Are Your Buttons Getting Pushed?

There are a lot of things that can push our buttons. Another way to describe it is getting “triggered”. This can happen for a lot of reasons and depending on our life experiences there are a lot of different ways things can go.

Our buttons get pushed by all kinds of things. Many times it can happen when someone says or does something that reminds us of something difficult that we’ve gone through in the past. The person may have no idea that they are pushing your buttons, but it can still feel really personal.

So often, it can feel like there's nothing we can do or we have no control. We want the other person to change or make it better. We can’t change others but we can change our own inner response. We can learn to shift our attention from the outside to the inside. When we do, it results in an incredible amount of control. It's about getting in the driver’s seat of yourself to take control in a challenging situation.

Recognizing when we’re in a challenging moment and remembering to shift our attention from the things that are stressing us or pushing our buttons to a more centered place within us is about muscle memory. (It’s not literally about the muscles but you get the idea.) We use muscle memory as a concept when learning any skill or action. In this case, what I’m referring to is the muscle of the Self. It's about self-awareness, self-connection, and self-empowerment. Because the self isn't outside us, it's inside us. Others can do things that inadvertently don’t feel great to us and what I’m really talking about is our relationship of self to other. When we remember that we’re living in a body and we drop back into ourselves, we can use some simple skills to calm our own nervous system, self-soothe, and heal and rewire old patterns that no longer serve us. When we embody our Self by centering within our body, we can be more true to who we are and feel empowered to live the life we want to live.

A month or so ago I had a conversation with someone who had a big trigger at work because some of her coworkers were frustrated with each other and were banging things around and it reminded her of her childhood trauma. She wanted the situation to stop and had tried a few things such as talking to the individuals involved but she was feeling pretty shaken up and had to leave work that day because of it.

In this situation, shifting her attention to herself and her ability to calm her own nervous system, would probably have been more helpful, but because of her trauma and her habit of focusing more on others rather than taking care of herself, it hadn’t occurred to her in that moment. And it isn’t her fault. It is a learned pattern, mostly subconscious, of paying attention to everything around us rather than what we need in ourselves. She and I had already done some work together and she already knew how to work with her mind-body connection, so I helped her to see how she could apply it to this situation.

I saw her again recently, and it had happened again. Some loud noise and issues at work had reminded her of what she had experienced as a child, but this time, it wasn’t so difficult for her. Don’t get me wrong, she still had to do the work. The difference this time was that she remembered to use the centering skills she already had learned in the moment when it was happening. This time, she remembered to drop into her body, to feel something good in there, and to reassure herself that it was going to be ok. It was still a challenge, but she did it, and this time she didn't have to leave work. She was able to calm herself in the moment by connecting to her body in a healthy way. She was able to downshift her own nervous system in that moment, create a sense of safety within herself, to be less reactive to the things going on around her. It's a sort of desensitization therapy that she could do for herself within herself. This is how we truly can rewire our nervous system.

The reason I’m sharing this story is because I want to show you a way to shift the focus, flip the switch, and hit the “Don’t panic” button. The sooner we do it, the sooner it helps, and the better it works. So instead of paying attention to the trigger and the anxiety one is feeling, we can instead quickly get in the driver's seat and calm our own nervous system. We can do this in a simple way that humans walking on the earth have been doing for centuries. I realized that what I’ve been teaching my patients for many years to help shift pain, stop palpitations and control anxiety is really what is commonly and simply known as “grounding”.

These days, a lot of people group anything that helps a person connect to their body as“grounding”, and a lot of people think that you have to go outside and walk around on the grass with your shoes off or buy some copper device and plug it into the wall. But in my experience, it can happen anytime and anywhere with a bit of practice. What I believe is the most grounded way to ground, and what often works the best and most quickly, is dropping our attention to the lower part of our body. We can do this by wiggling our toes, breathing into our belly, feeling ourselves contact the chair we’re sitting in or the ground we’re standing on. And there are other more detailed ways to do this, but what I’ve seen again and again is that almost immediately, any time someone does it, the body immediately relaxes and the nervous system calms down.

Try it for a moment, one of the above methods. Get your attention in the lower half of your body and try to keep it there. In my courses I call it the “Center of Gravity of Attention” because it centers us when we shift our attention there. It helps us to feel our foundation, our roots, and a sense of stability. Get in the driver's seat of your body and sit with it for a moment. Feel your own groundedness. And feel how good it feels. Your body feels more calm. Your head stops spinning, your breath slows down.

