Ep 51: Why Intentions Don’t Matter When You’re Triggered (in Parenting & Activism)

[INTRODUCTION]

Sawadee ka, and welcome to the Come Back to Care podcast. A place where we’re re-imagining parenting to be deeply decolonized and intentionally intergenerational. If you’ve been looking for ways to practice social justice in your daily parenting and nurture your child’s development while re-parenting your inner child, I’m so glad you’re here. I am your host, Nat Nadha Vikitsreth, a decolonized and licensed clinical psychotherapist, somatic abolitionist, and founder of Come Back to Care. A dot connector, norm agitator and lover of liberation. In this podcast, we turn down the volume of oppressive social norms and outdated family patterns so that we can hear our inner voice and raise our children by our own values too. We come back home to our body and the goodness within. We come back to our lineages and communities. And we come back to care… together. So come curious and come as you are.

[EPISODE]

Parenting intentions are extremely, wholeheartedly, and holistically …useless…when you’re triggered. Let’s explore why that is, what’s going on with your nervous system when you’re triggered, and what to do about it. 

Welcome back to Episode 51 of the Come Back to Care Podcast. 

Before we begin, this episode is a part of our inner child re-parenting series which runs from episode 50 to 58. You can listen to each episode solo or multiple episodes together, depending on your curiosity and bandwidth. 

In this episode, you and I will zoom in on our nervous system and see what’s going on in there when we’re triggered both in parenting and community organizing. Between this episode and the next one you’ll learn about three concrete tools to replace automatically reacting when you’re triggered with intentionally responding to your child and your co-conspirators in the community. If that sounds generative to you, let’s get started.

The neuroscience of threat and safety contextualized in political education

Remember our superhero costume metaphor from the previous episode? When your child pushes your parenting button or presses on your emotional wound from childhood, you shift immediately from connection mode to protection mode. In this protection mode, you put your superhero costume on—your onesie, your cape, and your x-ray glasses- as fast as you can to get ready to fight, flee, fix, freeze, or people please your way out of danger. The tricky thing is the X-ray glasses. These glasses help you look through your surroundings to detect the smallest sign of danger. But they’re so sensitive that they see everything as a threat. They misinterpret your child’s needs (like their need for emotional connection and their need for independent exploration) as signs of danger too. So, in this self-protection mode with the superhero costume on, it’s really hard to see your child’s needs clearly and meet them where they’re at. Our work is to remember to take these X-ray glasses off to shift from protection mode back to connection mode. Because in this connection mode, you have the bandwidth you need to be present with your child and exercise your beautiful parenting intentions.

Now with this metaphor in mind, let’s explore the neuroscience behind it. Because I know you might already be saying “Nat, I wish I could slow down and remember to take the superhero costume off because milli-seconds after I get triggered, I immediately snap and scream.” My dear co-conspirator, if this is you too, please know that we’re in this together. I hope that once we understand the neuroscience behind this knee-jerk, automatic reactivity, you and I can transform guilt, shame, and regret into action and accountability. 

Let’s start with the moment that you were present and engaged with you child. Yes, the to-do list was long but, in that moment, right there, you got it. The stress was manageable. If we were to zoom into your feelings, curiosity, compassion, and connection might be there. Right here, you’re in connection mode, not protection. If we shift the focus to your thoughts and zoom in, your parenting is pretty aligned with your values because you’re doing exactly what you set your parenting intentions to do. 

In connection mode, you’re in the right headspace to put your parenting intentions into practice. This particular headspace goes by many names. When you dive into the literature, you might see names like the Window of Tolerance by Dan Siegel and Pat Ogden; or the Social Engagement System aka the Ventral Vagal by Stephen Porges of the Polyvagal theory; or the upstairs brain by Dan Siegel. I’ll have these scientific references for you in the episode show notes. For now, let’s call this headspace where you’re in connection mode and you feel safe enough, your bandwidth.   

