A little background on the blog name…

When I was considering what to call this blog I really wanted it to be clear that the main focus would be on trauma and healing from trauma and some of the ways that I’ve learned not only through my own personal experience but also my experience working with clients. When you think trauma you almost synonymously think about the word “trigger”. This word has been injected into a lot of our cultural vernacular at this point with people often saying “I’m triggered” in a way to just indicate that they are feeling upset about something. When I speak about being triggered in this blog I am talking about the kind of trigger that stems from having a traumatic experience.

I’ll provide a more in depth look at what a trigger actually is. Human beings experience trauma in my experience when there is a rupture, an event that would require grief or fear and that persons nervous system in that moment believes that for some reason they are not currently safe (and they might actually not be!). This act of feeling unsafe coupled with a lack of resolution, comfort, understanding, can lead to trauma.

Let me give you an example. Lets say you are a parent raising a child and your child is experiencing bullying at school and they come home and try to tell you whats happening and you don’t really believe them. You attempt to brush it off and tell them not to worry about it and that you’re certain that the kids don’t mean it that way or maybe your child is misunderstanding what is actually happening. Your child continues to experience the bullying at school and now feels unsafe because they do not have anyone they trust to reach out to for help with what they are experiencing at school. Now, not for everyone but for some children this might end up turning into a traumatic experience and a traumatic wound. The message your child might grow up telling themselves is that they have to deal with their problems on their own. They shouldn’t reach out for help if they need it because nobody will believe them. They might even grow to believe that being mistreated is okay and find themselves in relationships in which they are being “bullied” in some of the same ways they experienced at school. They might grow older to experience “triggers” in the form of even the smallest perception that someone doesn’t believe what they are saying.

Now, lets look at this from another angle. You are that same parent raising that same child and they come to you telling you that they are experiencing bullying at school. They come home and tell you what is happening. You sit with them, hear them out, ask them questions about what is going on. You tell your child you love them and you want to help them figure this out. You may even ask your child what they view a resolution to this problem to be and attempt to honor that. You continue to create space in your home for your child to come to you with their problems and either support them or attempt to help them solve the problem. This child will grow up thinking that reaching out for help is a safe thing to do. Their nervous system will learn that if they do, they will feel better. This child likely will not look back on the bullying they experienced at school as a traumatic event or their relationship with their parent.

I want to be clear that the parent in either scenario isn’t necessarily “right” or “wrong” and there is no A + B = C equation what will actually equate to a traumatic experience in someone. There are a lot of professionals in the field of psychology that talk about big T and little T traumas. I personally do not adhere to this model because I think that trauma is dependent on the individual. Person A might get into a car accident, develop a trauma response and have difficulty feeling safe in the car as a result and Person B might experience the same car accident and have no lingering impact from the event.

All of that is to say that a “trigger” for the context of this blog is a learned response from one’s nervous system that is based on a traumatic experience they have had at some point in their life. This is an automatic nervous system response wherein something that happens to you today might be similar in some small way to a trauma wound you have in your life and “trigger” your nervous system to act as if that traumatic event is actually happening to you in the present.

Experiencing your triggers and learning what they are is an extremely important part of the healing process. If you avoid your triggers you cannot heal. If you find a safe way to lean into them, you can. I recently learned of the term “glimmer” as sort of the opposite to a trigger and also another very important part of the healing process. A glimmer is considered something that brings you great joy and creates a sense of internal safety. So, in my opinion you cannot heal without experiencing both your triggers and your glimmers. Thus, the name of this blog was born!