So instead of paying attention to whatever is pushing your buttons, hit your own “Don’t panic button”, flip the switch from outside yourself to inside yourself and get in the driver's seat. From this center of gravity of attention we’re automatically in the driver's seat and our nervous system loves it. When we center within, we have more control, we feel more calm, and less troubled by all the outside stuff. The trick is keeping it there because we’re so used to paying attention to all of the outside stuff we forget about our own powerful human inner wiring, our inner self and our inner peace.

Another way to look at it is “Stop, Drop and Feel.” Some of you might remember that in grade school that’s what they taught us to do in case of fire, “Stop Drop and Roll”. I think they might teach it a little differently these days but what’s important is to do it as quickly as possible in a moment when it happens. So, as soon as you notice something triggering you, an outside stressor, or situation that you know is going to be an issue for you, 1) Stop paying attention to the outside, 2) Drop your attention into your center of gravity of attention in the lower part of your body, and 3) Feel something good in there. I want to be very clear here that this isn’t what you do in case of physical threat or danger. It's what we can do in the case of an emotional trigger or stressor. In school they repeated it, they had us practice it, they wanted us to be able to do it on autopilot. In the case of emotional triggers we also need to practice it under non stressful circumstances so we can do it under stressful ones.

It really is literally a simple and powerful kind of muscle memory. The muscle of the Self. Self Awareness. Self-Centering. Self Empowerment. The muscle of self is atrophied in so many of us these days because society and culture and social media and outside expectations have deprioritized the inner parts of us and the importance of real self connection and self-care. To start to strengthen this muscle is like going to physical therapy after an injury. We slowly work to use the muscle to wake it up, to strengthen the fibers of our mind-body connection. The more you do the exercises, the stronger and easier it gets. So to strengthen the muscle of self and self-centering and self-control, we need to exercise it. And the simplest way to do that is what I said above. Feel the lower part of your body in a way that feels good to you. It might feel like water or softness or warmth. Whatever feels right to you. Then practice it in your daily life. Try it the next time you read the news or when you're stuck in traffic. It can be a real game changer.

So this is really what my work is about: helping people to find their own ability to help themselves when they need it and then practicing it until it becomes easy and normal. And the coolest thing that I’ve discovered is that, the more one does it, the more they have a stronger sense of self, self control, and also self awareness. The muscle of Self is within us all but we need to exercise it so it can function the way it is supposed to. We need to live and breathe it. To be strong and resilient, we need to practice and use it. If we don’t use it we lose it. But when we work that muscle of dropping down and feeling, it can calm us and support us, any time and any where. The more we feel it the more we heal it and the better we feel.

So try your own exercise therapy of self centering, grounding yourself in different places, during various aspects of your day. Notice what happens when you “Stop, Drop, and Feel” at work, or while you’re washing dishes, or watching a tv show or movie. This is how we strengthen the muscle of downshifting to the driver’s seat of the lower part of our body. The more we do this the more it wakes up our nervous system connections to drive the vehicle of Self, Self vs other, the outside vs the inside (the inside vs the outside). We have to remember our own power, our own muscle memory. This is true, empowered embodiment and it helps so many things.

Once we practice it enough it starts to run on autopilot, on cruise control. In this way our nervous system runs at a speed that is healthy rather than on screech. From the driver’s seat of self-centered awareness, it slows us down and we can focus better. Rather than a sprint, with our nervous system at a healthier pace, we have the resilience and endurance to run the marathon.

With practice, we can be quick to the draw. We can hit that don’t panic button anytime we need it and Stop Drop, and Feel. This immediately stops further release of cortisol and calms our nervous system. We get back inside ourselves in a supported place where we are paying less attention to the outside storm and more attention to the inside calm. The more attention we pay to something, the more powerful it becomes. And the more attention we pay to the inner calm, the more peaceful, healthy, and powerful we become.

Life isn’t easy, and so many of us have traumatic patterns that keep us stuck and not feeling great. But there are definitely things we can do to shift gears when we experience stress or feel triggered. And as one of my amazing course participants put it, “it isn’t a quick fix, but a simple shift”, and it gives us the power to change how we feel anytime we get our buttons pushed.

If this resonates with you or if you need more help, reach out to me or check out my website for videos, tips, and on-demand courses that teach you exactly how to do it.