Taking Time to Talk About Triggering - S04E06

On this week’s show Kristin and I are talking all about triggering, what it is, who can be triggered, and how we can all talk about it with more care and understanding.

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DISCALIMER:
The views expressed on the Hey Let Me Ask You Something Podcast are solely the opinions of your hosts Kristin Wood and Ralph Andracchio and are based on their years of practical and clinical experience. These opinions do not constitute any kind of advice, diagnosis, or treatment of any mental, physical, or emotional issues. If you are having an emergency or any serious ongoing situations please contact your local hospital or a trusted professional.

Transcript

The Hey Let Me Ask You Something Podcast
Season 04
Episode 06
Taking Time to Talk About Triggering

[MUSIC INTRO PLAYS]

Ralph Andracchio  
Time to get curious. It's the Hey Let Me Ask You Something Podcast, the show dedicated to inspiring more people to ask more questions and have more interesting conversations. On this week's show, Kristen and I are talking all about triggering, what it is we can be triggered and how we can all talk about it with more care and understanding.

Kristin Wood  
Well, I think it can happen very quickly right the the reaction or the feeling so I will say the feelings and in some cases people can react badly yelling, attacking I don't necessarily mean physically but that can happen too. And then what to do with it right? Where are some so somebody that was overwhelmed and triggered could withdraw.

Ralph Andracchio  
And again, that whole thing of why you so sensitive and like stop being so sensitive stop being crazy. It's it's these over the top reactions when somebody says hey, that triggered me or that's that's a sensitive topic for me or something like that. It's it speaks to our general understanding and comfort with mental health and the best way for you to help us inspire more conversations and easily find more of our great episodes. Hit that subscribe button and share the show with your friends. And check us out on YouTube if you want to see us as well as hear us. And remember, we love that you're listening but the show is for entertainment, we are not your therapist or your coach. We are not providing professional advice either from us or our guests. Give the full disclaimer in the show notes a once over for more info on Alright folks, let's start this conversation

Ralph Andracchio  
We look awesome. We look amazing always.

Kristin Wood  
Always. Always smiling.

Ralph Andracchio  
It's too warm. Well, yeah, I like when it's summer and like when it's hot out. But sometimes it's a little too muggy. But it's not muggy today. It's like direct.

Kristin Wood  
Today it's just a little warm, not humid. The humanity comes tomorrow or Friday.

Ralph Andracchio  
Are you a fan of humidity?

Kristin Wood  
No, I don't love humidity. Nobody no humidity, but I like hot. So I'll take the humidity. But this weekend will be awesome. It's going to be high 70s not humid. Sunny, high 70's. Ralph is happy.

Ralph Andracchio  
That's yeah, that makes me happy.

Kristin Wood  
happy. Good weekend weather.

Ralph Andracchio  
Perfect. weekend weather to be inside working on Saturday. I mean, I'm I'm coaching comedy. So it's work but it's happy. It's happy work. It's good, happy work. What's going on anything exciting happened since last we spoke

Kristin Wood  
Oh, the weekend was not appropriate for me to be pooling so I couldn't go to the pool.

Ralph Andracchio  
What happened? Oh, yeah. How was the barbecue? Because last time we had our we recorded you were about to go to the barbecue in the building.

Kristin Wood  
Oh yeah. That was two weeks ago. So yeah, that wasn't last week was late. No, it was this week. It was last week. It was good. I was so hungry. I literally couldn't see. I felt like I was gonna pass out and I inhaled an entire hotdog and burger in probably five minutes. The entire thing was gone and then I felt sick.

Ralph Andracchio  
You may be so hungry after we before during and after we recorded last week because you kept talking about hamburgers and hotdogs. I came home and immediately made myself a huge dinner like I don't usually eat that late but I was like I'm so hungry.

Kristin Wood  
I was so hungry. I was so hungry all and it's why I kept talking about it because there's food down there. And then like people were like, We're going to 630 I'm like It's like 557 starts at six. I'm ready to go down there like just because I'm so hungry. And like I care about who's there. 

Ralph Andracchio  
Was there a lot of people there? 

Kristin Wood  
Yeah, there were a lot of people there. It was good.

Ralph Andracchio  
The people from the building?

Kristin Wood  
Yeah. I mean, it's not like whoa, you know, but it was nice, nice. The staff makes the food and serves it which is nice. And you talk to people in

Ralph Andracchio  
Did you make any new friends.

Kristin Wood  
I met a woman Yeah, I met one new woman in my build in my in the place while I was there. She's somebody's mother that I know like somebody I know from outside of the buildings mom and she like wanted to meet me and she doesn't know that many people so I was like helping her meet people and are just being the social chair that I am of course.

