Ep 53: Two Overlooked Actions to Soothe Your Parenting Triggers

[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 In this podcast, we turn down the volume of oppressive social norms and outdated family patterns so that we can hear our inner voice and raise our children by our own values too.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]

Why do I keep snapping and sounding like my parents even though I promised myself to never say these things to anyone, especially my child? Why do I keep shrinking and people pleasing when I get freaked out trying to take social justice action, especially after I set the intention to break these cycles? My dear co-conspirator, do you sometimes feel stuck in these cycles of reactivity too? Well, you and me both. To break this cycle and replace automatically reacting to your child to intentionally responding to them, let’s get specific and see what the whole cycle looks like so you and I can get unstuck together. You know we have some systemic oppression to dismantle and direct action to do, right?

Welcome back to Episode 53 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 are going to unpack what happens when we’re triggered both in parenting and social justice advocacy using our react-revert-reduce cycle. Then, we’ll close out the episode with two actions you can experiment with. 

If that sounds generative to you, let’s get started. 

Reacting = Passing the Cycles Down to Your Child

There are two reasons we’re working really hard to break these cycles. One, when you react and repeat the patterns you’re trying to unlearn -- patterns like screaming at your child, controlling and coercing them into obedience, or throwing consequences out the window to people please them -- it doesn’t feel like you’ve won the Parent of the Year Award. I’m sure it’s pretty cringey hearing me say them out loud. Two, the way you’re feeling your feelings teaches your child how to feel theirs. They learn how safe it is to feel their feelings. Say each time your child pushes your buttons you react by yelling and screaming- and here’s the keywords- 100% of the time with zero repair and reconnection, your child might learn that it’s not safe to feel what they feel, how they feel it, and when they feel it. Because they get shut down or criticized by you 100% of the time. To protect themself from this emotional pain, your child might overlearn how to contort, conform, and perform for your emotional comfort…just like you did when you were little. So, my dear co-conspirator, you’re breaking these generational family cycles so that you’re not unintentionally passing down ONLY your outdated survival strategies to your child. Rather, you’re passing down a range of strategies- a mix of outdated ones and adaptive ones too. So that your child has the agency to choose which strategies they want to keep, which ones they want to adapt and which ones they want to pass down to their own children down the line. Unintentionally passing these generational curses down isn’t your only option. You’re here doing this heart-centered healing work and I’m so grateful for you. 

What does it mean to be triggered?

Alright, we can’t talk about getting triggered without defining what an emotional trigger is. Being triggered doesn’t mean you’re being weak, sensitive, or overreactive. It certainly doesn’t mean you’re a terrible parent. It simply means you’re human and you have a nervous system. Your nervous system scans and analyzes relationship cues like facial expression, tone of voice, word, and behavior and reports to you if this person is safe or dangerous. If this person, your child included, is seen by your nervous system as a threat, your nervous system switches from connection mode to protection mode. So that you can fight, flight, freeze, fix, people please your way out of danger, whether that danger is a real tiger, racism, Covid-19, your boss’s constructive feedback, or your child coming in for a hug after a long day. In this protection mode, your parenting intentions go out the window…because you’re not within your Window of Tolerance. This Window is the bandwidth where you feel curious, connected, centered, and caring…the headspace you need to be in to be the parent you know you can be. More on this in episodes 51 and 52, links in the episode show notes. 

In summary, being triggered means being reminded of the same emotional pain of rejection, humiliation, abandonment, or unworthiness you felt when you were little. Whether this pain is real or perceived, the threat feels real, real. When you’re triggered, technically your nervous system is getting pumped up and primed to protect you. The danger alarm in your nervous system goes off screaming “danger, danger, danger.” You’re no longer in connection mode; you’re in protection mode. The priority is no longer connecting with your child and meeting their needs. Rather, it’s protecting yourself and doing what you gotta do to turn off this danger alarm. 

What happens in the body when you’re triggered?

And when this internal alarm goes off, you already know that in a split second you’re back to reacting to your child again instead of responding to them. It’s so frustrating how automatically we go from getting triggered to three seconds later yelling, snapping, shutting down, numbing out, people pleasing, and so on. 

So I’d love to invite you to play with our first action which is mapping out how your trigger unfolds using our react-revert-reduce cycle. Once you know your cycle, it’s much easier to catch yourself in the moment, pause the automatic reactivity, and pivot to intentional responses. If you’d like, please think of this action as a prep step, not something you do in the moment of being triggered because that’ll already be too little too late (according to Jojo circa 2006, if you know, you know). This prep step is wonderful to do solo and then share with those you trust. For the past 15-ish years, the parents who have mapped this cycle out with me share that it makes it a lot easier to forgive themselves and give themselves grace and compassion when they snap and lose their cool. Let’s try it, shall we?

