How to Navigate Being Triggered in a Digital World

In this episode, Emily Merrell and Lexie Smith dive into how to navigate being triggered while living and working in a digital world. They get personal and share their own experiences of getting triggered on social media and how they’ve navigated accordingly. They explore the root cause of triggers and discuss actional ways listeners and coaches can navigate in today’s digital landscape. 

Here’s what you’ll learn: 

• Examples of triggers they have seen and experienced in personal and business life
• How triggers can business triggers are often attached to something much more personal
• How to acknowledge triggers and explore the root cause
• Examples of the ‘shoulds’ they see come up in motherhood and business
• How triggers can be a positive motivator and help you to take action
• Strategies for dealing with people or places that trigger you
• The benefit of looking at things from an empathetic viewpoint
• How to set boundaries with yourself and your triggers
• And More!

Follow Em & Lex on Instagram at @readysetcoachprogram

Learn more about the Ready Set Coach Program at Readysetcoachprogram.com

Learn more about Six Degrees Society and THEPRBAR inc.

Transcript

 How to Navigate Being Triggered in a Digital World - Podcast Transcript

Lexie Smith  

Hello, Emily. Hello. It's a beautiful fall day. It's beautiful fall day, very fall. Actually.

Emily Merrell  

I do so yesterday, I think you were wearing something comparable. And I got really inspired. I was looking forward to bringing out my Santa Fe jacket.

Lexie Smith  

Jacket. Well look at me being an influencer. Speaking of yesterday, yesterday was an International Women's Day. And Emily and I were chatting about this prior to hitting record. And we're like we should chat about this while hitting record. So Emily, I'm gonna let you kick off our little chatter

Emily Merrell  

here. Chatter chatter. Okay. So I don't know if there's something wrong with me. But International Women's Day feels so performative to me, in that a heard from like 1000 brands that I haven't heard from all year round. And they're like, yeah, you've been a woman, and congrats, and yet, and maybe it's because it's because I'm a mom, those are words, Emily, maybe it's because of my mom. Or maybe it's because I feel every single woman's right has been questioned or rolled back in the last year. And I also feel this way too, in terms of like a Mother's Day or Father's Day, it's one day of the year to like, give acknowledgement to an underserved population. So long story long. I think that I think it's gonna bullshit.

Lexie Smith  

It's kind of bullshit. So I hear you on some, here's the first point that I let me say this. Yesterday, I felt conflicted. Because while there still has been advancements and women's rights you compare today to 100 years ago, a lot has been progressed or rolled back in the past year. And so I felt very unsure of how to feel. And so I actually opened a dialogue on Twitter and Instagram saying, I want to know how people feel. Are you celebrating? Are you angry? I got a lot of mixed responses. And the across the board consensus was most people felt conflicted. Because of exactly what I just said, like there's there's positives here, and I'm hopeful, but I'm also scared and terrified. Um, so that's the one thing I wanted to relate to regarding the celebratory aspect. I don't know, I think um, I agree it's performative. Any holiday that's highlighting some sort of social issue or underrepresented people I do feel on social media, there's tends to be a performative, the black square happening in 2020 was a great example. I am pro celebration now. Um, I'm like, I don't know where I land on the Should we have a day or not?

Emily Merrell  

I don't know. I think where I struggle, I struggle doing events for women, pretty much daily or weekly, like I'm hosting a ton of events on at six degrees society. And every year, I always feel like I take pause in March, like, Oh, should I make a big deal out of this day? Should I make a big deal about and do something special, like whatever happens on this day is more special than all the other programming. And I've decided to continue rolling forward and just creating it, like a programming that feels good to me and good to my audience versus making it a more particular celebration. I don't know if that's the right choice at maybe it's also a trigger or fear for me, of standing out in the noise and the chatter, there's so much chatter there's so I got so many emails, trying to compete, like, I feel like I'm competing for space and time that I don't touch it with a 10 foot pole, or maybe so maybe there's a trigger within that, too. I think