Ralph Andracchio  
If you had to make a rough back of the napkin guestimation about what the the age of the population in your building, would it skew older or younger?

Kristin Wood  
It's both really that's what's cool about it. It's like such a mix of ages. Okay, and that's what I like about it. Like there's definitely some much older people in there. But there's also very young people in their 20s There's people in us that people in their 30s so people in their 40s People know I mean honestly, every age, there aren't a lot of kids, little kids, and that's mostly because like it's hard to have kids in a condominium unit. You know,

Ralph Andracchio  
it's hard to have kids in 2022 period.

Kristin Wood  
Right. There's not lots of spacers to pull and all that so there are people with kids, you know more so you're gonna see infants, people that have had like their first kid or whatever are really little kids, but you don't see like teenage kids. Or even middle school kids. I think people move out by the time their kids are that old. So you don't see a lot of that.

Ralph Andracchio  
Move to the suburbs. Mount Airy. 

Kristin Wood  
Yeah. Those abouts. Yup.

Ralph Andracchio  
Germantown. If you're not from around Philly, those are the those are like farmers. That's fine. Yeah. Um, what has happened? I got a new I don't know if it's, uh, I don't know if I can call it a job but it's a new opportunity to do more. More in Pro I don't want to say too much about it right now, but it's, I'm not gonna jinx it. But yeah, it's very exciting. I am filling my life with comedy. And it's amazing. And I it's amazing that I can like over the weekend we went to a friend's birthday party a few blocks away and met all of his like friends that we've never seen before. And we were all talking and one of the guys and saying, oh, you know we're doing and what do you do for work, but he's for it. And he was like, So what do you do? And I was like, I'm a full time comedian. And I was like, it was so cool. You're also able to say that I'm still a coach. I still have the training. I'm still like, bringing that into what I do, but it's like a comedy all all of my focus is now on doing what I do through the lens of comedy more, more broadly and more often and

Kristin Wood  
it's just awesome. No happy Ralph's Happy Christmas. And happy little camper show called Hey, let me so to say hi, you asked me something and I'm like,

Ralph Andracchio  
Oh, how do you say let me ask you say how do you ask a question? Wow, you don't know the name of our show.

Kristin Wood  
I was trying for a minute. My words got jumbled.

Ralph Andracchio  
Wow. Wow. I don't mean to fire. I don't mean to scare you, but our next our next episode is going to be our one year anniversary.

Kristin Wood  
I know so excited June

Ralph Andracchio  
2, I think we had we posted our first episode. So Lou, we accept gifts. Accessing. Yeah. Gift cards, Olive Garden gift cards. And less breadsticks my god are so good. And lists and then they don't even they don't even make the breadsticks there. They just get pallets and pallets of plain old breadsticks like in the back of a truck and they just whatever they do they slathered butter and olive oil and it's fine with me. I'm still going to put it my mouth. Yeah, I don't care

Kristin Wood  
about it right now. hungry again.

Ralph Andracchio  
I put a lot of stuff in my mouth. That's been on the back of a truck. So I'm I'm

Kristin Wood  
I'm gonna leave that

Ralph Andracchio  
one. We're gonna let that one lay there. We'll put it put a pillow under its head and let it sleep. We're not going to disturb that one. It's just family show at all right? Is this?

Kristin Wood  
I hope not. I don't know.

Ralph Andracchio  
Some people may be listening with their kids. They may be stuck in the 50s and gather around the radio.

Kristin Wood  
Oh my god, that'd be amazing. If you do that, please, please send us a video. Hey,

Ralph Andracchio  
if you do that, no judgment. That's great. Love it. Yeah, absolutely.

Kristin Wood  
We have you know, such exciting topics. It's good for most family. Depending on our topic. The age little kids would be like what

Ralph Andracchio  
little kids would be well, I mean, we could do a whole episode about I don't even know what kids are watching these days.

Kristin Wood  
So ask me anyhow, can we do a show about that?

Ralph Andracchio  
Are the Teletubbies still a thing? Oh,

Kristin Wood  
my God. Probably no, we're not doing this episode.

Ralph Andracchio  
The Wiggles

Kristin Wood  
teletypes are probably like elderly.

Ralph Andracchio  
Do they age?

Kristin Wood  
I don't really think they were scary enough in their youth. I don't really want to see an age tele Toby

Ralph Andracchio  
I want to see a whole like gritty show on on Netflix about teenage Teletubbies like going through puberty. getting bullied in high school finding love finding themselves finding themselves hobbies within. I don't know. Yeah, let's run with that. I'll call some people. I'll have my people call your people.

Kristin Wood  
Really good. Everybody's very excited. Right?

Ralph Andracchio  
I don't have people. I wish I had people.

