It’s not about you. That disproportionate reaction you’re witnessing? It’s theirs, not yours.
I’ve been listening to several of Thomas Hübl, PhD’s podcasts as prework for his Trauma-Informed Coaching program that I’m starting in March, and one point that really resonates with me is that we get frozen in the past. When something was too difficult for us to process as children, we found a way to survive it with some reaction: we lash out, we turn away, we shut down, we flatter, otherwise known as the fight-or-flight-or-freeze-or-fawn reactions.
When we face a situation that reminds us of those unprocessed experiences (aka triggering), our nervous systems spike with adrenaline and cortisol to fight to survive, and we flash back to our learned defense mechanisms.
That can be very confusing for the interaction – the other person doesn’t have our experiences (and we probably don’t consciously remember what happened), so both people often look for somebody to blame. The triggered person blames the other person for “making” them lash out or shut down or turn away. The other person might take the reaction personally, wondering what they did to provoke such anger or disdain, or blame the triggered person for overreacting.
Hübl instead advocates for turning towards the other in those situations, with the recipient witnessing and reflecting the interaction so that the triggered person can integrate their previously unprocessed experience. If more of us could learn to hold that space for others, each of us would be better off and our society would connect more deeply as well. I find his gentle and compassionate approach to be compelling, and I look forward to learning more in the class.
In the meantime, I will try to remind myself that when somebody has a disproportionate reaction, it’s not about me. It’s about some past experience they have that I reminded them of. And I will try to calm down my own nervous system and be present with them to calm theirs.
#trauma #compassion #integration