Triggers Explained & Tools to Help
- Jessica Jaye
- Aug 23
- 8 min read
In the beginning, maintaining my mental health felt like the biggest uphill battle of my life. The worst part was in 2021 when I was formally diagnosed with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). I just about crumbled, but the diagnosis also made me feel a little less crazy. (If you're curious, check out this old video from when I was diagnosed.) There was a name for what I was struggling with. The psychiatrist recommended medication and therapy. I don’t think she expected that I’d choose mushrooms, Ayahuasca and music as medicine, but that’s a story for a different time. Either way, I’ve been studying trauma to understand it better and my teaching background prompted me to organize tools for myself for when I’m triggered, overwhelmed, or emotionally low. Read on to learn about triggers and tools to help.
Key Words
This list of key words are defined in the context of this article and by my own personal definition. These are not scientific or exact to the dictionary. Instead, they are based on my own interpretation of what I've learned throughout my years of personal research and study around the topic.
Trigger - (noun) a real or perceived threat that prompts a reaction from a person that forces them into fight, flight, or freeze mode
Fight mode - (noun) the state of being when someone feels unsafe and they respond by fighting the threat with physical, verbal, or emotional violence
Flight mode - (noun) the state of being when someone feels unsafe and they respond by running away from the threat
Freeze mode - (noun) the state of being when someone feels unsafe and that paralyzes them. Usually, they will be “frozen” to collect information or avoid being seen.
To activate - (verb) when something touches a wound and has the potential to become a trigger
Toolkit - (noun) a list of tools to help regulate a person’s system when they are stressed, overwhelmed, triggered, etc.
The brain and trauma
When it comes to triggers and trauma, there’s a lot to understand about how the brain works. When I was a teacher, I completed a course on resiliency informed teaching to support students with adverse childhood trauma. It taught me a lot about myself. One thing that has stayed with me for years is an explanation of how the brain reacts to a threat. To help explain this to children, the course taught us this concept using animals.
Animal | Brain | Function |
The lion | the inner brain | the part responsible for survival at all costs (fight, flight, freeze) |
The meerkat | amygdala | the part of the brain responsible for alarming the body of a threat |
The wise owl | the outer brain | the logical/thinking part of the brain responsible for language and communication |
With these animals in mind, consider the following scenario. It represents the brain responding to a threat:
The meerkat is minding its business running through the grass when it detects a threat (real or perceived). Once the meerkat has been alerted, it scurries away, startling the lion and causing it to roar. When the lion roars, the wise owl (logic) gets scared and flies away leaving the person with the lion (survival instincts) to confront the threat.
Bear with me.
Essentially, when someone is triggered, they aren’t able to be logical because that part of the brain turns off. For example, if you saw a child chase a ball into traffic, you don’t want the wise owl around. You don’t want to think and process that scene. It’s dangerous and you want to react immediately to keep the child safe. This is the function of the brain to make sure that our bodies survive. In our modern world, there are less and less threats to our lives which makes our instinctual reactions to emotional triggers seem too much at times, but to the person whose wise owl has flown away, these threats are incredibly real and scary.
Emotional toolkits become part of my practice
Once I discovered that my wise owl, the logical and thinking part of my brain, was completely unavailable to me when I was triggered, I made my first toolkit. It was simply a list of words and actions that I gave myself permission to perform or say if I found myself triggered. From there, I started to make toolkits for myself and usually share them with friends and family if it seems appropriate. Anytime I find myself feeling overwhelmed with emotions because of a change in life, a natural disaster, or a sensitive season, I make a toolkit. When I lose access to my owl, I have something to hold onto that is healthy, kind, and an expression of love.
Toolkit prompts
I find toolkits to be great because they help me understand myself better and leave me with a collection of tools that support good mental health. In general, I use these prompts to make a toolkit.
What is it?
What are you making the toolkit for? Is it an overwhelm toolkit? A trigger toolkit? A moving to another country toolkit? A breakup toolkit? A cry season toolkit? What is the challenge ahead of you? Define it in your own terms.
Example: Cry season is the period in the year when I am most sensitive. I might cry because I’m happy, sad, or for no apparent reason. This season is intense and filled with dreams and sensations. It's the period when my body remembers multiple traumas over my lifetime.
Awareness / Symptoms
When you’re triggered, overwhelmed, etc, what are your symptoms? How does your body communicate with you about your state? Identify these symptoms so you have a better awareness about them. These are clues and signals from your body that can help you remember to reach for the toolkit in times of need.