Lexie Smith  

what you're highlighting is it's, it's a complicated issue. There's multiple sides to it. And I think that in today's current landscape, where canceled culture too, is so prevalent, there's a lot of fear baked into and a lot of shoulds and a lot of people trying to understand how to navigate the digital world in a way that feels authentic, but it's also saying the right thing without getting, you know, called out and so it becomes really You complicated into your point triggering, which is why we started talking about this in the first place and really serves as the inspiration for today's episode. Today we're going to really talk about how to navigate being triggered in this digital world that we're living in. Specially as a coach, a lot of your your world is lived online. So we're going to dive into two triggers and ways to move about them. And Emily and I are gonna get really, really honest and talk about some of our own.

Emily Merrell  

Yeah. And last, I actually want to kick off a question for you. Have you ever been triggered by someone on Instagram?

Lexie Smith  

Oh, my goodness, guys. Yes, yes. First and foremost, I am not some mystical evolved Yoda of a human being who is adverse or does not get triggered, I have done a lot of work in this category. Some days and better than others, I can go a solid month and a half now without getting triggered. And then there's a random Tuesday where we're all goes down a deep, dark rabbit hole. And I'm texting Emily going, Ah, right. So I share that because I'm, I'm human. And I think that no matter how much work we do in ourselves, we have to give ourselves grace and forgiveness that even if we worked through some of the items behind triggers that are still going to happen. So anyways, that was a very long answer to Yes,

Emily Merrell  

I do get triggered Emily. So today I was with a girlfriend. And she was telling me, we were talking about motherhood. And she's a new mom. And she was saying that, like, she had wished that there had been a caption or there had been a bigger warning, like how hard it was going to be because she had seen everything on Instagram, and she had seen her peers. And maybe there is an aspect of people before her not being as truthful as she thought that they should have been or not telling her the full story of motherhood. But she was talking about Instagram and how she gets triggered by seeing other moms who are in the same space as her the same timeline as her. And their, their version of, of motherhood looks so beautiful and hunky dory, while hers might not have be the same thing. So I think triggers can be something that that happened both in your personal life, and also in your professional life. And I write down or they can happen simultaneously, where you see that business owner who's also like, first class on a plane with her, her newborn baby going to Costa Rica for a month, and you might get triggered because you're at home with vomit all over you.

Lexie Smith  

Absolutely. I also think most professional will say like professional based triggers have some sort of personal trigger attached. So first, let's let's talk, let's pause for a second when we say you get triggered, we're meaning you see something and you spiral, whether it be start feeling jealous, or you start feeling insecure, or like an impostor or like you're doing something wrong. Regardless, it starts this, this spiral effect in your brain where emotion comes up, it can be anger, it could be fear, it could be frustration. Usually it isn't happiness, you aren't usually triggered into happiness, at least in the context of this, this article and I'll share, I'll speak to a specific example myself. And this is when Emily knows very well, there is a competitor of mine, I mean, on paper, you would say she is a competitor of mine, that for a period of time, largely in 2020. We're in 2023. So 2022 and 2021. Like that timeframe. Anytime I saw her popping up in my, my world, whether it be in a Slack channel on social media, because it wasn't just social media. It was around, I would spiral and I would text Emily and I'd be like, Girl, pull me out. I need help here. And what really I had to do is I had to pause and dig deep into the why. Why does this bother me so much?

Emily Merrell  

And did we find an answer?

Lexie Smith  

We did? We found answers. So I think so here's our first tip for you guys. When you're noticing yourself starting to spiral. The first thing that you want to do is pause and acknowledge it like oh, wow, I am name it right. I'm being triggered. I'm about to spiral. And if you haven't done the work already, if this is new to you or a new trigger, pause and ask yourself that question why is this triggering to me? My answer to why this girl was triggering me was very complex. It crossed over issues of race to be honest, it crossed on issues of she believes and preaches some be very different than me. So there was some hurt on my ego, there was some, some, oh, if people are buying into her way of doing things, and there's no room for my way of doing things, there was scarcity, there was all these different layers that were triggering me, as you know,