When you’re in your bandwidth, you have what you need to read your child’s needs for what they are and meet those needs well…most of the time. Even when your child is negotiating for 10 more minutes on the videogame, you’re able to take a deep breath, ground yourself, and intentionally respond to your child “I know it’s hard to put the game down. It’s time for dinner. Let’s go nourish our bodies.” 

But when your child keeps pushing your buttons to the point that you feel overwhelmed, this is when you get triggered…meaning your body sounds off the “danger, danger, danger” alarm. Because perhaps their loud screams or their pushing you away remind you of feelings of unworthiness, rejection, humiliation, abandonment, or other emotional pain you felt when you were little aka your inner child wounds. So, you’re breathing faster to get more oxygen. Your blood flow is going towards your muscles instead of the parts of the brain that oversee social interaction or critical thinking. Your body is getting you ready to fight, flee, fix, freeze, or people please your way out of danger. Now your nervous system shifts from connection to protection mode. Before… you were in your bandwidth where you were curious, compassionate, present, engaged, alert, and aligned with your parenting intentions. Now, you’re outside your bandwidth and inside your fight-flight-freeze-fix-people please mode. For most of us, we don’t want to fight and physically hurt our children. Plus, we can’t flee because a) who’s going to take care of the children and b) they’re dangling off your body as we speak perhaps? So many parents are often stuck in freeze mode where you’re pushing through the day taking care of everyone but on the inside stress hormones are being released into your bloodstream like you were running from a tiger all day, everyday. And Bam! You’re rocking your superhero costume again. In this protection mode, your thinking brain -- the neocortex -- goes offline. Because when you’re trying to stay alive, there’s no time to contemplate the nature of human existence or critique capitalism. This is why when you’re triggered and in protection mode, neurobiologically speaking- you have no access to your beautiful parenting intentions or the well-researched parenting strategies you read about last night. Or at least not until you soothe your nervous system, turn off the danger alarm, take off your superhero costume, and get from the fight-flight-freeze-fix-people please mode back into your bandwidth. Once you feel safe enough, you’re back in your bandwidth where you feel curious, compassionate, and present again. In this connection mode, your thinking brain is online again and you can access your parenting intentions and critical thinking. You can re-align your parenting with your values. 

Children’s meltdown through this lens of regulation

Okay, if you’re going “wait, Nat, this sounds familiar,” it’s probably because you see this dynamic everyday with your child, especially when they’re overwhelmed and seconds later express that through a passionate meltdown.  

Have you ever seen your child become overwhelmed with excitement at their friends’ birthday party? Your child wants to play with their friends but they’re in a new environment, say Chuck E. Cheese. It’s loud. There’s bright light. Little children running amok. You packed noise canceling headphones for your child because you’re prepared. You’ve been through this before. But by the time you’re about to put the headphones on, your sweet three-ager already got too excited to play and accidentally pushed their friend. The parents at the party gasp and you rush in. You nudge your child to help their friend off the floor and say sorry. Your little one becomes even more overwhelmed and now we have two screaming friends. Phew, I’m overstimulated even talking about it. Are you good? Still with me? 

When you and your child arrived at the party, they were in their bandwidth or connection mode. They snacked on the bus with you. They were present and ready to play. Later at the party, when your child was overwhelmed, their body sent them out of their tiny bandwidth and into protection mode. Their neocortex went offline too and they couldn’t access their social skills like how to use gentle hands and communicate “hey, wanna play?” the way they practiced with you the night before.  They certainly couldn’t access their neocortex to understand your lecture on “why we don’t push our friends.” In this protection mode where the neocortex is offline, the “but my kid knows better not to push/bite/throw” fill in the blank doesn’t apply. At least not until you help them soothe their nervous system aka co-regulate so their danger alarm shuts off and their neocortex is back online again. 

And by the way, it’s not that your lecture wasn’t on point. I bet it was. It’s also not that we don’t teach our children social and communication skills. We do. What I’m inviting you to notice here is when they’re in their bandwidth (and ready to hear you) and when they’re in protection mode. You have good strategies but the timing might be off. As we say here at Come Back to Care: “first co-reg then correct” which is co-regulate with your child first before quote unquote correcting the behavior. For more information on this, Episode 12: Three Ways to Turn Toddler Tantrums into Teachable Moments. Is for you. 

