Family Triggers: 3 Mindful Techniques To Help You Respond With Skill and Wisdom Instead of Reacting Impulsively

Family Triggers - 3 Mindful Techniques To Help You Respond With Skill and Wisdom Instead of Reacting Impulsively

Think back to a family birthday, a reunion, or a Christmas holiday. A time when many of us head home (or host family) to eat an animal for dinner, drink some booze, and hang out with the family members we pretty much intentionally don’t see the rest of the year. What could possibly go wrong?

I’m fortunate in that none of my family members are awful, and all are fairly easy to get along with, even fun. However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t sometimes get triggered. It seems as though in these modern times, a lot of us are well defended and operate via our well-established defence mechanisms and storylines that impact how we relate to others, especially family. Underlying this is an ‘I versus you” mentality, as opposed to a ‘we’ perspective. Couple that with the modern political and global state of affairs up for discussion at the dinner table, how can we not get triggered?

A trigger is a reaction that is more instinctive and immediate, lacking our typical skill or thought, that has ties to our conditioning of the past. For me, this is most likely to happen when I interpret a comment as being condescending. Oh, how that bugs me, whether it’s a family member during the holidays, or someone in my day to day life. Feeling as though someone is looking down on you, or belittling you in some way is so annoying! Of course, this is tied to me feeling small and insecure when I was young, and now it’s a real insult, and my reactions aren’t pretty, I’m sure.

Even if the intentions beneath our mother-in-law’s commentary are benign, it might still be interpreted as condescending, perhaps because we are hyper-sensitive to these comments, based on past interactions. At the point our conditioning takes over, our amygdala amps up, which is the little almond in our brain that detects danger and tells our fight or flight reactions to kick in. Our amygdala comes in very handy at times, however, it’s not the best at determining when danger is real or not. It’s like the fire alarm in your apartment. If it detects smoke, it goes off. However, that smoke might be from burnt toast – not a real fire.

So, let’s use three mindful approaches with roots in Buddhist psychology to look at how we might approach challenging familial interactions. These are (1) having fixed views; (2) bearing witness, and (3) taking compassionate action.

  1.  Having a fixed view.

    Having a fixed view, or ‘knowing’ what’s right often gets us into trouble by limiting our response flexibility. Why are we so attached to being right? Why do we always insist on knowing? This is our habit. When we ‘know’ and the person we’re engaged with also ‘knows’, suddenly both parties are limited in how they can respond. More often than not, the result of everyone knowing is digging in our heels and reinforcing the ‘you versus me,’ or this sense of separateness that only serves to disconnect.

    We’ve all had the experience of taking a stand and defending it, and how rigid and tense that feels. Compare that to when it feels ok to be wrong, and the lightness one feels when being certain isn’t necessary, i.e. taking a playful approach. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind is an infamous literary piece exploring the benefits and wonder of intentionally seeing things with fresh eyes. Entering into a room or a conversation with a ‘not knowing’ outlook can lend itself to a lightness of energy that influences the dynamic. I think to be wise is to realize you pretty much don’t have anything figured out.

  2. Bearing witness.

    Bearing witness is just what it sounds like. Witnessing whatever is unfolding before us. Instead of getting lost in our storylines of judgement, fantasy, resentment, etc.. We practice allowing the feeling to exist, without needing it to be other than it is, because we understand the impermanence of it. We are learning that this is our fixed view taking shape. We practice not making our problems such a big deal. It’s taking on the beginner’s mind, not knowing what’s good or what’s bad. This is really taking the study of our mind’s conditioning to another level. We practice noticing the tendency to judge and have expectations, being present, not adding a story,

    Bill Ball, of the Durango (Colorado) Dharma Center, recently quoted Bernie Glassman’s experience after his loving wife passed away unexpectedly. Someone asked Bernie if it hurt, and Bernie replied ‘I’m raw.’ Do you feel sad, they asked? Bernie’s reply: ‘I shake my head. Raw doesn’t feel good or bad. Raw is the smell of lilacs by the back door, not six feet away from her relics on the mantel. Raw is listening to Mahler’s Fourth Symphony or the songs of Sweet Honey in the Rock. Raw is reading the hundreds of letters that come in, watching television alone at night. Raw is letting whatever happens happen, what arises, arise. Feelings, too: grief, pain, loss, a desire to disappear, even the desire to die. One feeling follows another, one sensation after the next. I just listen deeply, bear witness. An indication that you’re acting from old stories is when ‘I, me, and mine’ are ever present. This is different from bearing witness, which is something like ‘right now, it’s like this.’

  3. Taking compassionate action.

    Lastly, we can take an action that is wise, compassionate, and skilful. We can choose how to respond in a difficult moment, in a challenging situation. Choosing a thoughtful response that has its roots in not knowing and bearing witness looks much different from an instinctive reaction based on our old stories. This is taking care of how we relate to our self and others. This is acting from heartfulness, choosing the response with roots in compassion for yourself and the one next to you, knowing that causing the least amount of harm is the right choice.

When we do get irritable with family, I love Waylon Lewis’ affection for the eye roll. Your Grandma says the same thing you’ve heard over and over and over, but instead of reacting with frustration, you perfect the eye-roll. That physical act of eye-rolling does something to our nervous system that inclines us to stay light and playful. You have created space that allows for dissenting ideas and opinions without penetrating that equanimous place within you that you stay connected to that reservoir that you can dip into in order to maintain your inner peace.

All of this takes practice, and courage. It takes courage to be with anxiety and to be with not knowing. It takes courage to bear witness to difficult feelings, without acting on them. It’s not easy to acknowledge that we mostly operate out of past conditioning, clinging to certain outcomes, having all sorts of expectations that don’t serve anyone.

If we can practice being courageous with the present moment-witnessing our frustration and joy, our pleasure and pain, our moments can take on a sense of richness and vitality. We are really with our family at Christmas or a birthday, without needing them to be anyone other than who they really are. Isn’t this what family is all about?


About the Author: Robert Oleskevich

Robert currently describes himself as a travelling therapist. He grew up in Colorado, but for the past 20 years, has been living in Los Angeles, near the beach. He loves being next to the ocean in Santa Monica, and values his soccer, yoga, and meditation communities. However, he has come to realize that sometimes getting the hell outta LA is essential. So, he decided to quit working for the man, and begin the work of being his own boss. His goal is to be of benefit to the world, give something back, while navigating all the world has to offer.

Since 2014, when he decided not to return to his job as a school therapist, he has spent around 11 months in Asia. Mostly Vietnam, where he rode his motorbike the length of the country from Saigon to Hanoi. He was also lucky enough to check out Thailand, South Korea, India, Taiwan, Japan, and the Philippines. At this point, he’s been to over 30 countries.

He continues to provide mental health therapy to clients online and in-person. If you or someone you know might benefit from therapy, you can learn more about him and his services at https://www.herosjourneytherapy.com/ or on facebook.

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Feeling seen, safe, and cared for is a biological need. It’s not a choice and it’s not pandering. It’s a biological need.

Children - all of us - will prioritise relational safety over everything. 

When children feel seen, safe, and a sense of belonging they will spend less resources in fight, flight, or withdrawal, and will be free to divert those resources into learning, making thoughtful choices, engaging in ways that can grow them.

They will also be more likely to spend resources seeking out those people (their trusted adults at school) or places (school) that make them feel good about themselves, rather than avoiding the people of spaces that make them feel rubbish or inadequate.

Behaviour support and learning support is about felt safety support first. 

The schools and educators who know this and practice it are making a profound difference, not just for young people but for all of us. They are actively engaging in crime prevention, mental illness prevention, and nurturing strong, beautiful little people into strong, beautiful big ones.♥️
Emotion is e-motion. Energy in motion.

When emotions happen, we have two options: express or depress. That’s it. They’re the options.

When your young person (or you) is being swamped by big feelings, let the feelings come.

Hold the boundary around behaviour - keep them physically safe and let them feel their relationship with you is safe, but you don’t need to fix their feelings.

They aren’t a sign of breakage. They’re a sign your child is catalysing the energy. Our job over the next many years is to help them do this respectfully.

When emotional energy is shut down, it doesn’t disappear. It gets held in the body and will come out sideways in response to seemingly benign things, or it will drive distraction behaviours (such as addiction, numbness).

Sometimes there’ll be a need for them to control that energy so they can do what they need to do - go to school, take the sports field, do the exam - but the more we can make way for expression either in the moment or later, the safer and softer they’ll feel in their minds and bodies.

Expression is the most important part of moving through any feeling. This might look like talking, moving, crying, writing, yelling.

This is why you might see big feelings after school. It’s often a sign that they’ve been controlling themselves all day - through the feelings that come with learning new things, being quiet and still, trying to get along with everyone, not having the power and influence they need (that we all need). When they get into the car at pickup, finally those feelings they’ve been holding on to have a safe place to show up and move through them and out of them.

It can be so messy! It takes time to learn how to lasso feelings and words into something unmessy.

In the meantime, our job is to hold a tender, strong, safe place for that emotional energy to move out of them.

Hold the boundary around behaviour where you can, add warmth where you can, and when they are calm talk about what happened and how they might do things differently next time. And be patient. Just because someone tells us how to swing a racket, doesn’t mean we’ll win Wimbledon tomorrow. Good things take time, and loads of practice.♥️
Thank you Adelaide! Thank you for your stories, your warmth, for laughing with me, spaghetti bodying with me (when you know, you know), for letting me scribble on your books, and most of all, for letting me be a part of your world today.

So proud to share the stage with Steve Biddulph, @matt.runnalls ,
@michellemitchell.author, and @nathandubsywant. To @sharonwittauthor - thank you for creating this beautiful, brave space for families to come together and grow stronger.

And to the parents, carers, grandparents - you are extraordinary and it’s a privilege to share the space with you. 

Parenting is big work. Tender, gritty, beautiful, hard. It asks everything of us - our strength, our softness, our growth. We’re raising beautiful little people into beautiful big people, and at the same time, we’re growing ourselves. 

Sometimes that growth feels impatient and demanding - like we’re being wrenched forward before we’re ready, before our feet have found the ground. 

But that’s the nature of growth isn’t it. It rarely waits for permission. It asks only that we keep moving.

And that’s okay. 

There’s no rush. You have time. We have time.

In the meantime they will keep growing us, these little humans of ours. Quietly, daily, deeply. They will grow us in the most profound ways if we let them. And we must let them - for their sake, for our own, and for the ancestral threads that tie us to the generations that came before us, and those that will come because of us. We will grow for them and because of them.♥️
Their words might be messy, angry, sad. They might sound bigger than the issue, or as though they aren’t about the issue at all. 

The words are the warning lights on the dashboard. They’re the signal that something is wrong, but they won’t always tell us exactly what that ‘something’ is. Responding only to the words is like noticing the light without noticing the problem.

Our job isn’t to respond to their words, but to respond to the feelings and the need behind the words.

First though, we need to understand what the words are signalling. This won’t always be obvious and it certainly won’t always be easy. 

At first the signal might be blurry, or too bright, or too loud, or not obvious.

Unless we really understand the problem behind signal - the why behind words - we might inadvertently respond to what we think the problem is, not what the problem actually is. 

Words can be hard and messy, and when they are fuelled by big feelings that can jet from us with full force. It is this way for all of us. 

Talking helps catalyse the emotion, and (eventually) bring the problem into a clearer view.

But someone needs to listen to the talking. You won’t always be able to do this - you’re human too - but when you can, it will be one of the most powerful ways to love them through their storms.

If the words are disrespectful, try:

‘I want to hear you but I love you too much to let you think it’s okay to speak like that. Do you want to try it a different way?’ 

Expectations, with support. Leadership, with warmth. Then, let them talk.

Our job isn’t to fix them - they aren’t broken. Our job is to understand them so we can help them feel seen, safe, and supported through the big of it all. When we do this, we give them what they need to find their way through.♥️
Perth and Adeladie - can't wait to see you! 

The Resilient Kids Conference is coming to:

- Perth on Saturday 19 July
- Adelaide on Saturday 2 August

I love this conference. I love it so much. I love the people I'm speaking with. I love the people who come to listen. I love that there is a whole day dedicated to parents, carers, and the adults who are there in big and small ways for young people.

I’ll be joining the brilliant @michellemitchell.author, Steve Biddulph, and @matt.runnalls for a full day dedicated to supporting YOU with practical tools, powerful strategies, and life-changing insights on how we can show up even more for the kids and teens in our lives. 

Michelle Mitchell will leave you energised and inspired as she shares how one caring adult can change the entire trajectory of a young life. 

Steve Biddulph will offer powerful, perspective-shifting wisdom on how we can support young people (and ourselves) through anxiety.

Matt Runnalls will move and inspire you as he blends research, science, and his own lived experience to help us better support and strengthen our neurodivergent young people.

And then there's me. I’ll be talking about how we can support kids and teens (and ourselves) through big feelings, how to set and hold loving boundaries, what to do when behaviour gets big, and how to build connection and influence that really lasts, even through the tricky times.

We’ll be with you the whole day — cheering you on, sharing what works, and holding space for the important work you do.

Whether you live with kids, work with kids, or show up in any way, big and small, for a young person — this day is for you. 

Parents, carers, teachers, early educators, grandparents, aunts, uncles… you’re all part of a child’s village. This event is here for you, and so are we.❤️

See here for @resilientkidsconference tickets for more info https://michellemitchell.org/resilient-kids-conference

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