Emily Merrell  

I'm very familiar with the triggers. So I appreciate you sharing that too. And, and to add on, I think, a lot of times, so this person that that lacks, he just references someone she's never met before. So that's someone that she's had any connection to. But simultaneously, you can also be triggered by people who are in your backyard so to speak, your closest friends can be triggers to you, your peers in your in your business can be triggers to you, your colleagues can be triggers to you. And I loved what you said lacs about naming the trigger or acknowledging the trigger. Because a lot of times, usually the trigger has nothing to do with that person. It has everything to do with you. And it might be something that you want, or something that you feel like you lack or something that you feel like you're behind schedule, at whatever it may be. And similar works through my own triggers with certain friends that I love and I support and I totally cheerlead. But when I see their content, there's this feeling this tightness in my stomach, stomach and kind of like a sharpness in my chest. And it took me a very long time to go from like, being kind of snarky about it to understanding, like, embracing it and loving them for for what they were doing and acknowledging that I'm not them and they are not me. And we can have completely different ways of doing something and communicating.

Lexie Smith  

And I think a key here that you hear and both Emily and my high level triggers, of course, we're doing the respect to protect names here. But usually the trigger to Emma's point has nothing to do with them. And it's rather highlighting either a past trauma or an insecurity or a fear in yourself basically, it's like holding a big old mirror in front of ourselves. So motherhood if you're seeing someone doing motherhood so easily what's the mere telling you what what am I doing wrong? Because this shit is hard, right?

Emily Merrell  

And I also want to I want to acknowledge and I love the fact that we can always have real talk with one another Lex too, and I hope it's helpful for audience likes and I are very different and but we're also very complementary. And we're we're also very connected, but we both had children around the same time and had very different experiences with children. And I don't want to put words in your mouth but like my kid was a easy sleeper and yours wasn't an easy sleeper and Lex is a supermom and like has kept photo albums and photo books and I'm like, oh my god shit I should have been better. And so even things that don't mean to be triggers and mean are meant to be helpful or inspirational can sometimes be received as a trigger for you which prompt like, oh my god, I ordered a photo album after a new Lexus, keep in mind, and it can it can move action to so trigger can also be something that that you then take action or implement into your own life for business.

Lexie Smith  

Yeah, it comes back to this word should, too. I think the mother has examples a great one. So I've been I have many things I am not great at in the world of motherhood, but a goal of mine or something i that is important to me, or something I appreciated that my mother did for me was was crafting, she was very DIY, she made me costumes. And so this is a tradition I wanted to carry over and Ashley's birthday is coming up. So I've been doing a lot of crafting and I've been sharing it on social media. And I've been having a lot of mom friends reach out going oh my god, you're such a good mom. I should be doing this. And I think that's a trap. I think the should word is a trap. Because who gets to write the ultimate shoulds of motherhood and life and business? Like who gets to hold that? baton? I mean, religiously? Is it God? I don't know. But who gets to be the one and only all superpower who says that one way of doing something? It should? Should be how everyone else do does it right?

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, it is fascinating. Motherhood is a really fun way to see who gets triggered by you. I remember one of my closest friends who had a terrible terrible time with her son, or daughter. When she came over when I first heard Jackson. She was like, Are you for real? Are you bullshitting all of us, like you make motherhood seem so easy on social media? And I was like, I'm also an annoyingly energetic, don't need much sleep person. So my tolerance for sleep is different than like your tolerance for this individual needed 12 hours of sleep to be a functional human being. And so we are I love what you said like who holds the baton of shoulds in this world? Because there is no no A ton. And I wish there was also a magic one that said, we should all not be triggered, and I could waive it and everyone would, all the triggers would disappear. But I do think that triggers are healthy. And I think they are really good moment and reflection point for your own life.