I’m saying all of this to say: you already know this.  

So far we’ve seen how being in your bandwidth affects your parenting and your child. Next let’s look at how it shows up when you practice social justice action in your community. So that we can discuss why your social justice intentions don’t matter when you’re triggered and overwhelmed in organizing work.

Why intentions don’t matter when you’re triggered in organizing work 

Whether you’re new to abolitionist organizing, or you’re deeply rooted in Transformative Justice, or you’ve read James Baldwin six times, if you’re not in your bandwidth, in your connection mode, and your neocortex is online, you have no access to your social justice intentions. As you already know, that makes it hard to do what you said you were going to do like not taking up too much space at the neighborhood mutual aid network meeting or not holding your boundaries and therefore reverting back to your people pleasing habit…again.  

I’m recording this episode the week when Columbia University students used their voices and bodies to protest against the genocide in Gaza. They do it even faced with the risk of police arrest, getting doxed, and more. You might be inspired by this act of solidarity; however, arranging childcare isn’t an option right now. Or, you’re too overwhelmed with grief and rage over the fact that our tax dollars are being spent on wars. And you can’t even fall apart because your children need your care. Thoughts like “oh I wish I could do more and I’m not doing enough” might come up, adding to the feeling of being overwhelmed and sending you into protection mode because it stirs up your old wound of unworthiness or abandonment, for example. So instead of taking direct action with your co-conspirators in the community, you might be in freeze mode, frozen in fear of saying the wrong thing or in shame of not doing enough. 

My invitation is for us to reframe these coping behaviors through what we just discussed! You’re no longer in connection mode where you can exercise your social justice intentions. You’re in the protection mode of fight, flight, freeze, fix, people please so of course you engage in your overlearned survival strategies instead of direct action for Palestine.

Let’s take a moment to look at your go-to overlearned survival strategies without judgment. 

Do you tend to jump into direct action and community organizing? Or, take the fight to a social media comment section? 

Do you tend to distract yourself from the news of genocide in Gaza and other colonial violence in Sudan and Congo using online shopping, memes, reels? Or escaping into work, books, or even meditation?

Or do you tend to focus on other people’s needs instead of yours because it would be too much to feel with too little support?

These go-to behaviors keep you from getting flooded by any overwhelming sense of threat, terror, and grief. They get you through the day without falling apart. However, they often keep you stuck in shame and inaction instead of exercising your social justice intentions. So, our work is the same: shifting out of protection and back into connection where you feel safe-ish to feel compassionate and curious again. So that you can re-align your advocacy and action with your intentions. In Episode 42, I’ve outlined a few body-based practices for you to play with to come back inside your bandwidth. 

[MIDROLL]

My dear co-conspirator, I can’t tell you often enough how grateful I am that you’re here doing this radical and liberatory work of both healing yourself and practicing social justice in your daily parenting. And you don’t have to practice alone. Every month I hold a community workshop on Zoom for people who subscribe to the Come Back to Care Newsletter. You’ll meet with me and other social justice curious families live on Zoom once a month to discuss topics like how to discipline young children without using power-over domination and coercion, or how to work with your parenting triggers, and more. Get notified when these monthly workshops are open for registration by signing up at comebacktocare.com/newsletter. I write each email with nourishing care and deep respect for your time. Again, sign up at comebacktocare.com/newsletter. Alright, back to the episode.

[MIDROLL END]

Let’s recap, so far we’ve contextualized our superhero costume metaphor from the previous episode with some neuroscience…to help us understand why our parenting intentions and social justice intentions go out the window when we’re outside our Window of Tolerance (aka bandwidth). And yes pun very much intended. Before we wrap up this episode, let’s explore one action you can play with to shift out of protection into connection…where you can be the parent and advocate you know you can be. 