Action 1: Mapping out the cycle

The react-revert-reduce in a nutshell goes like this. Your danger alarm goes off and it’s so loud. So you have to turn the alarm off as quickly as you can by reacting to get rid of the discomfort. And to do it fast, you revert back to using the trusted, tried, and true strategies you had to overlearn to protect yourself when you were little. This is why you keep going back to perfectionism, people pleasing, checking out, coercion, and shutting down. Then, you reduce yourself into labels like “see? I’m not good enough,” or “I’m a terrible parent.” And that shame keeps you stuck in this cycle instead of trying to break it and add more adaptive strategies to your toolkit. You go into this cycle because your nervous system’s been sending us into fight-or-flight protection mode for 400 million years according to Polyvagal Theory. So, you and I are really doing the best we can. Besides you’re trying to put food on the table and pay those bills on time. Surviving under white, colonial, capitalist patriarchy might put your own healing at the bottom of your to-do list.

Are you still with me? I’ll share an example from Tonia (pseudonym for confidentiality). Tonia worked with me in our In-Out-N-Through parenting program. She self-identifies as a fierce and loving, Black and beautiful foster mom of a 6-month-old named Juniper. Tonia kindly gave me permission to share her story with you. I’ll walk you through Tonia’s react-revert-reduce cycle and at the end I’ll ask you to map your own cycle, alright? 

Tonia is an all-around exceptional human. A single mom. A survivor. An ally. Tonia gets it done. That’s why when baby Juniper cries and cries and Tonia can’t find the best soothing strategy…Tonia feels lost, helpless, and incompetent. She feels out of control. When she feels out of control in her own body, she regains control by controlling the person next to her who has less power. That is, her baby. Is that tracking for you too? 

This sense of “why can’t I figure this out?” triggers Tonia’s inner child wound of “never being good enough.” The danger alarm goes off. To turn off the alarm and get rid of this perceived threat that’s overwhelming her body, Tonia reacts and reverts to her trusted, tried, and true survival strategy of perfectionism and hyper independence. Tonia shifts from her connection with baby Juniper to her protection mode of perfectionism where she’s on her phone finding the best evidence-based and research-backed studies to address colic. Feeling helpless usually drives Tonia to – in her words- “do something” and in this case it’s getting busy on her phone doing her research. It feels good to her in the moment to do something, turn off the danger alarm, blow off some steam. The pressure got released and the itch got scratched. In fact, it feels good in the moment when you quote unquote “do something” to let the steam off. The reward system in your brain gets reinforced from getting the temporary relief, making it harder to break the cycle. Because next time you’re triggered, your brain goes “hey let’s repeat the yelling you did last time, it worked so fast and so well. Why reinvent the wheel and decolonize parenting?” 

For Tonia, after using her coping strategy of perfectionism, baby Juniper still cries and cries. Tonia feels helpless and incompetent again. So, she reduces her whole humanity into labels like “not smart enough” and “failed foster mom.”  

When Tonia mapped her cycle out with me, she quickly had an aha moment. Tonia realized that she was reacting to her sense of overwhelm, not responding to Juniper’s needs for connection. Just like we explored in Ep 50: Why Inner Child Healing Boosts Your Child's Development, in protection mode, you’re soothing your inner child wounds instead of soothing your actual child. Tonia could see that when she was trying to fix the situation, she missed the chance to just be with and connect with baby Juniper and use her grounded presence to reassure baby Juniper that they’re okay and they’re not alone. Her inner child wound from the past got in the way by moving her out of connection mode and into protection mode. 

Remember also that our nervous system can either choose between protection and connection…one at a time. In connection, you see your child for who they are. On the other hand, in protection you see your child through the lens of your own inner child wound. As a result, it drives you to want to teach, fix, manage, and control your child so they learn to protect themself like you did.

So, Tonia remembers to practice body-based centering exercises that fit with her fight, flight, and fix survival strategy so that she can soothe her nervous system and stay in connection mode when baby Juniper’s cry triggers her old inner child wounds. 

In our In-Out-N-Through parenting program, parents play with different body-based grounding exercises that they can use when they’re triggered and add the ones that suit their nervous system into their toolkit. If you’d like to D.I.Y. your own grounding toolkit, please check out Ep 49: [BONUS] How Aireen’s Breaking Generational Cycles & Transforming Parenting Triggers with Her Daughter.

Now it’s your turn, my dear co-conspirator. How does your react-revert-reduce cycle unfold? What does your child do or say that pushes your parenting buttons? What coping strategies do you usually reach for to turn off the internal danger alarm? What self-regulation practices might you try this week to turn off the alarm without using these outdated survival strategies from childhood? Some options include self-talk, movement, a breath, a nurturing touch, or even a visualization. Finding what works for your nervous system requires trial and error so please take the time you need. Lastly, what labels do you often reduce your whole brilliance into after you reacted and repeated the cycle? These labels can be your cue to take a beat, take a breath and move through that shame with grace.  

[MIDROLL]

My dear co-conspirator,  I am that you’re here doing this radical and liberatory wI can’t tell you often enough how gratefulork 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.