Lexie Smith  

Yeah, they're an opportunity for self development, I was just editing some writing of a shared client of ours. She's doing some press and there was a line in her interview that I was reviewing that said something about entrepreneurship being the biggest self development project she's ever been on. I think entrepreneurship and motherhood, whatever category you fall in with, you're listening to could not agree more and trigger is an exploring triggers and why we're triggered, if can be an opportunity in that same vein, so So step one is to name it. Right. And as you can hear, Emily and I are, are very pro than exploring what's at the root cause of that trigger. But Emily, let's say I blocked set person on Instagram. Is that the solution? What what happens? If are they going to show up in other places other than Instagram? What if all of a sudden I'm in an event, and they're there? What are some other things that you can do to navigate those triggers?

Emily Merrell  

Lex, how can people find out how to

Lexie Smith  

work with us? Super simple, go to ReadySet? Coach program.com, they can show notes?

Emily Merrell  

Well, hmm, this is a good question. I think one of the things that is coming to my mind, and maybe, again, I have a very unique personality of I think we were talking about this the other day, Lex T was like who isn't do someone that triggers your who's an enemy or whatnot. And I feel like, I'm very passionate about taking that person and getting to know them. So my strategy probably would be like, I shouldn't invite this person for coffee and like get to know them a little bit more and understand where they're coming from. So my strategy would be like creating a connection point or connection moment versus blocking them. That being said, that might be hard for you to a person to do. And then I think the other thing I would do too, is I love amplifying other women and I love being able to use my platform for good where I'm like, okay, sure, I can't dance and look cute on Instagram. And, you know, what I can do is I have a really, really engaged audience, and I can celebrate her most recent reel that I agree with, and I can be a moment I can take that trigger. And I can, I can share, I can release it by sharing it, which is weird. I know, it sounds, I probably needed the

Lexie Smith  

ultimate high road. I think it's like a North Star. And I think you're a perfect example of what the high road looks like. I'll say, you aren't as wonderful as a human as Emily. Okay, if you're practicing, practicing

Emily Merrell  

her voodoo doll in the back,

Lexie Smith  

I feel. I think empathy is this is something that a therapist told me once is that empathy is a skill that can be practiced or is a empathy is a skill that can be learned and practiced. So when I am getting triggered, I'm not someone who I mean, back in my adolescence, I might have blocked that felt more rash. Now I try to achieve look at things from an empathetic standpoint and realize how many times in my life has someone looked at me and assumed they knew everything sumed through and I try to give them that same benefit of a doubt. I don't know what's going on in their life. I don't know just like they don't know my whole story. That's been helpful, helpful perspective for me, and also being cognizant of my triggers and putting them around boundaries. So here's what I mean, set individual joined a community that I was in, and it there wasn't a situation where even if I was an adolescent flexing could block or that I could anymore, so I had to put a boundary around myself to not go down the scroll rabbit hole of her her profile, so to say in this community, so I had to put a boundary on myself to not put myself in a known position where I could be triggered. Now if I were sitting in a room with her and I can't like I literally can't, I'd say that's when Emily's if you don't if you can't find empathy out of like if you don't have it to begin with, can you look for it and I think a conversation to your point getting to know them is how you can learn and create that empathy for them.

Emily Merrell  

The other night I went to a, a gathering of I went to Denison and Ohio and it was a gathering of the President of the President of Denison flew to Denver, and it was basically like high level Aaron what was happening on campus. And one of the things that he said that I so appreciated he's like, my favorite thing about Denison is forcing people that are not the same to be in be roommates with one another, like a privileged liberal from the Northeast with someone who grew up in the South Side of Chicago, slash like someone who is in Midwest, Ohio, who's a Trump supporter, all put in the same room and feeling like they have all these differences, but realizing that they're more common than they think by giving them the chance to connect. So I admired that that idea and that I the way that he approached it versus being like, Nope, we're gonna keep everyone in their own buckets, and everyone's going to stay away everyone who has this belief, and everyone who has this belief. But the reality is, life isn't like that you can't just stay in your buckets, you can't stay in your lanes, you're gonna have to, you're gonna come across conflict, conflict and obstacles and people that you don't like, or people that you just don't necessarily see eye to eye with. So it's a really good practice to have those conversations and be in rooms with people that you don't necessarily agree with.

