Have you ever felt your heart racing and your stomach clenching under the weight of negative feedback or criticism? It's a common human experience, and on today's Calm Campus podcast, we're focusing on transforming these moments into opportunities for growth and self-support.
We explore the impact of emotional triggers and how others' projections can send us spiralling. More importantly, I share how to recognise these moments and employ practical strategies, like mindfulness and supporting our central nervous system, to navigate the rough waters of critique with grace and resilience.
Have you ever felt your heart racing and your stomach clenching under the weight of negative feedback or criticism? It's a common human experience, and on today's Calm Campus podcast, we're focusing on transforming these moments into opportunities for growth and self-support.
We explore the impact of emotional triggers and how others' projections can send us spiralling. More importantly, I share how to recognise these moments and employ practical strategies, like mindfulness and supporting our central nervous system, to navigate the rough waters of critique with grace and resilience.
Speaker 1:
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Calm Campus podcast. Now it's been a little hot minute since I have done a podcast episode and I want to just take this moment to thank you so much for listening, wherever you are listening, and tuning in from the world. I wanted to talk to you about when we feel triggered by when someone gives us negative feedback, or when someone says something that we have perceived as criticism, and so we may have noticed a negative emotion coming up. Maybe it's overwhelmed, maybe it's jealousy, maybe it's frustration. Maybe the thoughts that are coming up could be, you know, self-doubt, maybe it's jealousy, maybe it's frustration. Maybe the thoughts that are coming up could be, you know, self-doubt. Maybe we notice more insecurities coming up. So if this sounds like it may be of benefits for you, then definitely would stick around and learn a bit more about this. I want to talk about this because we are going to have situations where people, a lot of the time, are projecting their own stuff internally onto us. We're going to go on this roller coaster of emotions and we're going to also be feeling all the overwhelm, all the anxiety, all of that as well. So this is a tool that could be supportive for you.
Speaker 1:
So when you notice that and you do notice that trigger someone saying something, you may notice it first of all, a feeling in your body. So you may notice that you have your a feeling in your body. So you may notice that you have your heart's a little bit more quicker. Your voice might change as well. You may notice that, your tummy's clenching because it feels uncomfortable of what that person is saying. You may not even understand what the body is doing, so it could also be, um, what your thoughts are happening. So anything that is causing a trigger, either a thought or emotion or a feeling within your body. And before we go into that fight or flight where we're like, oh, I'm so frustrated, how dare they. Or you're going into you know freeze, where you're withdrawing from the situation, or you're just in stuck, you're like I don't know what to do, right. So if that sounds of help, definitely think this could be a support for you.
Speaker 1:
So when we notice that and sometimes it's in different steps that could be supportive for you. And this is something that I talk to my clients about, especially in the program, and we go through it and we can have feedback of how that's going to look specifically for them. But when we notice that, if we are able to practice being mindful and what I mean by that is just noticing our surroundings so when we're in sort of high anxiety and we can notice those emotions if we are able, it's not always applicable first up, we are starting to notice everything that we see. Now, when you've got strong things that have happened and you've got to, you feel like you've got to respond. It may not always be appropriate then, so what may be more appropriate is actually supporting your central nervous system, and that might just be hearing what the person's saying. Thank you so much. And before you go into how you're going to solve it is you have to support yourself.
Speaker 1:
Now. Everyone's very different in terms of what's going to work for them, and so it's always understanding that, understanding what sticks and what feels good and leaving the rest. So it may be that and talking to you in this state where you're feeling more open and receptive to the information and training your brain and your body that when situations that are out of your realm and do cause a trigger you have prepared yourself for, so it is something that can be helpful is what's called box breathing, and you might be sort of rolling your eyes, going, oh, breathing. I've heard that now, when you're in a highly stressed state, that's not going to help. When someone says, just breathe, they are right and they're wrong because you aren't wanting to hear your information. It's going to be you're in a very highly stressed state, so that's why it's always good to hear the information when you're in a calmer state, when you're feeling like you're able to support yourself.
Speaker 1:
So the first thing is box breathing can be really helpful and actually counting in your head, like counting. Maybe it's counting for four counts inhaling, holding and exhaling. It's always easier when you're exhaling to have more control breathing out through your mouth, to have more control breathing out through your mouth and you know, as time goes on you may, you know, increase that time. I find maybe five counts is good, is a good sort of time duration and maybe that you just have to do that a few cycles and just noticing and then it's also understanding. Okay, well, what can I do now? What else can I do to support myself? For me, having a nice warm shower. You don't want to have anything that is going to shock your nervous system. That is going to be too much of a shock, but it may be something like a nice warm, you know bath or shower, right, if you are able to do that. I'm talking about things later on in terms of supporting yourself Before you go into responding to that, always supporting yourself first, doing that box, breathing, any other parasympathetic activities that may help you as well.
Speaker 1:
And warm showers, feeling like you're meeting those. You know Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You know you're hydrated, um, you're. You know you've eaten, and then you're you know, you're able to sort of look at it from a different perspective and then you can respond. Now, sometimes we've also got to understand that people, no matter what people, have a belief of the reality. Right, so it doesn't. We don't always want to make their reality wrong. We just want to acknowledge thank you so much and almost move on and then support yourself, move on and then support yourself and if you feel you need to come back to this of how you want to respond in a deeper way, you want to make sure that first you support yourself first of all is the most important and then go into a state where you're not feeling as emotionally charged maybe it's going and doing a bit of a brain dump of why this is so triggering for you and how you may respond.