[EPISODE]

Reacting in Organizing

How was it to map out your cycle and get unstuck from these patterns a bit? Let’s connect the dots back to taking social justice action in our communities. You might have already noticed that how you react to your child might not be that different from how you react-revert-reduce when you take direct action with your community. Our inner child wounds get activated in relationships, organizing relationships included. 

So, we’re not just re-parenting our inner child and upgrading our react-revert-reduce cycle only in our home. We do it to shift away from automatically reacting to those we organize with using perfectionism, coercion, numbing out, people pleasing. We heal the inner child wounds underneath our reactivity so that we can take action with our co-conspirators from a place of shared power, integrity, and dignity. So that when you’re triggered, you respond intentionally to your co-inspirators and repair when necessary. This kind of liberation centered relationship isn’t just what we’re trying to re-imagine. It’s being practiced right here, right now. The student protesters are showing us how.

So, instead of mapping out the react-revert-reduce cycle in social justice organizing, I’d love to share what it looks like when we respond intentionally to one another instead of reacting automatically out of past pain. Let’s look at what relationships look like when we get unstuck from old survival strategies and break the generational curses.

This past weekend I brought some supplies to the Gaza solidarity encampment site at DePaul University. I wanted to show up in solidarity with the student protesters.

In full Asian abolitionist auntie mode, I brought wipes, water, and flowers to the protesters.

As I handed out the flowers, the students’ spirits lifted a bit. Our hearts smiled…even knowing fully that the flowers were only a temporary pain relief from grief and heartbreak over the lives lost due to colonial violence.  

Physically being with the protesters, I could feel in my spine the pain the students were holding. I felt a sense of abandonment and betrayal by their university which chooses profits over justice. 

More importantly, my heart exhaled hope. 

I witnessed how the students practiced community care. There was no hierarchy. They made decisions together. Leadership was decentralized. Power was shared. No single organizer got put on a pedestal -- just like Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba described in Let this Radicalize You. Each brought what they got to the table. 

Rooted firmly in their values and political analysis, the students embodied interdependence. They reminded me of what Andrea Ritchie wrote in Practicing New Worlds quote: “each of us can begin the work of abolition today and every day by shifting the ways we respond to harm, conflict, and need- individually and collectively- in our families, communities, and institutions.” End quote. 

Jewish, Black, Asian, Muslim, and Palestinian students across abilities shared meals. There was a shared library and a craft and sensory tent.

The solidarity was also intergenerational and cross-movement. Indigenous dancers and Jewish rabbi offered solidarity and prayers to the students. 

When it was time for a press conference, the student representatives demanded divestment and accountability from the university. 

The clarity in their voices echoed throughout the quad, awakening hope in my heart.  

Healing is never a solo project. 

Before we move into our second action, I need to pause here for a second. 

You and I are surviving under a system where education, healthcare, and housing are for-profit businesses. We’re all made to feel that we don’t ever have enough material security; therefore, we’re not enough. And I know you love your child so much that you want to dive into this healing work as soon as possible. You might have already made a spreadsheet or a slide deck in your head of the react-revert-reduce cycle while doing the dishes ten minutes ago. I see you. And, I must remind you too that individualism has us believe that it’s our personal responsibility to embark on our healing journey as a solo assignment, with a checklist of self-improvement to work through on our couch alone.

To keep individualism in check, our second action is shifting the question from what you do to heal to who you do this healing with.

Action 2: Finding Your People 

Who in your ecosystem can hold space for you to feel what you feel when you feel it without judgment?

You can feel enraged about how ridiculously expensive childcare is with them without feeling like you’re spinning out of control.

You can shut down and check out for a bit and they’re right there next to you so you’re not feeling abandoned.

You can feel anxious trying to do baby-led weaning right and they’re right there holding space for your anxiety and the love for your child underneath it. They might ask “hey, if no one’s watching you, how would you do this baby-led weaning your way?”

Or if you go into people pleasing mode, they’re there next to you double checking “I know you’re easy going but what do you really want? Because your needs matter too.”

Each time these humans, pets, plants, ancestors, and the land are attuned to you and meet your emotional needs, it gives your nervous system a receipt that says “See? The fact that your co-parent didn’t text you back right away doesn’t mean they’re leaving you. You’re okay.” Or “see? The neighbor can pick the kids up from school so you can make dinner for you and the neighbor that evening. Asking for help doesn’t mean you fail as a parent. In fact, because you enjoy cooking alone in the kitchen your cup was a little fuller and so dinner with the kids that night went so well. Asking for help doesn’t have to mean disappointment.” These receipts or clinically speaking corrective experiences slowly re-wire your nervous system, re-program your attachment pattern, and re-parent your inner child. 

Thank you so much for breaking free from the outdated cycles that keep you stuck in your inner child wounds. So that you can bring your whole self to both raising your child and advocating for liberation. Today in a small and fractal way, you and I practiced medicine from Grace Lee Boggs that goes quote “Transform Yourself to Transform the World…to see our own lives and work and relationships as a front line, a first place we can practice justice, liberation, and alignment with each other and the planet.” End quote.

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.

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