Example:
Hyper-vigilance
Nightmares
Getting startled easily
Shortness of breath
Sensitivity
Anxiety
Occasional feelings of despair
Emptiness
Mental/emotional paralysis
Tools
The tools can be anything helpful and specific to you. It can be a list of things to do, words to say, reminders of people to call. Whatever tools are available to you that help you and support you, write them down so that you can reach for them if needed.
Examples:
Communicate with loved ones about cry season
Emotion list
Be a judgement free zone for wounded parts
Speak kindly to yourself and others
Get into a routine
Get creative in times of stress (Music, art, writing, etc.)
Helpful Words to Hear (Optional)
Since one of my love languages is words of affirmation, I’ve added this section. Sometimes, if I’m triggered, I’ll read this list to myself. Other times, I’ve shared this list with loved ones and when they see me struggling, they use these words to support me.
Examples:
You are safe.
You don’t have to worry.
I’m not leaving you.
What is your body asking for?
What does your intuition say?
Nothing is wrong.
I love you.
Intentions (Optional)
Personally, I am always setting intentions. I set intentions when arriving to a new country or job or for the new moon. I think this practice is great because it helps me build awareness and connect to my purpose for doing something. It gives me perspective especially when I feel confused.
Example: My intention is to breathe through this cry season with love for myself and my ancestors. Surrender and accept all the gifts and lessons this season has to offer me. My family has inherited trauma for generations and it ends with me. My intention is to have compassion for myself, my family, my abusers, and everyone carrying hate in their hearts so that my world and the world around me may be a happier, healthier, place to be.
More details (Optional)
Add anything that is relevant for you or your loved ones. In my “Cry Season Toolkit” from last year, I added the time frame. Usually, cry season is from mid-September until Christmas, but last year, it started early at the end of August so I mentioned it in last year’s tool kit. Feel free to add anything that makes sense for you.
More detailed samples of tools
Small notebook
In the very beginning of my healing, I felt like a ticking time bomb so I kept a list in a small notebook handy at all times. Any time I was activated or triggered, I would look at my book and choose what I wanted to do next.
List of approved words to say while triggered:
I’m not available right now.
I need space.
I love you.
I want to make a good choice.
List of approved actions:
Dance
Listen to music
Go for a walk
Drink water
Take a deep breathe
Ask for help
Call a trustworthy friend
Listen to a guided meditation
I studied this list often when I wasn’t in a triggered state to try to recondition myself... To try to remember them for when my wise owl disappeared. It helped a lot. For example, years ago, there was a lover arguing with me when we were both triggered. There was some perceived threat that he wouldn’t let go of. I forget the trash he threw at me, but I yelled at him a collection of words like this, “I’m not available right now! Why are you arguing with me? I need space. I’ve told you this. Leave me alone! This isn’t helpful. Do you want to be helpful? Give me space. I don’t want to keep being like this. Do you want to keep being like this? Can we make a different choice?” It wasn’t word for word what I wrote down, but it was leaps and bounds better than the way I’d respond to a triggered person before. When he kept arguing with me, I went for a walk. Healing isn’t an all at once kind of process.
Emotion List
For a while, I had an “emotion list” saved to my phone. Sometimes, while I was triggered, loved ones would ask how I was feeling and I couldn’t respond. Usually, I just said that I didn’t know. Having a list of words and choosing from them was much easier than trying to call my wise owl back to me to answer the question honestly. I use emotion lists often, even when I’m not triggered, because I find them to be immensely helpful in trying to identify emotions with clarity.
Healthy Minds Innovation
I don’t use this tool anymore, but I highly recommend it. Healthy Minds Innovation is a free app that gave me a good foundation for healing from trauma. I don’t know how the app has changed over the years, but when I used it, it taught me about the neuroplasticity of the brain and how to establish new habits. It alternated between short learning segments and guided meditations (active and seated) through the lens of four categories: awareness, connection, insight, and purpose.
For a while, I assumed that having trauma and PTSD meant that I’d never have the chance to be healthy. Though I still have to maintain triggers and symptoms, understanding how to recondition my brain gave me hope to continue. Even though the process of healing is long, understanding how to create new neural pathways in my brain to support healthier choices helped my healing immensely.
In Conclusion
I don’t really know how to end this one… Managing triggers and learning healthy habits is a skill that takes time and energy (especially for those of us with trauma). It’s a process and everyone’s process looks different. Yeah… I’m no expert. I’m just a person who’s learned a bit and I wanted to share these things that have worked for me. Hopefully, they can help others, too.
Alright reader, that’s all for now. As always, thank you for reading and if you feel like you’re getting value from my content, you can offer a donation at Buy Me a Coffee or consider subscribing for more, exclusive, content. Thanks for your love and support. Cheers to a healthy humanity!
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