do: You need to put your observer hat on and pay attention to your behavior. As you interact with your partner, ask yourself: Am I staying open or am I getting defensive? Am I revving up, or am I withdrawing or shutting down? Am I being reactive, or am I being receptive? And when you recognize what’s going on for you, name it as such (e.g., “I’m triggered,” “I’m getting defensive,” “I’m activated,” and so forth).
Sometimes you won’t realize that you’re triggered and responding defensively until after the fact. That’s okay. Better late than never! The fact that you’re noticing it at all says that you’re reflecting on your behavior and willing to learn about yourself. Nice! In the doing, you’ll be more likely to recognize what’s happening when it’s happening. You’re on your way to doing things differently.
So after an argument or a tense moment with your partner, spend some time reflecting on what just happened. Don’t focus solely on what he or she did. Instead, let yourself also focus on your own behavior. Did you get defensive? If so, how? What did you do? What was happening for you? Get curious and see what you learn about yourself.
A COMPASSION BREAK
As you begin to observe yourself and discover what’s been going on for you, how you’ve been responding, you may have some feelings. You may get down on yourself and think that there’s something wrong with you. You may get upset that you haven’t noticed these things before. That’s understandable. But in these moments, I really want to encourage you to practice self-compassion. Just because you may get defensive at times doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. It just means you’re human. You have a brain that can make you feel as though you are in danger when you’re not and cause you to respond in predetermined ways. We all do. It can help to remember that this phenomenon is part of the human experience. As Kristin Neff, a pioneer in the study of self-compassion, points out, a fundamental element of self-compassion is recognizing that you’re not alone.21 Many of us are struggling with the same issues. We have nervous systems that were shaped by our early experiences and developed ways of coping that can be problematic at times. We didn’t get the kind of help we needed to do things differently. We didn’t get a manual to help us navigate the world of our feelings in a healthy way. We’ve just been doing the best we can. But now you’re learning what you need to know to free yourself. That’s what matters. That’s what will make the difference.
Then What?
Being able to recognize and name when you’re triggered is a skill that will improve the more you do it. And that’s exactly what you need to do. Practice being an emotion detective. Find any opportunity to turn your gaze inward and observe your experience. When something feels off, notice the different physical and emotional sensations you’re experiencing. Observe and get curious about the pull to respond in a habitual way. Use the Triangle as your guide. Identify and name what’s happening for you.
When you get triggered, and you will—it’s inevitable—try to see it as an opportunity. Our anxiety and defenses are signposts. They’re telling us that we feel a need to express our true feelings, needs, and desires. They’re telling us that our core self is trying to emerge. If we pause and give ourselves some room, we’re then afforded an opportunity to get to know ourselves more deeply.
You’re probably wondering—then what do I do? This part can be challenging and takes courage. Once you’ve noticed that you’ve been triggered and have identified it as such, your task is to then do nothing. That’s right, nothing. Just allow your emotional experience to be present and felt without responding or doing anything about it. Drop your defenses and just be with what’s inside of you. Easier said than done, I know. When you’ve gotten triggered and resist responding as programmed, your amygdala gets a little bent out of shape. It still thinks that something bad is going to happen and goes into overdrive. It doesn’t know any better, but you do, and that’s what matters. It will eventually calm down, but in the meantime you have a serious choice to make. Do you want to strengthen old fear-based habits, or do you want to give yourself the opportunity to do something different?
By accepting and allowing for your emotional experience without responding to it as though you’re in danger, you’re interrupting the usual chain reaction and establishing a new way of being. You’re draining the charge of reactivity from your implicit memory and bringing yourself into the present moment. You’re changing your relationship to your felt experience and updating your brain wiring. You’re freeing yourself up for something better.
• Mindfulness can help you more readily see and shift your emotional dynamics.
• Your amygdala can throw you into survival mode when it’s not warranted.
• Observing and naming your experience can calm your nervous system and get you unhooked.
• Defenses, anxiety, and your core feelings are the main components of your emotional experience.
• The key to growing your emotional awareness lies in becoming more attuned to what’s going on in your body.
• Anxiety and defenses are signs that you’ve been triggered and are in a reactive state.
• Being able to recognize and name when you’re triggered is a skill that will improve the more you do it.
• Allowing your emotional experience to be present without responding or doing anything changes your brain’s wiring.