Action

This invitation is to put your oxygen mask on first when you notice that you’re about to go from connection to protection so that you can stay rooted in your bandwidth. And as you’re doing it perhaps narrate out loud what you’re doing, if that makes sense to you and your child. 

Here’s one example from Aireen, a second generation, Filipino-American mom raising her four-year-old kiddo in a bi-racial family. 

And, and so now, um, I'm by no means perfect, but I know I have the tools. I have the, I can parent with confidence knowing I have the tools in my back pocket. So if I'm activated now, I'll immediately start breathing. I will rub my chest and my stomach and okay, and I will say out loud to my daughter what I'm doing. Okay, mommy needs a couple minutes to just, all right, I just need a couple minutes. Okay, and she'll let me do it. Sometimes she'll come over by me and participate with me other others. She's like, okay, I have to, I better steer clear.

You can hear Aireen’s full social justice parenting and inner child re-parenting journey in her interview with me in Episode 49. I’ll link it for you in the episode show notes.

What Aireen did shows that it’s absolutely okay – not just ok but necessary -- to do what your nervous system needs to be soothed so you can stay in your bandwidth. Aireen used a quick body-based exercise and you can use whatever works for your nervous system- breathing, self-talk, prayers, movements. In the In-Out-N-Through parenting program, we practice a menu of exercises so you can build your own toolkit that works for your nervous system and triggers.

You might say to your child who’s reminding you for the eighth time that yesterday you promised them a cupcake while you’re trying to finish cooking dinner. You might say out loud to your 11-year-old: “You know honey, I’m working really hard on getting dinner ready. I’m getting more and more frustrated each time you ask for a cupcake. You’re safe right now so just give me 10 seconds to take three deep breaths.” And once you regulate your nervous system and you’re back in the bandwidth, you might say “right now I need space to finish cooking dinner. After dinner, you can have a cupcake. Right now you can have crackers or finish the coloring pages here.”

How’s that landing for you? 

Again, it’s okay to take a beat and model to your child how you’re feeling your big feelings and taking care of them without getting consumed by them. Isn’t that self-compassion and emotional resilience that we want to model to our children? Isn’t that one way of saying to your child that they matter and you, as a person, matter too?

Closing

To wrap up our discussion today, meeting our children where they’re at and exercising our parenting intentions require us to be in the right headspace, to be in our bandwidth, and to be in connection mode. Yet, you and I are living under white, colonial, capitalist patriarchy where our food, housing, and healthcare can disappear if we stop working for our employers. When we have to navigate the violent impact of this systemic oppression on a daily basis, many of us are operating in survival mode. Especially if your disabled body, queer body, or fat body is perceived as a threat to capitalism and that makes you quote unquote undesirable and therefore disposable. Or, if your skin color is perceived as superhuman by the medical industrial complex and that prevents you from getting compassionate and affirming medical care. You might be operating in survival mode all the time- even in parenting- and your nervous system rarely has a chance to reset and come back to your bandwidth. According to Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child, when survival instead of safety becomes our baseline, the stress hormones from this chronic stress are damaging to our blood pressure, immune system, cardiovascular system, reproductive system, and more. 

That’s why I always say when you feel safe-ish or safe enough, please don’t forget to take your superhero costume off so you can get back into connection mode and show up fully for your child. 

Under pressure, our intentionality gets hijacked by habits…survival habits.

Under pressure, the pain from the past can get in between our best parenting intentions and actual parenting actions.

But here’s the thing: we’ve repeated the patterns we grew up with enough times for them to become habits. That means, we can certainly re-wire our nervous system and form new habits that are rooted in liberation…together.  

If this episode fills your heart cup and you have the bandwidth to reciprocate, I have 2 invitations:

I invite to you reciprocate with your time by leaving a review and rating on Apple Podcast or Spotify. Or reciprocate with your money by joining our Patreon. You can find all the details at comebacktocare.com/support.

And to join the newsletter and access our monthly community workshop, sign up at comebacktocare.com/newsletter.

As always, in solidarity and sass. Until next time, please take care.