Kristin Wood  
I mean, I'll call my friend and I'll make them be a people.

Ralph Andracchio  
Yeah, I mean, I have people like I have friends. I just don't like industry people like people people who can make

Kristin Wood  
a producer assistant. No, we did. I'd have them in about 20 minutes we fullness delicious ginger ale right?

Ralph Andracchio  
Damn Canada Dry. Cranberry ginger ale.

Kristin Wood  
Delicious.

Ralph Andracchio  
i We're giving them free publicity right now. But it's so good. So yeah,

Kristin Wood  
especially in the summer. It's

Ralph Andracchio  
so good. All right. So we've wasted we didn't waste any time I talked about a whole bunch of I enjoy Yeah, but No, today we want to talk about triggering. Not a gun. But the, the act of or the feeling of being triggered by something like what that is like what is what is triggering. What thing what kind of things trigger people. And like what's the dynamic between and you had a good point about like who? Who the onus is on when things when something is triggering and like it's especially right now. I think it's it's an interesting topic. I don't know what kind of outcome we're going to have by the end of this but I think it's we don't plan it. We just kind of see what comes up and this is something that's been coming up a lot in my social media scroll with your clients. So it's like, it's something that's at top of mind for us. So yeah, today's gonna be all about triggering

Kristin Wood  
a definition and we didn't because I was like, I don't know if I know how to define it in a really beautiful,

Ralph Andracchio  
beautiful and eloquent way. To define triggering. Well, I think I think it's kind of said it earlier. It's like it's something that I mean, if I if I had to just define it in a really loosey goosey way I think it excuse me, it's something that when you it's a it's a word, a phrase, an image, a story that a person, a person that when you are exposed to it or hear it or see it, it kind of reconnects you with a past trauma that you've had that that could make you relive it all over again are the feelings or triggers the behavior. So now we're using the word to define the word.

Kristin Wood  
Oh, yeah,

Ralph Andracchio  
I listen my linguistics word. Oh, there we go. Yeah, I knew we would get there.

Kristin Wood  
I might have forgotten the name of the show but I remembered the word and elicits a strong response.

Ralph Andracchio  
Right. So what kind of things and I know you can't go into detail, but what kinds of things do clients come to you about? That could be considered a trigger triggering for them, but does it run the gamut or is there a specific

Kristin Wood  
thing I know I feel like sound like a broken record every week. But I think a lot of times triggers can have to do with the way we feel about ourselves. But it also can trip be triggering like if somebody like something from our childhood a parental figure or a significant figure, a trauma, a trauma that happened to us can be triggering. You know, a situation that mimics something that was extremely emotionally devastating can set us off. So sometimes like a trigger can be something as simple as, for instance, I'll give you a deep, dark, deep and dark think of like abuse, okay, um, if somebody was abused by their father or a male person and they're walking through their life, and they hear a voice that sounds exactly like that person and have a very intense emotional reaction. Some people could even go as far as to have a panic attack about it, but that person is not there. But something about that person the situation the thing if it's a if it's a thing that somebody wants to see, that's not an actual person that elicits such a strong emotional reaction that it feels like it's way off the charts with what's going on. So why of course, would a man's voice almost put someone in a panic attack? Nobody would understand that except that person, when they realized that that voice just triggered a history of abuse by someone who had that same exact voice. Now that's a very serious reaction.

Ralph Andracchio  
I if there's anybody out there who I want to preface this by saying I see a lot of stuff online from people who use triggered as as a joke or a punch, or like, oh, is this triggering you snowflake or like something like that to pull people down? Please don't do that. That's, it's gross, and it's wrong and it says more about you and your mental state than it does about the person that you're directing it at. I think, I think they're, what somebody says triggers them is none of your effing business. And if somebody says, hey, that's some triggering for me, or hey, that's something that I would rather not talk about. Hey, why not just believe them and don't talk about it or don't reference it like you doing it after the fact or, or, or continuing to say something or do something that somebody is saying elicits a strong reaction from them. You're just being a bully and a jerk and a small person and don't do it. So

Kristin Wood  
I want to it could be in those instances, too is the behavior of the person who was triggered might not have been great might have been, let's just call it bad behavior in reaction. And then if a person is having a hard time managing their behavior around the trigger, it's an IS is in fact behaving badly. Let's just say, then other people can come back with like, those types of negative responses. I'm not saying anybody's right. And that whole scenario, it's not about right or wrong.