Speaker 1:
That whole saying of sleep on it, right, it may be that could be helpful, but it may be that getting to sleep because this is so emotionally charged may be difficult. So it could be. What do I need to do to almost let not let it go, not letting someone else's behavior go, but just to give me peace of mind, and it could be that you're just, you need to almost resolve what you're going to do. What am I, what can I expect to do, what? What? Almost envisaging how you expect a conversation to go in the best, optimal way, you know, writing it out, almost you know how it's going to look, how it's going to feel, how it's going to sound. You're putting those expectations of well, this, you know, and sometimes our anxiety is bringing things that actually may happen right. So we might just be like, well, what happens if this happens? And it might be almost having a solution for those things, thinking, thinking of it as solution focus.
Speaker 1:
So when something presents itself that you're identifying, when you're doing your brain dump, you're okay, well, this is how I could do it, and if you don't have the answers, it might be coming back to that later, and we're not expected to know everything at once, right? So that would be something that I would highly suggest, and brain dumping is such a powerful thing as getting all of those ideas. Anything that I feel like I need to do now to remind myself what do I need to now, to remind myself what do I need to, you know, do that and then, when you're coming in the morning you may have also slept on it your conscious mind may process it. Maybe it's also feeling still a little bit of a charge, and you're always wanting to sort of explore that when you're feeling ready to like what? Why is this causing me to feel you know this, this charge within myself? Right? So it could be that the reason that it you felt so triggered because of, maybe a past event that occurred. So maybe, like doing some setting some time aside of what you believe the core need is what you believe is the underlying issue that you feel that needs to be released. What you know, if I write it down, is that going to help? What do I believe is holding me back? What is that emotional charge as well?
Speaker 1:
So when we're getting feedback, we've got to understand that everyone sees the world so differently. And if we're going, if we have an experience where maybe we're we didn't sleep well or we come to work and a few things happen, that stress accumulates. That can be the same for someone else who's giving you feedback or you're feeling triggered by someone else. They may also be that, or maybe they don't have the same coping mechanisms right, so they may be feeling more charged and they may be someone who is who triggers you. And it's been curious with that always, always been curious. Why has that been so? Why what's really happening here as well, when we can look at it from that curious investigation of those emotions that are surfacing, of what is this telling me about? What's happened in the past that may why I'm feeling this way, why I may be contributing to these feelings.
Speaker 1:
What do I believe to be true about situations like this? What am I making true? Is there anything that I'm willing to let go of today? That will help me see another light, see another perspective, and it's also challenging the assumption as well. So, if we've got beliefs that are quite rigid, we always want to question the validity of our thoughts and beliefs. So is there evidence to support this belief right? Could, could, I, could, I, could there be an alternative um interpretation? So we're looking at, well, what could be the alternative way that I could see this as well.
Speaker 1:
So what we've got to understand when we're triggered by situations is sometimes it's things are coming up because there's still parts of us that maybe we haven't accepted and they're parts that we feel very vulnerable around ourselves. We have to practice our self. You know radical acceptance that sometimes these emotions come up. Sometimes we are triggered by different personalities, for example, certain people, certain types of behavior they met that may trigger you, that causes you to have a particular emotional response, and then you create all of these other things, right, and so it's just being curious. And also some people they like to have a little fight, they like having a bit of a debate, right, so they might like that. You may not.
Speaker 1:
And so it's also understanding what am I, what am I seeing in this, in that other person, in myself? So when we can see it from a shadow perspective of, there's always going to be light parts within ourselves and shadow parts that we haven't truly accepted those parts, and sometimes it's just a projection of the other person. They're insecure, they're projecting externally, but we always want to look at what we can change within ourselves, what we can change how we think about it, what we can change how we feel about it and being curious when these things come up so we can do further investigations to know, well, what is this really about? Is this really about this particular event or is it something else? And it could be that particular situations may evoke a particular emotion and it feels really vulnerable.
Speaker 1:
So it's something that I say with so much of the work that I do is it's a practice. You have to be curious, you have to be open and it's just seeing it and start training your body, that one, learning about safety in your body, start practicing that box breathing. If you are in a position to practice being present by utilizing your senses, you can do that as well to really anchor into the present moment instead of what happened in the past or, you know, storytelling of what's going to happen and just focusing on the here and the now, when we can start training ourselves with those things. Okay, and just observing those emotions coming up, like I see you anger, I see you frustration or I see you jealousy, like seeing them, without just seeing them as their emotions, like I'm noticing this is happening in my body and when this is, you know when I'm triggered with this particular situation, for example. And when this is, you know when I'm triggered with this particular situation, for example, you may notice particular physical sensations that are coming out. So it's being more aware, more attuned to what's happening. When you do notice those signs within your body and how you can support yourself, and when we are starting to train our body and our mind is, rather than waiting for a crisis to happen, start training yourself by every day, even just a couple of times, doing the box, breathing it's okay and helping yourself be in the present moment. Notice, when you go for a walk, like notice all the different colours of green. You know, like it sounds so simplified, your mind might be like that sounds too simple.
Speaker 1:
Really helping about looking at the senses. What do I see? What do I notice? You know, can I feel the textures of my clothing on my skin? How does that feel? Can I feel the textures of my clothing on my skin? How does that feel? Can I feel the shoes? Can I feel them on my feet? You know, what am I noticing? Can I notice the sun on me? Can I notice any other elements, like the wind, and it's really helping you start noticing and being in that present moment, and it's not something where you do once You've got to do it in a state where you're feeling more safe and more calm and you're doing that more often. So when those situations that trigger you, you know how to support yourself. You you know one how to support yourself and then you can, when you're ready, you can come back and you can do that curious work of what is the actual deeper core emotional need that you're noticing here. So I hope you found this podcast episode helpful and, yes, welcome back and I look forward to seeing you again soon. Bye.