Written by: Leslie Gaudet, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Hey! I’m back! So, in my first article, I told you a little bit about me, and in this article, I’m going to dive in a little bit deeper and tell you some more about what I do.
It has to do with understanding triggers, our emotional responses to our triggers, and how they relate to our mindset.
What are triggers? Some triggers that can affect us emotionally are:
the anniversary date of loss or trauma;
family friction;
financial issues;
judgment or criticism;
isolation; and
overwhelm.
Imagine your trigger is feedback, but instead of treating it like that, you revert to a childhood memory that triggers the feelings of being judged or criticized. Instead of embracing the feedback as positive and taking time to unpack what just happened, you automatically get defensive.
How do you switch your mindset around this? You ask yourself some questions, such as:
What was the feedback?
Who is the person that gave you the feedback?
Do you respect them?
Have they ever maliciously criticized you?
Are they someone who generally wants the best for you?
These are just some questions that you can start with. Being reactive in a situation where feedback is meant to help you grow is when you miss that opportunity to step into being the best version of yourself. Feedback is giving you information so that you can grow into a better human being. Criticism is not. So, telling the difference means thinking about the person who gave you the feedback and how you feel about them generally. Are they someone you know, like, and trust? Do they generally criticize you, or is this your own insecurity of unworthiness? Is the feedback you received about you as a person or something you are doing that can help you do something better, which again is meant to help you grow as a person? It takes practice, but it certainly is doable to switch your mindset — which leads me to my story.
I always knew that there was something that was driving my emotional responses, but I wasn’t quite sure what it was until I started digging a little deeper into the subject and I started finding out that we all have trigger moments and that our trigger moments are based around what we believe, what we see, how we think and feel, and ultimately how we respond.
Those responses, though, are what intrigued me the most as I delved a little bit deeper into understanding my own emotional trigger moments and how I responded to external stimuli, which are things like other people, places, sounds, and even smells and how they related to my personal experiences.
I happened upon this ‘space between’ moment ideology by thinking about how we formulated our beliefs when I was on my mindset quest a year ago.
You see, I had been working with my clients based on triggers and understanding triggers and our responses, but I always felt that there was something more to it than just having a trigger moment, and that’s when I realized that my mindset was a key factor.
I believe that our mindset (our set of beliefs) influences our thoughts, and our thoughts dictate the words we speak and the actions we take. In turn, those responses that we have (our emotional trigger responses) are based upon the meaning and the emotions that we give to our experiences. Let me tell you why.
For me, there’s a certain smell that brings me right back to a very unpleasant time in my life. As a young girl, I experienced being molested over a period of many years (by people I knew for the most part), and one of the things that can bring me right back to a place and a time is a certain smell. I can’t explain it. I just know that when I smell this certain smell, it automatically reminds me of that time in my life. It can bring me right back there as if time froze, and I can see it clearly in my mind.
It’s a time that I had been powerless, but I proudly can say that it doesn’t hold power over me today.
So, what is this ‘space between’ moment that I’m talking about? What does it mean? I can tell you what it means to me, and then you can formulate your own opinion.
What I can say is, "When something happens to you, you have that moment where you pause, and that’s where you are deciding the meaning that you are going to give to what just happened, the emotion that you are going to assign, along with the level of intensity of the emotion. Once you have done that, then you will file that memory away into your emotional memory bank."
You will have, in essence, experienced a ‘space between’ moment. That’s what I did. I had my ‘space between moment’ and then created an emotional memory around it and filed it away.
For me, it became not only an emotional trigger moment, but my emotional trigger moment also had its own trigger. Meaning, the trigger for me, for that moment in time, was a certain smell, and so even today, although I am a strong woman. I have since worked through those difficult times and put them behind me, that smell can still bring me right back to remembering that time in my life with perfect clarity, like I’m there, but I’m not.
