Reframing Emotional Triggers: A Journey to Healing and Empowerment

Reframing Emotional Triggers: A Journey to Healing and Empowerment

Jeffrey Besecker: This is The Light Inside, I'm Jeffrey Biesecker. Emotional regulation becomes a heated reaction, and the two move into the conflict of resistance. As a result, we start to imagine and write entire volumes of stories based on the context of our perceptions. Today, we revisit a past conversation with trauma recovery coach Joe Ryan exploring the role of psychological triggers and the impact they play on the content of our perceptions throughout our journey of life. So while our team enjoys a spring break and time with their families during the Easter holiday, we hope you enjoy one of our top most downloaded episodes of the past, because there's more to life besides the mere acts of career and work. Tune in to find out how to reframe our emotional triggers in a more empowering way when we return to The Lied Inside. When it comes to mobile service providers, with their high-rate plans, extra fees, and hidden cost or expenses, many of the big-name networks leave a bad taste in your mouth. Mint Mobile is a new flavor of mobile network service, sharing all the same reliable features of the big name brands, yet at a fraction of the cost. I recently made the change to Mint Mobile and I can't believe the monthly savings, allowing me to put more money in my pocket for the things which truly light me up inside. Making the switch to Mint Mobile is easy. Hosted on the T-Mobile 5G network, Mint gives you premium wireless service on the nation's largest 5G network. With bulk savings on flexible plan options, Mint offers 3-, 6-, and 12-month plans, and the more months you buy, the more you save. Plus, you can also keep your current phone or upgrade to a new one, keep your current number or change to a new one as well, and all of your contacts, apps, and photos will seamlessly and effortlessly follow you to your new low-cost Mint provider. Did I mention the best part? You keep more money in your pocket. And with Mint's referral plan, you can rescue more friends from big wireless bills while earning up to $90 for each referral. Visit our Mint Mobile affiliate link at thelightinside.us forward slash sponsors for additional mobile savings or activate your plan in minutes with the Mint Mobile app. Emotional triggers are powerful catalysts that can swiftly transport us from a state of calm to one of intense emotion, often catching us off guard. These triggers can stem from a multitude of sources, ranging from past traumas and deeply ingrained beliefs to current stressors and environmental cues. Whether it's a particular smell evoking memories of childhood or a seemingly innocuous comment striking a nerve, emotional triggers hijack our emotional equilibrium, sometimes leaving us feeling overwhelmed and reactive. Understanding how these triggers operate is a key to managing our emotional responses and fostering an ever-expanding connection to consciousness. Having lived through trauma, Joe Ryan is a certified peer support specialist who knows how to face it and live beyond it. Joe has been on a lifelong journey to overcome trauma, shame, and the demons that plagued him from early in life. Joe, your story shares how trauma and abuse affected your emotional well-being and helped you discover an emotional intelligence framework. We look forward to hearing about your journey. Thanks for joining us. How are you today? