Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan, and today on the show, I want to talk about traumas, triggers, and our interpretations. There’s a lot that we could get into with each of these, really, but I want to start off with what a trauma is. Because I think when a lot of people think about traumas, and of course,

I know for myself, when I thought about trauma before, I thought it was a big traumatic experience. Like, um, uh, 9 -11 was a traumatic experience for everybody in the country. What’s happening in Gaza is a traumatic experience for everyone that’s in that country. There are so many different, large, traumatic experiences and things that we can equate with the trauma. Just like you could think if somebody got into a car accident or.

They fell and hit their head, they would have a head trauma. What a trauma really is, is something that happens too quick without really knowing what was going on and basically jars our nervous system. It disrupts things. So a trauma could be something as simple as somebody scared you. That’s traumatic in some ways. For those of you who used to go to those Halloween parks,

or Halloween setups in a park when you were growing up, some of those ghouly figures and demonic people that were kind of running around or demonically dressed people that were running around, that could have been a trauma for you. For others, it wasn’t. As a quick side note, I remember getting picked up by one of those people as a little kid. And I could see like the trashy makeup on their face. And I just started busting up laughing. But I remember somebody else further in that line.

going through the maze or whatever it was that we were going into and they lost their mind like blood curdling screams. And it didn’t hit me till later that that was a different story for me than it was for that person. And that could be considered a trauma. For those of us who have been through abuse, be it verbal, sexual,

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any of the abuses, really. It’s a traumatic experience most times. If not every single time, it’s a traumatic experience. I guess the times where it’s not is where you’re kind of jaded by it. You’re kind of used to it. Like how some people will be used to just arguing with their family members or their husband or wife. It’s just been that way for so long that that’s just how it is. And they’ve gotten used to the trauma.

traumas come in all shapes and all sizes and What happens from those traumas and those situations our body will have a reaction to it and most times almost all of the time That body reaction is going to happen before you mentally react or before you can say anything it just a Jarring thing that happens where your body goes into a fight flight or a freeze

and starts to do something different. One of the things that really makes me think about traumas and how people react to traumas is kind of that conversation that every single one of us, I’m sure, has had with somebody at some point. You see something on the news or you hear about something crazy that had happened, and you go, well, if I was in that spot, I would have fill in the blank. And that’s all in good.

for us to think about that and say like, I would be triumphant. I would do this thing. I would save the kid. I would do whatever I needed to do. But that’s not always the case. Your body will react the way that your body reacts. Trauma is going to move you or freeze you no matter what you want to do. Now, you can do something with it after the fact, but the body’s reaction is still going to happen the way that it’s going to happen.

So it’s great that if you said if somebody had a gun to my head, I would turn it around, I would shoot them in the leg, I’d punch them in the mouth, I’d do all these things, and it would be like a Jason Statham movie in a sense. And if you think you’re the next beekeeper, then cool, good on you. Not sure if that’s really the case. And that doesn’t really matter as much, because our ego is in play there. We’re egos saying, if I was in that spot, I would do this thing. Yeah, that’s a good thought, but again, not really the case. It may be that way.

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And in most of the situations that we talk about, I’m sure none of us ever want to experience and find that out. Like, I don’t want to be in the spot where I know what happens when I have a gun to my head. I would just prefer to never have a gun to my head. Easy as that. So those traumas and those things that happen, no matter what that looks like, if it’s at home, if it’s at work, if it’s with friends, if it’s driving on the road, if it’s anything that’s like that.

your body’s going to have a reaction to it, which will then create a trigger scenario. That trigger will show up at different times. And something that I’ve realized recently, being self -aware, which is a beautiful thing and also a fucking pain in the ass at times. It’s like you can’t not see the things once you’re really self -aware. When I see that my triggers are starting to come up, I can see the different experiences that have stacked upon themselves.

that have shown the trigger response in different ways. It has almost triggered the trigger, I guess is a good way to put it. And being able to realize those triggers, we can then do something with them. But you have to understand where the trauma and what story has created the trigger. If you don’t know that, then you don’t get all the way back to it. I believe that you can still work through it. Because if you understand, look, in this situation, I get triggered.

this is how I feel. This is what happens. This is what is the cause of that trigger, I believe. And you can start to work your way back to that. Once you get back to that, you understand where that is, you can do something with it. You can say, Oh, well, this was a scenario from when I was a little kid in a garage with my dad, and something fell and hit my foot, or I was yelled at for not having the right tool or something like that. Then you can be able to work through that scenario right there.

For that, I’d suggest going through deep subconscious processing. We do that work internally here at Choose Your Calling. We have great people that we work with to be able to do it. Plus ourselves as the owners of Choose Your Calling, we do that work too. Not just help people with it, but we actually do the work. Like what I just mentioned to you about a garage and not having the right tool. That was me. I had to deal with that. I had to process through that. And had to really figure out all the way back to that.

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moment when I was maybe five or six, I was like, wow, damn, that has caused me to have different triggers because of that one situation. Now, I’ve said this on the show before, I’ve said it with people on the show, as guests, I’ve said it by myself, and I say it to just about anybody I talk to. I really believe that most of the stuff that we deal with, most of our traumas, stem from our childhood. Even if you had the best childhood in the entire world, if you’re perfect,

parents did every single thing they could for you in a healthy and loving way, in a nurturing way, there’s still some trauma to it. No matter what. And if you can find somebody that doesn’t have any trauma, you let me know. Email me, send a message, whatever you need to do. I’d like to meet that person because I don’t believe they exist. And that’s okay. At least in my book, that’s okay. Because all of us go through these traumas and these situations.

And it’s on us to be able to figure out what do we do with it from there. So I know you’re working on self -awareness. I know that’s something that we talk about on this show a lot. And if you’re self -aware or even just aware of what’s going on, you can then do something with it. So take a moment and think about the triggers that have happened over the past, let’s say two or three days. Were you triggered by somebody at work? Did some pain in the ass?

in your office say something pain in the ass like that just rubbed you the wrong way. And all you really wanted to do is give him a shitty look and smack him in the mouth. Or at least in your mind’s eye like shut up, get out of here. Or did somebody say something at home or do something to slight you? Did somebody on the road cut you off and almost make you get into a car accident? Was there something that triggered you that you can point back to?

even if you don’t know where the trigger came from, you can say, yeah, I remember being triggered at this point. And it was this scenario in this situation. So I want you to uncover what that trigger was. If there were many triggers and you were triggered a lot recently, I get it. I totally get it. And I feel you. And I’m right there with you. Pick one. Pick a trigger that feels really familiar, something that keeps showing up.

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And being able to look at that trigger and say, all right, well, I was triggered at that point. What was going on? It was what o ‘clock in the afternoon? I was with who people doing these different things. And this is what happened. And I was triggered. And then that trigger made me feel what? What did you feel from that trigger?

and dive into that a little bit. Like as you’re listening to this, if you’re thinking, I was triggered the other day because I was with friends and this happened and I felt really pissed off. Okay, cool. It’s a pretty direct version of the answer for this. And there’s no right or wrong answer to this. My challenge to you is to always go deeper with it, sit in the deep end with it, be able to work through it and really get it processed through and out of your system. Not only your…

internal system, but your cells and just every be every part of your being. So if you knew that you were triggered by something that somebody said and it pissed you off, go a little deeper with it. What was it specifically that pissed you off? What was it that rubbed you the wrong way? Was it how they said it? Was it what they said? Was it who they reminded you of that had said something similar before? Was it some situation that happened in the past that reminded you of what was happening then?

That no matter what that person was saying, as lovely and as great as they are, buck them. Because they were just like this other person. What was it? What was it in that situation that not only triggered you, but reminded you of a different situation? I really believe that our traumas start to stack upon themselves. When we have a trauma and we start to look for that trauma again, it’s like our body saying, well, I don’t want to be in that spot again. And sometimes it’ll…

we as stupid humans, will kind of just move ourselves and migrate ourselves into that. I say the stupid humans comment because it’s stupid for us not to do the work, but it is very easy to not do the work because the work is really fucking difficult. And for those of you that are actively working through it, I know you’re like, yes, I hear you, man. And for those of you that haven’t worked through it yet, it’s some difficult work to do. But I guarantee you that.

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On the other side of that work, there’s a much happier, healthier version of you just waiting for you to get through that work. And I hope that these podcast episodes do help you get through that work. So if you think of that trauma and the trigger, what we’re talking about now with figuring out where that came from or what that reminds you of is really understanding your interpretations of it. So if somebody…

Said something to you at work and it triggered you and really upset you or pissed you off Think about what they actually said from a perspective of what actually happened So if somebody said something to you like I don’t like this design. I think we should go this other direction What happened is that they didn’t like the design and they think you should go a different direction?

If you’re yelling at your phone or in your car saying, fuck you, Nick, I wasn’t in that spot. I don’t get that. I don’t get what you’re feeling right in this moment, but I do feel for you for having been in moments like that before. So I get it. Hear me out. It’s not a matter of removing what they had done, how they’d said it, or your traumas or your triggers, or even your interpretation. It’s realizing what actually happened.

So in that meeting, if that person said, I don’t like this design and I think we should go this direction, that’s all that happened. On the surface, that’s all that happened. If you’re interpreting, well, they have it out for me, or they don’t like my designs and they never liked my designs, or they always wanted to go this other direction and just appeased me to go through this. They’re right there.

all of those interpretations that are starting to flow throughout your head right now, thinking about that situation you’ve had recently, if you’re like, yeah, you know, that person thought this, and I don’t like how they’ve always been against me about these things and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all these interpretations are creating this story and only adding to the trigger, and really only adding to the weight of the trigger. Like, to take a little bit of a sidestep, if somebody triggers you in a slight little way, like, I think, I think from my perspective, if somebody,

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is right in front of you and they’re walking into a door or walking through a door into a store and they just don’t hold the door.

it’s always inside of me to want to be a smart ass and say to them like, okay, cool. Thanks. We’re like, no worries. I got it. There’s really no fucking point to that. It doesn’t do me any good doesn’t do them any good. But that could be a slight trigger. For me, that’s a slight trigger at times. If for you, it might be or it might be something else. And that doesn’t trigger me in the same way that if I was cheated on by my partner, vastly different triggers, vastly different situations, all of that. So

When we think of the interpretations we add to these things, they just add more weight to any of those triggers. And that weight just gets harder for us to lift the trigger back to like, just basically push it back to its original position. Fucking off. Like you don’t want the trigger on. So being able to understand that you’re adding weight as you interpret these things, think about the interpretations and the additional weight you’re giving not only that trigger,

but that core trauma and that situation that keeps coming back or the traumas that show up that have a similar flavor or feel to something that happened before. I know I’m getting into a lot with this. So let’s recap a little bit. The whole point of this is to talk about your traumas, the traumas that have happened to you, whether they just happened earlier today or they happened when you were two months old.

every trauma in between and then the triggers that come from those traumas the weight that we give those triggers are based off not only but a lot by our interpretations and the interpretations that we keep adding on to those things I feel at least for me there are times where the interpretations come up because I want to be right I want to be right that I knew that that person was going to be a shitty person

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or I knew that they were going to do something to piss me off or trigger me, where if I really dive deeper into that, it’s because there’s a fear there. There’s a core wounding that I have of being abandoned or unlovable. And once I’m able to get back to that, all the way back to, oh, that ties into my core wounding, I can then look at it differently and remove the interpretations. Now, look, I’m not saying this is the easiest thing in the entire world. And for those of you who know me,

who know me intimately and know me as a part of my inner circle or the next extended circle, you know that I work through this. And for those of you that are listening to the show constantly, first off, thank you. And secondly, you know that I work through this because I talk about it. And I want you to be able to work through it. And if you feel led to, I want you to be able to talk about it. Think about the traumas, the triggers, and your interpretations.

Your interpretations give weight to those triggers and those triggers when they come up because of your traumas, you’re able to do something with each of the three of those pieces. But really, if we get to the core of it and figure out what happened with that trauma and process through that trauma, then you’ll start to see that the trigger will either have a lot less weight to it because you’re not giving it as many interpretations, if any at all.

or the trigger will come up and really just won’t be a trigger at all because you’ve already processed through that work. Again, this can be a lot. This can be an absolute ton to go through and it’s painful at times. It is absolutely glorious to be able to do the work and then feel like you’ve got 40 pounds that were lifted off your shoulders and just feel so much better after you’ve done it.

That’s not always the case and that doesn’t happen every single time because some work will lead to more work will lead to more truths and more understanding and things that you’ve tucked deep deep deep deep down inside and now you get to be able to do the work on those things. So I encourage you to look for your triggers for those of you that want to be able to write them down be it in your phone on your notepad or on an actual piece of paper to say these are the things that I’ve been triggered by this week. These are my triggers.

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when somebody does this, when this happens to me, when I think this, whatever that is, and then think about your interpretations that you add that weight to those triggers and what happens to show those triggers. What are the traumas and where do they come from? Now, if you have questions or if you need some help and you wanna be able to work through this with somebody that can help you out with it, please feel free to reach out to me.

If not me, there’s somebody on the team that can help you out or we at least have some resources we can give you to be able to help you work through again, your traumas, your triggers and your overall interpretations. But thank you so much for being with me today, for spending the time to listen to this and thank yourself. Give yourself grace and praise yourself for doing the work and doing it and seeing it through. I believe that you can do that. I know that I’m actively working on it and it’s, I know me.

If I can do it, I know that you can do it. And it’s a matter of continuing to do the work and having community of people around you that can help with that and that are doing the work. And if you need any help, please, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Again, thank you very much.