Trigger Warnings, Trauma, And The Skills To Tolerate Life

We explore why trigger warnings and the word trigger can feel both helpful and limiting, especially when avoidance starts to shape daily life. I share stories and nature-based metaphors to show how resilience grows when we build tolerance, not when we retreat from every uncomfortable reminder. 
• why trigger warnings rose in classrooms and culture 
• the difference between everyday irritations and trauma-based triggers 
• trauma as an untreated injury that changes how we move through life 
• the amygdala as a smoke detector that can misread present-day safety 
• personal examples involving alcoholism, suicide, and lingering grief 
• boundaries as protection versus avoidance as a life limiter 
• nature metaphors for resilience, regrowth, and gradual strengthening 
If you have thoughts about this, I would love to hear. There’s a link in the show notes where you can actually text me, or you can always email nsvpodcast at gmail.com.

Transcript

Rainy Day Hello And A Matcha Shoutout

Mary 0:00

Hi, and welcome to a mini episode of No Shrinking Violets. It is so cool and rainy where I am right now, and it's crazy because it's May 23rd when I'm recording this, and it's it's the rain is great because my garden loves it, but it was about 90 degrees a couple days ago, and now it's in the mid-50s. Crazy. Um, but no matter what the temperature, I get iced drinks if they're not coffee. Usually coffee I like hot, but I love matcha when it has a little bit of sweetness to it. So I'm gonna give a little shout out to Cafe 18 on Orange Street in Lancaster. I love their lavender matcha. It's not too sweet, the lavender part, and it's just delicious and love it. And everyone that works there is just so nice and welcoming. And often I will take my laptop and I for some reason can concentrate way more when I am out somewhere. I just have to keep myself from ordering too many sweets.

What Trigger Warnings Are Really For

Mary 1:02

But anyway, so today I'm gonna talk about triggers because in a recent episode, I'm not sure, I don't think by this point it would have actually aired yet. But I was talking to my guest and we were talking about triggers, and I wanted to kind of put it out there for you guys, and I would love to hear input on this, but the idea of a trigger warning. So basically warning someone if there's going to be something talked about that could trigger an emotional reaction. And this was not really a thing till maybe the last five or six years. I'm gonna say maybe a bit longer than that, but it started to come up because I worked in a college. So it would come up when in a classroom a professor or an instructor felt like they needed to warn students they were that they were gonna talk about something that would be upsetting. And I have a lot of mixed feelings about this. I have a lot of mixed feelings about the word trigger in the first place. I think if I ask anyone to say, list your triggers, you probably could. The thing that sets you off. Um, one of mine is people driving really slow in the left lane. I don't have to deal with that as much now because I'm walking way more places. But I think we can, we all have those things that whether they're irrational or not, they can send us from zero to 60. But many times the it is things that we're talking about that are much deeper, a trauma that is much deeper. And what makes me a little um what makes me ponder this is that if there's anything in life that you need to avoid in order to get through your day, that is a place that actually needs tending. So let

Trauma As An Untreated Injury

Mary 3:08

me put it in terms of something physical. So let's say you have an injury and there are days where let's say the injury is to one of your legs, your leg hurts so bad that you can't go see people you love, you can't engage in things that you really enjoy. And if the weather is perfect, everything is okay. But if it's rainy or it's too cold, you need to stay in your bed and you're missing out on things in life. I don't think there's many of us that would tolerate that. I think that we would find a way to strengthen that injury or find a different treatment for it. And yes, there is chronic pain. That's not what I'm talking about. But when there is actually an injury that we don't tend to, so let's say you broke your leg and you're like, eh, I'm not gonna go to the doctor, I'm not gonna have him set the leg, I'm just gonna let it heal however it wants. And if it doesn't heal, I'm just gonna live with it. That's what I'm talking about. When we have a trauma, that is something that happened to us. And it creates a different way of interacting in the world. And often that thing will trigger an emotional reaction in us. If there's anything that the amygdala finds in the environment that feels similar. So let me give you an example from my own life.

Alcohol, Memory, And The Amygdala Alarm

Mary 4:37

I had a brother who was an alcoholic. I talk about this a little bit in my book, Nature Knows. And he was violent. He hurt me. Um, he was eight years older than me. I never told my parents this, and that's a story for another day. But there were things that I needed to learn to do, and maybe some of you can relate to this. You may have a parent that was abusive. But it was a very long time before I could be around the smell of alcohol in someone's breath without having a reaction. Now, I'm gonna be the first to tell you in college, I really kind of was a party girl. So, but I knew that I didn't have whatever that was that he had. I didn't over-drink, I always got to class, my grades were good. I just like to have a good time with my friends. But there were certain situations if I was around someone and they were, especially if I was 100% sober, I was very, very uncomfortable. I felt in danger, even if they weren't doing anything to me. I could smell the alcohol, I saw the behavior, and instantly my amygdala recognized the pattern. And it could have kept me from engaging with someone who, you know, maybe in everyday life their drinking isn't an issue. Like that just happened to be one situation. Um, but it's to show the pattern that when we learn something is dangerous, then our amygdala can fire and it can do, you've probably heard me say, it's like the smoke detector going off when you're simply burning a piece of toast. It wants you to evacuate the house. We may have had someone close to us complete suicide. And that actually happened to me, and it affected people that I love very much. Um, it was someone related to them. And I know especially one person that did a lot of work to work through that situation. And I'm gonna say you're never over it. It's never done. But what I want to put out there is that you can work on a situation, you can work on your reaction to triggers so that you develop an ability to tolerate. And that is what we are supposed to be able to do. We have resilience. So it doesn't mean that whatever happened to you wasn't a tragedy and wasn't horrible. But if we react to things that trigger strong emotions in us by always retreating, then we are not living our life. And I'm gonna qualify this again because I know there's always somebody with a yeah, but um, I'm not talking about when something has just happened, when there's a fresh trauma. Sometimes that intense emotion, you do need to take a break, you do need to rest and you know, heal from it. But when there is something chronic that you need a trigger warning for for decades, then that is something that you need to turn attention to.

Nature’s Model For Resilience

Mary 8:12

And, you know, when I say about resilience, when we look at, you know, I'm always going to go to nature. So if we look at nature, we will never see a perfect tree. We're gonna see a tree that has more limbs on one side than the other. We're going to see a flower that perhaps is going to bloom more strongly in one season than it might the next season, because there are things happening to it in the environment that are stressors. And we can talk about them sort of as traumas. If there is a tree that is in a storm, that tree is not going to come out unscathed. We know that. We see the branches, we see all the leaves on the ground. It loses parts of itself. That is what happens when we experience these traumas in our life. But if that tree didn't find a way to regrow leaves or balance itself out with new branches, then it's compromised forever. So nature does this automatically when a tree is young. I'm sure you've heard me say this. If you listen to many enough episodes of this show, when a tree is young, it's a sapling, it's not rigid because it needs to learn to bend with the wind. Or if you plant little seedlings, if you are a gardener, a vegetable gardener, you know you can't plant seeds in your little seed cells, you know, your flats of plants, and simply one day decide you're gonna plant them outside in the sun and the heat and the wind. They're gonna die. They need some time for you to put them in the shade, then move them in the little bit of sun, brush your hand over them so they get used to the movement because they were in a situation where they were totally sheltered. And that's what I think about when we react to a situation, when we are triggered and we want to always avoid

Boundaries Versus Avoidance

Mary 10:18

that. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't manage your boundaries. That is an episode for another day. We need boundaries. But if you cannot tolerate or you don't have the capacity to endure some things and find a way to heal and go on as a different person, then you have limited your life. And so I would encourage someone who recognizes that they have this deep wound that um the is not healing. I don't know, maybe you feel like the wound is reopened when certain things happen. Um, I know I had a friend years and years ago who had an abortion, and she didn't get help to process that decision. And anytime there was a commercial on TV that had anything to do with a baby, diapers or formula or whatever, she had to leave the room. And so, yes, initially that's part of your processing. But if you are triggered by certain things, certain people, then there's boundaries for sure that you can set, but you also may need to work on developing a capacity to tolerate those things, a certain topic or a certain situation, and then manage the times that you want to be away from it. If you can manage that want to flee all the time, then you're gonna take your power back. And again, we are nature, we're made to develop that resilience. I actually talk about this in my book, Nature Knows. And I give, again, examples from my life, from the plant world, but it can be a really helpful way to step back and start to look at it from a different perspective. So if you're interested in that, you can find you can find it on Amazon and other ways to access the book or more about the book on my website, maryrothwell.net forward slash nature newsbook. So that's what was on my mind today because I started to think about triggers and I wanted to kind of open up a discussion about that because I want people to always feel empowered and to know where the line is between setting a boundary and keeping peace when you need to, but at the same time, have the tolerance for something so that you are the one in control. That whatever that trigger is is not the one in control, even if it's uncomfortable. And that's one final thing I want to say working through something doesn't mean that it stops being uncomfortable. I think that situation with someone that I cared about that completed suicide, that's never going to be comfortable. That's never going to not be on my thoughts or my heart sometimes. But it it doesn't have the power anymore. There's still sadness, those emotions don't go away. But there's a tolerance for the event that occurred, for talking about that topic and maybe even helping other people. So if

Take Your Power Back And Reach Out

Mary 13:49

you have thoughts about this, I would love to hear. Um, there's a link in the show notes where you can actually text me, or you can always email nsvpodcast at gmail.com. And until next time, go out into the world and be the amazing, resilient, vibrant violet that you are.