Transcript
Welcome to a two minute talk about what to do when I myself am triggered in an argument. It’s taken from our conflict management first aid training that we do for community organisations. And I’ll hand over to our mediator guru, Nicole, with her special guest, Biscuit, the small yellow bird. Biscuit and I are here to talk about what can we do when we’re flooded or triggered in the middle of an argument.
When I say triggered and flooded, I mean that automatic brain and body response that we find ourselves in the middle of a fight. Where our muscles become tense and constricted. Maybe our fists become clenched, our temperature might rise. Our brain might become really sharp and narrowly focused on the argument.
and angry thoughts of blame and shame start racing through our heads. What can we do when we’re in this situation? Because our perspective becomes very limited and we might do things that we regret. So, non violence teachers. Jesse Weans and Catherine Cadden. They say that we can stop ourselves from being taken for a ride by our thinking and our automatic stress response.
To do this, we practice catching the constriction in our body as it happens, catching that constriction, catching that tension, just noticing it and breathing and actually relaxing into that tension. And as we do this, the tension will move through us. And as we become aware of the thoughts of blame and shame in our mind, we become aware that the thought is trying to point us to something bigger and deeper that we value or we need in that moment.
And when we get clear on what we are valuing and needing, we can really shift the conversation and shift the connection between ourselves and the other person. Thank you. Thanks, Miski.