Ralph Andracchio  
Right. Not right, but like yes, yeah, exactly. So that being said, also, I kind of picture when somebody says, I'm, you know, that's triggering for me, right. You know, I have stuff that triggers me. We all have stuff that triggers a response from all of us. I liken it to the way certain smells can elicit a really strong memory for us because our, the bulbs that process sound or smells for us, is hardwired directly into our brain like our not even our prefrontal cortex but like the place that processes memories and emotions and stuff. So like as soon as you smell fresh baked cookies, or cut grass or something, it's like it triggers an emotion or a memory immediately without you even having to think about it. And that's what I think when somebody says I'm you know, something's triggering to me or something elicits a reaction, strong reaction. That's what I think of when you smell cookies. It's like, oh, I have this memory immediately, and I can't control it.

Kristin Wood  
Just made me think and I don't know the answer to this about just why is it always a negative connotation? Because maybe I'm smelling fresh cut grass and maybe spelling. I mean, cookies can can trigger memories of somebody or childhood, or have a grand mom or making cookies with a special person. That could probably elicit that same as my word today. That could probably bring up those same strong feelings but more in a positive way. Also right? Just like the smells, sounds, tastes everything can can trigger you with negative and intense emotions. I think it could also do the same. On the other side, too. Yeah, we're gonna spend much time talking about that. But I just wanted to note that part.

Ralph Andracchio  
Yes, that happens too. Yeah, true. So triggering could have a positive connotation as well, but we don't we usually use it and then the negative capacity. So what kinds of things happen when somebody gets triggered? Like what kind of mental physical reactions to people? Have?

Kristin Wood  
Well, I think it can happen very quickly, right? The the reaction or the feeling so I'm gonna say the feelings. The feelings can happen really, really quickly. And in some cases, people can then react right? Badly yelling, attacking don't necessarily mean physically but that can happen to worst case scenario go into a full blown panic. As well as sometimes it can happen. Sometimes it can happen just similar to that but all the internal where the person is just sort of overwhelmed with the emotion. They don't necessarily react outwardly. But they have because of the intensity of what's going on. They have a hard time focusing on anything else but sort of takes over and then what to do with it. Right where some so somebody that was overwhelmed and triggered could withdraw, also, but that doesn't mean they're necessarily any better space and somebody that acts out when they're feeling these feelings because they're then sitting with them and often not understanding them, or beating themselves up about it. Like why would you get so upset about this thing that someone said, Who cares? Why are you being so sensitive? Being such a baby and they're not thinking that and then like start to logical ourselves, I call it where we start talking logically, but really what's active is our emotional selves. So it's, our emotions are not often logical. So they're, those two don't always communicate well. So um, you know, it can be damaging, I think in the way that we may act towards others, right? We react negatively towards someone very strong. And it also can be just as bad to when we don't react, but we're sitting with it. Because either which way I think it can cause problems in a relationship before any relationship if we're acting out on somebody about it, but it also nine times out of 10 is going to come back to us beating ourselves up as well. You're That's so stupid. Why are you being so sensitive? Don't be such a baby. Why would you react that way? That was crazy. I'm crazy. So oftentimes, the part that as therapist I see is so damaging about it, is the way that we talk to each to ourselves about it, especially if we don't have the awareness that it was a trigger, especially if we just think we like flew off the handle and we're crazy. We're on the Crazy Train, right? Then we tend to really beat ourselves up quite a bit. And that gets us nowhere. It's like a big giant negative. It's a when we do that. We're not seeing what's the forest for

Ralph Andracchio  
the trees or whatever, seeing the forest for the trees or

Kristin Wood  
yeah, we're not seeing what's really going on. Right, which has nothing to do with the thing in front of us. And we're also beating ourselves. up which is obviously super bad for our self esteem. So and if we yell at someone or act, we're going to do the same thing to so being able to recognize and understand which a lot of people do through therapy, although some people can do it on their own. What's, what's happening or at least just by being able to identify as I am being triggered, something's going on here because level of reactive emotion I feel right now does not match X thing. And by being able to understand your triggers and where they come from, and when they're happening, it allows somebody to be more compassionate towards themselves potentially prevent themselves from behaving in a way that they don't want to behave in and hopefully be more understanding rather than jump on that negative train of self punishment.

