SAN DIEGO BRAINSPOTTING THERAPY

Emotional Triggers

Although this can be helpful in the moment, if these experiences are never consciously processed by our brain, our brain may lose its ability to coherently process any stimuli in our outside environment. When this happens, we might notice that things in our environment begin to “trigger” memories, feelings, and bodily sensations relating to that experience that make us feel uncomfortable. For example, maybe someone who used to love coffee can’t even drink it  anymore because the smell of coffee reminds them of the day they were in a major car accident when their coffee spilled all over them.

When these unconscious triggers occur, we might have flashbacks of the experience, constantly worry that something bad will happen, feel disconnected from reality, or even have chunks of time we can’t remember at all. When triggers become unmanageable and interfere with our daily life, it often means that our brains need to process the information differently than it has been processing it previously.

How our brains process information. 

Have you ever noticed that when someone else is telling a story or trying to remember something, that their eyes will focus on a particular spot? They might say something like “I’m trying to remember” and turn their eyes up towards the ceiling or gaze down at the floor as they are focusing on retrieving that memory. This is our brain's natural way of accessing information that is not readily available to us. In order to recall information, we have to begin to focus on one point in our surroundings rather than getting distracted by all of our surroundings. 

Although our brains are always naturally scanning our environment to get information from it, those of us who have experienced trauma almost become hyper-scanners because we feel as though there is always a perceived threat in our environment. When we do this, our brains become overloaded with information that keeps us from fully processing the experiences of our past as well as our current experiences. This state of being always on edge is often referred to as “hypervigilance” which often results in having difficulty sleeping, anxiousness, panic attacks, mood swings and several other symptoms that interfere with our daily functioning.