Lexie Smith  

I think too, a secret weapon is to have a trigger, buddy. So Emily, like point blank, it's kind of like it's not healthy to keep things bottled up 100% of the time. And so is there someone in your life, a friend, a confidant, someone that healthily can know about your trigger, and be there as kind of an accountability buddy of sorts to help pull you out of it. This is what you literally have been for me, and I've texted you and have been like, I'm spiraling, I'm spiraling. And you've been kind of my accountability buddy, when I've needed it in that category. So that might be another trick to try to.

Emily Merrell  

Yeah. And lastly, too, it's at the end of the day, finding a therapist, to just talk through these things, there might be something that's more rooted from like your days of auditioning for a part, or people people feeling chosen or needed or wanted, I have a very disgusting need to be needed. And when someone doesn't want my advice, or when someone doesn't need me, it really feels like a personal rejection, when for them, their love language might be like not as inconveniencing another person, and they see it as an inconvenience. So a lot of times too, it does come down to conversation or like, understanding how that person operates. That's a little bigger on, you know, not just Instagram in the digital world, but do thinking about like how we receive things. Like if I get some unsolicited advice on LinkedIn, it pisses me off so much. And I got a voicemail at the other day from someone being like, you know, what, Emily, your LinkedIn strategy, you have so much opportunity on your LinkedIn strategy. And we should schedule a call and did it do that. And I was like, it took everything in my body not to just be like fu I'm doing fine. Thank you. And pause and I love I'm going to take Lexi's favorite mantra, get neutral, and respond. And we'll take an inventory of my LinkedIn and be like, You know what? EFF it, like, let's get on a call. Let's talk about LinkedIn strategy.

Lexie Smith  

Oh, why? Okay, Emily, why do you think that triggered you so much.

Emily Merrell  

I think it triggered me so much. Because when I looked at my when I think about the output that I put into Instagram or LinkedIn, I'm like, I think I'm doing a pretty decent job. I feel like my engagement is pretty, pretty great. I think this this, this, so my perception of myself is like, I'm doing everything that I could be doing. So I got triggered when someone was like, you could be doing more and you could be doing better. And she's not wrong, I could be doing more and I could be doing better. And maybe I get to have more strategy or like thoughtfulness into it. So I think I was triggered by being called out on something that I do not know about

Lexie Smith  

yet, but highlighted an own personal insecurity. I will say to if it's accountability, trigger, buddy or therapist, also coaches, life coaches, there's tons of coaches out there, this coaching podcast might be an area if you really have deep, deep triggers, in a certain category, there might be a coach that can help you help you through it. But regardless, get outside of the silo of your own mind, right and invite allow someone else to help you explore that very low barrier to entry. Also start with podcasts or books, there's a ton of resources out in this world that can help you work through it. And it is so normal to get triggered it is literally part of the human experience.

Emily Merrell  

And then lastly, I think I will add in terms of triggering, you know, I sometimes think of myself like a horse with the blinders on, you know, like where where your person who knows gonna pop up, like maybe I just take a different route. So I don't get triggered by that or I don't look at their Instagram or I don't search it out or I mute them. Or, you know, like you just figure out how to operate in a place where you're not Gonna get that cortisol crazy trigger? Yep.

Lexie Smith  

Yep, the the horse with blinders. That's great and having those those boundaries set in place. So, here's your homework you guys, first and foremost, we want you to it's more of an active practice, practice naming it when you start to see that spiral happening. Pause and call yourself out. And from there ask the question, Why? Why am I spiraling? Why is this upsetting me so much? Really lean into that why and you're gonna start to discover like at the root of that trigger, what what the opportunity is to to work on.

Emily Merrell  

Great, great homework. And with that, we will see you the next time on that.

Lexie Smith  

Coach, podcast,

Emily Merrell  

we need a real jingle. If you're enjoying the ReadySet coach podcast, please leave a review wherever you are listening. For more information about ReadySet coach, visit ReadySet coach program.com