Ralph Andracchio  
Yeah, and again, that whole thing of Why are you so sensitive and like stop being so sensitive, stop being crazy, it's, it's these over? It's these over the top reactions when somebody says, hey, that triggered me or that's that's a sensitive topic for me or something. Like that. It's it speaks to our general understanding and comfort with mental health and the United States. I think. Our idea of somebody who is not at 100% mental health and capacity is damaged or flawed or less than in some way, which is completely false. Please don't think that way about yourself or anybody else. But also, I think every like I said before, I think everybody gets triggered by something. And the more we can, like you said, realize, Oh, I feel a certain way when that topic comes up, or I see that person or I hear that thing. That's you being triggered and unless you something's eliciting a response from you, and I think being able to step back and say oh, wow, I wonder what that's about. Yeah. Is a great is a great first step to understanding more about yourself and about the world. And you know, and what comes into my mind because because it's in the news everywhere, and it affects me and in people I know and love is a lot of the attacks on the LGBTQ community, especially this dumb thing about people getting over the top angry about drag queen storytime at at libraries, like drag queen if you don't know what this is. There's a bunch of cities in the US I'm sure all over but I can only speak for this country where library local libraries have drag, tweak, drag queen storytime where they come and they read a book to the kids and the kids freaking love it and the parents love it. It's like this really fun, happy time when people come together, do something crazy and fun. And all of these parents are so triggered a bit like you're indoctrinating our kids and it's all about sex and you're wearing that stuff that you're flaunting. It's a man in a dress that's triggered if I ever saw it, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the drag queen, the performer, the kids, they're the parents. They're the librarian has to do with you and something in your past or your brain that's being triggered by what's happening. There is nothing sexy, sexy or illicit or weird happening. But if you're mapping that on top of this kid storytime that's happening. There's something going on with you and your personal life and your history that's eliciting that response. And you I think it would be beneficial for you to take a step back and take a breath and say wow, why am I so angry about this thing that's happening that actually doesn't affect me at all. It's like anything else. If you don't like drag queen storytime, don't go to drag queen storytime. If you don't like gay marriage, don't get gay married. It's like if you don't like this stuff, just don't do it. I don't understand why people are going off on a tangent. I don't understand why people think oh, I don't like something so that that means it's bad for everybody. And I have to get rid of it for everybody because it's wrong and terrible. Like, where does that come from? Just don't do the thing. Don't watch don't watch the show. Don't listen to the music. Don't go to the live event. Don't just don't do it. Let other people have fun. You know. So, yeah, take a breath, take a step back and say oh my gosh, why is this triggering me? So why am I offended by this so much?

Kristin Wood  
Right? And it takes a lot of practice to figure that out and awareness and wanting to be aware right? You know, when we start focusing outward outward and everything else right then you know we can we take it away from ourselves we're not really looking at a real problem is why are you having such a strong reaction? I try to do this in my life. I do. And even if it's not like per se, a trigger. I think sometimes if something's just really bothering me that happened, and at first it was like, it happened and it bothered me a little bit when it keeps staying with me. Like I try to take a step back with what is this question like something else is going on here? That you are still thinking about it or talking about it, or whatever the case may be. So let's dig a little deeper. Now. I'm a therapist. I've done tons of therapy, but like, I know everyone doesn't heal thyself. Everybody doesn't do this, but it's easy to be just go off and then decide you're crazy and leave it at that. I mean, that's not good for you. But I mean, people do it all the time. But I think, you know, I wanted to go back to something you said a few minutes ago with, you know, the mental health and people not being sensitive towards I think too when you call people when people would call someone beat you're being sensitive. You're being this you're being that two things from the mind. Number one, I think that happens of course. But I also think that that people do it to themselves without anyone else saying anything. tell themselves that. And the other piece is that and we talked about this before we get started. It's a good segue, but that how much onus is on the other person, you know, in the sense of if some pert somebody triggers you, right and they don't know they triggered you because sometimes just doing nothing per se wrong. I can't really deal with my hand but sometimes they don't do anything wrong but but something that they do triggers you for whatever reason. If you you may or may not and that's up to you choose to discuss that with this person, depending on what the relationship is, what's the context of the situation, blah, blah, blah. But if you aren't going to share with this person, something they're doing that I'm not thinking of a good example, but I'm picking up what you're putting down yeah, that there's something they're doing is triggering you. I guess is the onus on you, then that you're being triggered or that it keeps happening. Does that be a perfect example of you? Being angry at person, whoever, spending a lot of time thinking about person, whatever talking other people about this person, and they don't even know they did anything, and they're not going to necessarily stop doing anything. So you're just going to keep getting triggered. And then you could possibly just keep blaming them. But if you do not figure it out yourself and communicate it to someone to when we say the onus is on you at that point,

Ralph Andracchio  
I I see what you're saying and I have a perfect example and because I think I've seen this before where maybe you have a friend who you hang out with who for some reason reminds you of somebody or some event or some traumatic thing that's happened and you may not know it on a conscious level but there's something about them that's like, gets you angry and you still hang out with them and you're still their friend, but every time you hang out there's an argument it's like a big thing and there's drama, drama, oh my God, there's so much drama. And you don't like you don't discuss it or address it in any way and it just keeps happening. I think I think that may be an example of what yeah

Kristin Wood  
and I also started thinking about in romantic relationships. That you know, this happens quite a bit where somebody does something, and it might not be a great thing, but maybe, but you have such a strong reaction to it because it's triggering something from a past person, right. Someone asked me the Usher song you remind me. I'm sorry, I went in there and I looked it up. Yeah, that's basically him talking about how he can't date this person because they remind him so much as somebody that broke his heart. So I think yeah, I think it happens that like that to where you can't you may have a reaction to something I've done this so I know that it's happened where somebody does something and I have like over the top reaction and I realized that it's it's because what that person did just triggered me from a past relationship where I was deeply hurt. So all of a sudden, I see read, or whatever, and that person is that person, but really, they're not. They just did one thing and all of a sudden I went from zero to 100. And I think that this happens to people all the time.

Ralph Andracchio  
Yeah, yeah, it's so it's it's kind of on again, and it's this comes up a lot but that's because it's it's a it's a truth bomb. It's a universal truth. It's up to both people in the conversation, the relationship, whatever the case may be, to arrive with best intentions. And being open like the person who is being triggered or does have a strong reaction to something that's happening like you said shouldn't be honest with themselves about what's actually happening. What's What's the trigger Why'd away. You know, if it keeps happening, why does it Schiavo and it's up to the other person to who may not be being triggered, but maybe doing the triggering unknowingly or something of like, if the person says to you, hey, this is an issue for me being open and saying, Oh, I didn't know that. Okay, cool. I'm glad we're having this conversation and talking about it because I care about you and I don't want you know, or if you're a stranger, and somebody says that something triggers you just saying, oh, okay, great. Thank you for saying that. I'll know I'll know that from now on. Now. I have that information and not saying, Oh, just don't be so sensitive. Because that doesn't help. And you're being a jerk. So don't do that.

Kristin Wood  
Yeah, it doesn't help. It doesn't matter how hard for people to admit that, too. I mean, if somebody is brave enough, and won't be able to be vulnerable enough to tell you that right, that's not easy to do. No, that's very vulnerable and for somebody to have a critical, negative reaction as someone that's putting themselves in that position where they just straight up don't sound like a good person, I'm sorry.

Ralph Andracchio  
And also I did a tech talk today on on anger and how how easy anger is and how easy hatred is because you don't really have to think about it. You don't have to talk about it. You don't have to open up to anybody. You don't have to connect in any meaningful way with anybody. Being angry is super easy. And the harder thing to do and the stronger thing to do is being able to open up and talk to somebody about or mentioned like, Hey, I have this thing you know, that's the much stronger thing, the stronger position to be in and not you know, just getting angry is easy. And I do this. I see this a lot with when I teach. When I teach new performers like when I teach a one on one class. It's always like, it's very easy for them to slip into arguments because they're so easy. It's just like, hey, we're let's, I can't think of anything else. And it's socially acceptable, very good point. It's socially acceptable to be angry rather than be caring and honest and open because that's seen as weak when it's quite the contrary. It's the strongest thing and I don't want to the people who are listening to the podcast can't see this right now. But if you're watching us on YouTube, the painting behind me

Unknown Speaker  
I look like oh circle, right. My head hurts. So I look like I'm gonna look at the rest of the time though. I

Ralph Andracchio  
look like one of those A's. Like if you go to IKEA and you look at some of the A's of the circle on top, it looks like I have or I'm Atella Toby we're just talking about teletype, the tone I didn't even

Kristin Wood  
I did not know now I can't No, I can't I

Ralph Andracchio  
can't see I'm not comfortable. So I'm just gonna have a little I was gonna have a little over my head for the rest of this episode. That's my little thought bubble. It's empty. As per usual, well sorry, getting back to the topic sorry,

Kristin Wood  
I threw everything right. No,

Ralph Andracchio  
I I couldn't let it go. I have to address the circle over my head