The amazing thing about where I am in my life today is that although I have a trigger to my emotional trigger, that trigger (that smell) no longer evokes the emotions that it used to, which were shame, guilt (thinking that I was to blame), and ultimately feelings of unworthiness because I found ways to manage those emotional triggers so that I could show others that there is another way to manage those emotional triggers for themselves.
I’ve also learned to appreciate the sense of smell with positive things like freshly cut grass, an orchid, or even the smell of bread baking in the oven.
The moments that I call ‘space between’ moments are just us figuring out how to navigate our lives and how to best navigate our emotions.
It all happens fairly quickly, but once you realize this process actually is happening because you have an actual emotional trigger, that’s the first step. Then you have something to work off of and start getting curious about it and its origins.
You can go back to those moments and revisit them by journaling them out, and if you are in that place where you need guidance, then there are so many avenues available to you; whether that’s therapy or coaching or having a strong and amazing tribe of friends and family who support and encourage you and who have your back no matter what.
Having the courage to face my past was a difficult one because at first, I wasn’t ready to dredge all of that “stuff” up, thinking that I had already “been there done that” and that unpacking it again to go through the emotional journey of the past was a waste of time.
Getting coached around this helped me with that. It was the most liberating moment in my life. When I was finally able to come out the other side with my head held high, knowing my true worthiness, releasing my shame, then I was finally able to put to bed my emotional trigger around that history of mine.
When I was able to finally take away the power of a trigger of a simple smell, that’s when my life shifted.
I gained my power over my life and the confidence to step into being a powerful coach who helps other women see and own and step into their own power.
It’s not always easy to find the courage to revisit that which has been swept under the rug and forgotten about for so long only to be remembered with a smell. Still, it has been liberating to finally release and set myself free from my past.
You can change your patterns to your emotional triggers. Even a trigger such as a smell can be turned around.
Why am I sharing this with you, and why am I sharing such a traumatic and vulnerable piece of myself?
I share this with you to let you know that there is hope for all of us to navigate these very vulnerable moments in our lives and to get unstuck so that they don’t manage how we live our lives. If you are stuck in those emotional cycles of repetitiveness of ‘trigger, emotional explosion, calm downtime, apologize-ish, forgive, and then carry on with your day’ moments, it’s okay.
It’s okay if you have been in this emotional cycle. It’s okay that you want to make a change but are not sure how. All you need to know is that you want to change and the reason why. The rest will follow if you trust that there is another way. And Trust is the keyword here.
So, I ask you now. Have you thought about your emotional triggers and possibly the “triggers” to your emotional triggers? Are you stuck on the emotional rollercoaster and are ready to slow it down and change how you respond to your emotions?
If you are ready to be released from your emotional triggers holding power over how you show up emotionally in your world, then reach out to me and let’s start a conversation.
Believe it when I say it starts with first speaking it, so that you can face it, finally embrace that it was and no longer is, allowing you to release its hold, and finally Rewrite the Story of You.
Leslie Gaudet, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Leslie Gaudet is a Mindset and Emotional Awareness Coach for women. She helps her clients achieve self-awareness around their emotional triggers by shifting their mindset to make better decisions when they respond, which allows them to bring more balance, peace, and harmony into their life.
Almost 4 decades working as a Legal Assistant and Paralegal in the corporate world left her feeling emotionally and physically drained. That’s when she decided that she had to make some changes for her to live a life she loves. Those changes involved learning to love herself (without judgment or criticism). That mindset is the key to everything because our mindset influences our thoughts, and in turn, our thoughts dictate our words and actions. Thru her journey to self-love and self-acceptance, Leslie became certified as a Life Coach and attained further certifications in Group Coaching and Emotional Intelligence.
She works closely with her clients, starting with mindset because that is the foundational piece to self-love and self-acceptance. She teaches her clients about triggers and how they affect us emotionally by helping her clients tune into, spot, and understand their own so that they can become more self-aware of their trigger moments and emotional responses.
With proven tools and techniques and with her guidance, her clients tap into and discover their true potential to living their life and loving the life they are living.
Leslie believes that you will transform your life when you Change Your Brain (the way you think).
