S1:E19 What Our Triggers Say About What We Really Believe
I want to help you better understand a process that can take place in our most unguarded moments, and leave us feeling really confused and even a bit defeated. Having a clearer awareness of what’s going on can make it easier for you to interrupt this process and choose a different path for yourself that gives you what you actually want.
Warmly,
Linda
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Meet Your Host!
Linda Sanderville, LCSW, RYT-200 is the founder of Satya Counseling & Yoga LLC. She specializes in concierge therapy for female founders and public figures, helping high-profile women navigate public scandal, executive burnout, and the values that will define the second half of life. Based in Albuquerque and serving clients virtually in DC, Maryland, Virginia, and beyond, Linda combines clinical expertise with somatic wisdom to help leaders reclaim their truth.
Read below for full transcript.
Intro by Linda: Hi, I'm Linda, self-love coach and hypnotherapist who loves a good yoga class in my pajamas, listening to the belly laughs of my baby boys, and hunting down the best vegan donuts. This podcast is for ambitious and soulful women who want to feel fulfilled in all areas of their life and are ready to dive deep into the mysteries and wonders of the subconscious mind in order to achieve that. So if you are ready to be let loose from the shackles of self-sabotage and design a life of emotional freedom and everyday abundance, you are in the perfect place. Because life can get even better than you imagine, and the biggest shifts start inside of you. Welcome.
Introduction & Reframing the Trigger
There's this process that happens in our most unguarded moments that can leave us feeling like failures, like we're out of control, like we haven't matured as far as we thought we have. And that can be really self-defeating. So I want to give us a different way of thinking about it. So what I'm talking about now is something that, if we know how to address it and how to look at it with a little bit more objectivity, a little more self-acceptance, then it can actually help us to overcome major issues within ourselves or in our environment that allow us to grow, to change, to take control of our environment in a whole different way.
So what I'm talking about is when we are feeling triggered, okay? When we feel triggered, activated, set off, discombobulated, whatever word you want to use to describe this. I know the word "triggered" gets used a lot, but it's something that we all kind of have an understanding of what that is. So when we feel like we're triggered or that we're activated in a way that we do not enjoy, this can really mess with our energy. It can mess with the way that we think about ourselves, our self-concept. And it's just information. So I want us to get away from this thinking that really has a lot of judgment around it, a lot of self-judgment and defeating language, negative self-talk, and move into this space where we are using that moment, that situation, that reaction to learn more about ourselves, about what we want and what we need, okay?
So when you know how to do this, you can choose a different path for yourself, and that's where that powerful energy, that empowerment, comes back in, as opposed to going like, oh, I'm just out of control or I'm just easily overwhelmed by things and that's why I'm acting this way. And I want to say first off that I get it. It's not comfortable. It's not something that I want. When I'm in a moment like that, I don't feel instantly proud of myself. I'm not instantly excited. However, I've gotten to the place where the moment of that happening, of me being really activated or reactive, to me thinking in a powerful way, it's a very short time span, right? And this comes with practice, and this comes from being able to understand how to have a different perspective on it.
So if you're not there yet, no worries, you can get there. If you've been following me at all, you know that I believe that self-love is just a matter of skills. So if there's an area where you feel like you're struggling or not doing as well as you would like, that's just a skill set you haven't learned yet. And that's a skill set that can be boiled down, condensed, explained really easily in really simple terms, and then you learn it, you practice it, you got it. Okay. So if you're not there yet, just keep on listening. You can get there. I'm not somebody special. Okay. I'm not more special than you. Well, I am special, but I'm not more special than you. So if I can do it, I promise you that it's just something that's learnable.
[03:42] The Trigger Is Information: Connecting to Hidden Core Beliefs
All right. So I don't know if you've already had a moment today where you felt triggered, or someone said something just the right way to get under your skin. Maybe you were working—your coworker, that same coworker, it's the same one, always them, right? They said something, they looked at you a certain way, they responded to a joke or made a joke that you were just like, not today. Okay. Maybe it was one of your kids, maybe it was your partner, maybe it was your parent. I've been triggered by all those people. So I can relate to what you're going through. Okay.
So I want you to feel empowered, and this is how we do that. Instead of getting caught up in the fact that we have the split-second reaction that we didn't really like, let's imagine that we are gathering information. Okay. Our brains in general are going to take shortcuts. They're going to react to things quickly. And we can kind of steer them back in a different direction where we want them to go by practicing these different kinds of mindsets. So the trigger is setting you off, right? It's getting under your skin because it's connecting into a belief that you may not even know that you have about yourself or other people or the world around you.
It can be things like: my best isn't good enough. They will always let me down. There's something wrong with me. Relationships don't work. I'll never get ahead. These kinds of things, right? These core understandings and agreements or ideas that we hold that really hurt us, that are very harmful. And really at the core of them, they are not true. Okay. I'm going to argue that they're not true. So when we hold any one of those kinds of thoughts in our minds for even a second, and then someone has done something to us or around us or in our vicinity—when we're holding on to that belief and we don't maybe even yet know that we have that belief, we haven't dealt with it at all—then we're going to have those kinds of automatic reactions that don't feel good, where our mood shifts, the energy in our body shifts, the chemistry inside of our body shifts. And we don't want that.
So the wonderful news is that we're not stuck like that. I have changed those things within myself to where—there used to be this longer span of time of just sort of being like, oh my gosh, what's wrong with me? Out of control, I feel bad about myself. And now it's like within seconds, often. Maybe minutes, maybe. But I can quickly switch into saying like, oh, this is just showing me about an unmet need that I have. It's showing me a belief that I didn't even realize was coming up in this situation.
Like, maybe I think I have really good self-confidence. But there's something about that coworker where they say things just the right snarky way, and we're questioning ourselves. And we know that we shouldn't be, but we just are. And we don't like it. And now we're feeling insecure. And that makes us upset, right? There's some belief that needs a little more support. There's a part of us on the inside that needs a little bit more support to get past that. And that's okay.
So instead of just trying to get over it, right, just stop thinking that, this is where core belief makeover comes in. That's why so much of my signature program (if you don't know about it, it's Self-Love Skills) focuses a lot of attention on that core belief makeover piece. Because once you change around those core beliefs, everything else gets a lot easier to do. Now you're not fighting an uphill battle against your own thoughts and your own self-concepts. Now your thoughts and your self-concepts are coming into line with what is actually true and wonderful and beautiful and lovable about you. And so everything else can flow differently, right?
The way that you connect to your own body, your environment, the way you take action, your habits, the way you conduct your relationships and communicate—all those things can start to flow and align because of all the good, effective work that you've done on changing those core beliefs. Because there's ways to just sort of try to change your beliefs where it doesn't really do anything, and then you're just a bit more frustrated. And who has time for that?
[08:09] Announcement
Okay, Self Love Beauties, I have a special announcement to make. I have an event coming up this October, the 2nd through the 27th. It's called the Joy Reclaimed Summit and it is a gathering for women just like you who are looking to experience breakthroughs with physical health, emotional health, relational health, what have you. And I've handpicked 25 exceptional women to speak directly to you and share their stories of how they have achieved their own breakthroughs and been able to reclaim their joy. So definitely come be a part of this gathering. You can find it at joyreclaimedsummit.com and the information will also be in the show notes. And a bonus, there's going to be giveaways each week. If you join in with the Facebook group for the event, you will have opportunities to win some really nice prizes, including some one-on-one sessions with myself and some of my other speaker coaches. And that will help you to get to your breakthrough even faster. All right, so I look forward to seeing you there.
Subconscious Tools for Subconscious Problems
So subconscious tools, okay. The subconscious mind, the unconscious thoughts, the beliefs that you hold that you didn't know you had until someone triggered you. Subconscious tools are what will solve subconscious problems. Just exerting more effort and energy and trying to have stronger willpower is not the thing that's going to budge you out of the place that you're in.
And that's why I'm going to talk about this until pigs can fly and the cows come home and whatever kind of saying you want to use- because too many of us are frustrated for far too long because we're trying to do this work on the subconscious, whether or not we know that's what it is. We're trying to work on our minds, our thoughts, our beliefs, but we're doing it with tools that have nothing to do with that. Okay. Willpower and just pushing ahead, more effort- has nothing to do with that. And it's not going to work, at least not for the long term.
Any of you who've been trying to lose weight or gain weight or build muscle or whatever, reshape your body or your health in some way, know this. Because you can do a couple of weeks, maybe even a few months. For some people, maybe a whole year, just with sheer willpower and effort and blood, sweat, and tears. And then you gain it all back, or you lose the muscle, you stop going to the gym, you're not weightlifting anymore, you know, this and that. You go back to the old way of eating. Because willpower doesn't work. And people who know what they're doing really know this. That's why they don't rely on willpower to get you the changes that you want, because it doesn't work.
So that's just my message for today. Again, self-love skills include using subconscious tools for subconscious problems. That involves using the tools that help you to transform your mind, right? Things like subconscious reprogramming- all of that. Those are the tools that help you to transform your mind so that these other issues that you have get a lot easier. So that you're not just sort of triggered out of nowhere just constantly, not knowing what's going on. You can have way more control than that. I don't know if you knew that was possible, but you can.
You can be much more aware, much more in sync with yourself, and able to work with your thoughts and beliefs to be like, okay, wow, I didn't realize that I still felt really insecure about that thing. There's something I said in that meeting with our boss and our boss's boss and their boss months ago that is still bothering me. That makes me feel this small, right? And I guess I'm not really over it.
[12:01] Being Triggered Is Good News!
That's good information, right? So you being triggered and realizing, oh, there's a core belief that I still haven't totally made peace with or developed a new relationship with- that's actually really good information. And I want you to think about it that way. It's good information. Nothing's gone wrong. It's right on time that you're getting this information now. It probably means that your subconscious mind knows that you have the ability, or there's some resource in your environment, that will help you to deal with it. That resource may already be intuitive to you right now, or it may be that you can come to a program like mine or something similar that will help you to be able to do that.
Okay, so just remember that when your subconscious mind is allowing you to face an issue, the odds are pretty good that there is something- someone, some resource in your environment- that will help you to be able to get past it once and for all. Once and for all. I can't say that enough today. And that's really good news. It's really, really good news. So if you're getting triggered, maybe it's good news. Okay.
So that's all I have for you today. I want you to sit with that thought and just imagine that maybe this isn't a bad thing. Maybe this is the path, the road, that's going to take you down to something that you've been needing for a really long time, but you weren't ready yet until now. And that's pretty beautiful. I'm genuinely excited for you because I know, having been there many times, I know what is possible on the other side of addressing those things and the way that they need to be addressed.
So such a pleasure talking with you again. Until next time. You hung with me to the end, my shero. If you benefited from this episode, please say thanks by leaving a wonderful review. It helps me know what's helping you the most and allows more like-minded women to find and learn from this podcast. We don't want to keep all the good stuff for ourselves. See you next time.
[Editing Note: The Love Yourself Liberated! group program is not currently available. If you are interested in this content and guidance, it is now exclusively provided through my concierge psychotherapy practice, Satya Counseling & Yoga.]
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