Kristin Wood  
we're talking anger has free time. Oh, yes. And I think you're right. I think that, you know, it's really easy for people to just decide. They're angry about something. They're mad at someone. They hate someone and then dig their feet. And I've definitely dealt with this quite a bit. And they don't want to budge. And people struggle with forgiveness, right? People struggle with all these things. And you're right. It's easy, but it's not. It's easy, but it's not. It's easy. In a sense. It's acceptable. It's energizing. It's powerful. But it's all it's heavy at the same time because you're carrying all that around. And it starts to permeate all areas of yourself when you have a whole lot of it. And then you become a negative person and then you can just become a ship angry person, and then you're ultimately not happy. So it's you know, I think people kind of goes exactly I'm thinking right now somebody and it goes exactly what you're talking about. It's it's easier to just be crossing your arms and be like, I don't I don't like it or I'm not talking about that and they're they're this and they're that and and I I have no interest in forgiving them than it is to to like peel back what's going on here. How does this person really make you feel under the anger you know, why is this such a strong you know, really pulling away like to I was so embarrassed by them. They hurt me they violated my trust. You know really getting to what's under it because there's usually a lot of stuff under that. That's a lot harder to do and a lot of people are super resistant because especially if you're feeling a lot of anger or hatred or whatever you want to call it towards someone about something they did. Not only is it hard to be vulnerable, but by being vulnerable. I think people almost equate that with giving power to that other person. You know what I mean? Yeah, letting the anger subside and being vulnerable almost feels like you're giving giving in giving them the power back giving them like almost like they're in the room and they weren't they could see it and they're like, Oh, see, gotcha or whatever. And that can be very difficult to get through with people is that you're not no one's winning here. In fact, by figuring talking about how you really feel and figuring out how to work through it, you're going to be a lot happier. Whether you decide to forgive that person or not. Moving forward.

Ralph Andracchio  
Yeah. Yeah, it's it's a power thing. Yeah. It all comes back to power and anger doesn't come out of nowhere. You know, somebody and I think I've been focusing a lot on people who get angry at people that who say they're being triggered because I I'm always fascinated by why somebody has such an immediate, strong, angry reaction to something. There's

Kristin Wood  
so much going on there. It's vulnerability, right? People are very uncomfortable,

Ralph Andracchio  
right? So it's like anger. It's not just anger. Anger isn't just anger because of anger. Anger is always masking. Can we say anger 20 more times. If you're counting. It's always masking something else. It's about like you said a time vulnerability, powerlessness. You know, fear those are the like big ones that you know, I'm angry about this. Really, I'm just uncomfortable about the topic or the situation or the person you know, whatever the case may be. And it's so much it opens up so much more avenues for conversation and connection to just bypass the anger altogether, and just be honest and say, Hey, I'm uncomfortable. Yeah, great that I can work with you saying I'm angry about this. It doesn't help it like great, you're angry. But what does that mean? Like what? What is what's underneath that? Well, I'm uncomfortable in a situation great that's that's something we can all yours. But it's

Kristin Wood  
it's easy to talk about. It's so hard. It's

Ralph Andracchio  
so hard to do it.

Kristin Wood  
Some people never can do it. They just can't do it. They just will go anger happy or whatever we would call it like, you know, people that are angry and have a really short fuse and seem triggered if you want to call it bring it back. By every little thing, there's so much more going on there and then

Ralph Andracchio  
and it's far easy for us to sit on the couch, you know in Philadelphia and and say, you know, explain everything but I've gone through it. I'm sure at some point you've thought we've all gone through these situations. Where it's it's, it's hard in that moment to do everything we're talking about but no just knowing that the what the truth of the situation is even if you can't really fully, like consciously put your arms around it in the moment at least the knowledge is there, you know of like that's that's what's really going on. It's I think it I think it's easier to come down off of that anger high. If that if that's a thing of like, with that knowledge of it. You know what it really is there must be something else going on.

Kristin Wood  
Even if you don't know what I'm talking about it, you're talking about it I do this for a living. So, like I you know, people that don't don't necessarily think this way. You know, I think just the first step is if you realize you're getting really upset let's just say that make it real simple, about something that doesn't seem to warrant that level, being upset. Maybe trying to figure out what that is because it's there's something going on there with you and some people can figure it out on their own. Some people don't want to figure it out. That's fine. They don't want to figure out if they were triggered or not triggered. Why? Good, that's fine. If you do you know, maybe you can figure it out with some thought and again, not to keep promoting my business. So really, that's part of why we're doing you may need someone to help you with that. Right. You know, people come to me and will say I need help with my anger. I don't know why I'm so angry. And this is what we're talking about today as a lot of what we're doing. Or my partner thinks I'm constantly angry and mad and never happy with anything or whatever the case may be that would bring them to me. And this is the type of stuff that we would do is dig down underneath it to try to understand because I know I'm beating a dead horse I hate that saying they keep saying the local horse but anyway, you know, what people do to themselves around all of this even those people you call you call angry person so and so such an angry person. I guarantee you that so and so probably doesn't feel so good in their quiet moments at the fact that they're always so angry. Yeah. So what's going on internally, oftentimes people don't see and it's pretty ugly.

