How to Avoid an Emotional Reaction When Provoked: The Skill of Detaching

We can get provoked or “triggered” by many things – a fight with a spouse, a child who won’t listen, a boss who treats you badly, an aggressive driver, etc. Being triggered simply means that some event has impacted us emotionally and we have a difficult time reacting rationally. When we’re triggered, we do things that we shouldn’t do. We yell back at our spouse or child, we say something inappropriate to our boss, or we leave in a huff. How wonderful would it be if we could somehow, in the moment that we are triggered, find a way to detach?
 
One skill that you may have tried in the past when you’ve been triggered is deep abdominal breathing. Deep abdominal breathing is where you push your stomach out as you breath in and pull your stomach in as you breath out. This enables your lungs to expand much farther than if you take the typical “chest breath”. When you do it correctly and for long enough, your brain will release a hormone that will calm you. This calm will enable you to detach. Once you’re detached, you can respond logically rather than emotionally.
 
Sometimes deep abdominal breathing doesn’t work. You try it and you’re still triggered and unable to detach. Grounding is another technique that can be helpful in these circumstances. Grounding is a type of coping strategy that is designed to “ground” you in or connect you to the present moment. You can only use grounding if you have given yourself some space from the person that you were interacting with. You can say that you have to go to the bathroom, ask them if you can talk about this a little later or find some other way to get to a separate space. Once you’ve gotten to a separate space, you can try these steps for grounding:

• Grounding can be done anytime and anyplace
• Keep your eyes open and scan the room
• Do not talk for the moment. You want to distract yourself from your feelings, not get in touch with them.
• Stay neutral – don’t judge yourself or anyone else as “good” or “bad”.
• Focus on the present, not the past or future.
• Mental Grounding:

1. Describe your environment using all of your senses. For example, “The walls are white, there are six chairs in the room around the table, there are sounds of children playing outside…” Describe objects, sounds, colors textures, smells, shapes and temperature.
2. Use an image to take you to a calm place. For example, “I’m on a raft floating in the sea.” or “I am on a mountain looking at a beautiful sunset.”
3. Count to 10 or say the alphabet very slowly.
4. Repeat a positive statement or affirmation: “I am calm and peaceful. I can handle this. This too shall pass.”

• Physical Grounding:

1. Run cool or warm water over your hands.
2. Grab an object tightly such as a ball or pillow.
3. Touch various objects around you such as keys, a book, the table and notice the way it feels, the colors, the materials, the weight.
4. Jump up and down.
5. Stretch yourself including your arms, legs, neck, etc.
6. Walk slowly. Notice each footstep and say left, right as you walk.

 
The key to being successful with these techniques is to practice them when you’re not being triggered. You can also make up your own method of grounding that enables you to distract and detach yourself from your emotions. Learning to detach is a powerful tool that can help you to be more successful in your communication skills and improve your relationships with your spouse, children, boss and anyone else important in your life. Let me know what techniques work for you!