Ralph Andracchio  
Yeah. And, you know, if you are somebody who is who knows what triggers them, you know, and you you try to talk to other people about it. Be strong in yourself, you know, if you you know, if there's stories you tell or there's you know, people or situations that that aren't do elicit like this strong response from you. Share, you know, to your level of comfort, but I mean, don't be afraid to share that, you know, if it if there's somebody who's talking about something and you it's uncomfortable when you can't leave the situation. I be strong in yourself enough to say hey, this is you know, can we change the spot but

Kristin Wood  
sometimes that might just be I might you know, I'm not comfortable with this topic. Can we change the topic? And that's it and then with somebody that you're closer with, you may go to a different level. It doesn't need to be this big sit down vulnerable circle of trust that you're gonna have with a person. You know, it could be to a boss, even Navy where you say, you know, I really worked better for me if you were to come talk to me face to face and send me what you're not happy with in an email, for instance, like it doesn't mean you don't need to be super duper vulnerable. With everybody. There is a way to communicate this stuff in different different ways to different people, depending on the relationship and what the environment is right. It doesn't need to be but I think the other piece is that we are still responsible for ourselves and our behavior no matter what someone else is doing. So even if we do share it, that doesn't mean that we just like oh, okay, you don't need to worry about that trigger anymore. Now they know. We're still it's still our trigger. We might not have asked for it. What happened as it's coming up, but it's our stuff. And we're still responsible to try to figure out on our own or with some professional. How do I cope in those situations, right? Because just telling somebody wants even if they're a great person that loves you and wants doesn't mean they're not going to do it, do it again, right accidentally, or whatever the case may be. And I just believe no matter what was responsible for our behavior, yes, you can't ride the trigger train and be like, Well, that was a trigger. So I'm allowed to punch you in the face. Like no sorry, you're not everything's a trained and negative trigger frame.

Ralph Andracchio  
Trigger train. And also, just touching back on the work aspect of it because I think that's important because that touches on a bunch of other things that we've covered in past episodes. Check those out. If you're if you work a certain work best under certain conditions or getting certain feedback or communicating in a certain way with your teammates or your boss. Say that you know, put that information out there so people will know like oh, okay, great. You prefer to have get one word one, one sentence emails and like have a five minute conversation great like that. Now we know how you work best. And it's also on your manager or your boss to be able to say, Oh, this is how my team works best. This is how the people on my team prefer to do stuff. And there's a way to find a middle ground where everybody's communicating in the best you know, most efficient effective way. So just

Kristin Wood  
because back to different ways to communicate the information in different scenarios,

Ralph Andracchio  
right. What else is there to say about this? I feel like we've we've hit the we've hit the end of the road. The trigger train is pulling.

Kristin Wood  
This is another it's a big topic. It is. No, it's just about being self aware and when something is seems to be out of the ordinary with you, happens feelings or behavior both that to take a step back and try to understand rather than

Ralph Andracchio  
criticize yourself, right?

Kristin Wood  
Same with somebody else. Somebody else is triggered and they you're like What the hell was that? You know, instead of being wanting to attack them and all that made me think I wonder what's going on with them.

Ralph Andracchio  
Right? Right. And if you're somebody who doesn't believe in the word triggered, or you know, I need to find a different word. This elicits a response like I have this reaction to this thing. Why is one of the most powerful questions in the any language? Why K? I don't know how to say French.

Kristin Wood  
I don't mean any.

Ralph Andracchio  
Okay. But it's a powerful question. One word question. And if you ask yourself that more often, I feel like you you get more, gain more knowledge of self, nor knowledge of other people. And it's it's not a it's not a soft thing. It's not a powerless thing. It's not It's it. It's the most powerful thing you can do.

Kristin Wood  
Yeah. Why asking? Why when something happens, especially if it's something you don't like, can run interference on being judgmental. That's what's the best thing about it. And it's not it's so easy to talk about it, but it can be so hard to do, and I'm definitely not perfect on this one at all. But I try, you know, it's just saying why did that happen? Or was the person doing X, Y or Z trying to understand that is is can prevent a lot of assumptions, judgments and critiques if we're able to do that.

Ralph Andracchio  
And if you don't like the word why, you know, what, what makes me do that, you know, part K Yeah, so ask more questions. That's what leading back to it. That's why Hey, let me ask you something exists because that's what we want to inspire more people to do ask more questions, and you get more answers. If you want to connect with us directly, our contact information is in the show notes. If you have a question for us that you want to ask specifically, where can they write us?

Kristin Wood  
Hey, let me ask you something@gmail.com. Yep, onward. My affiliate therapist Kristen at Gmail. I am accepting new clients anyone is looking for.

Ralph Andracchio  
Please take her up on that offer. She's amazing. And if you're in Philly or in the surrounding area and are interested in improv or comedy, or talking to me in my coach capacity, hit me up. I'm on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, tick tock. Embrace I'm on all the social medias. I may or may not have the circle of

Ralph Andracchio  
All right friends, that's all we have today. See you next time. Bye bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai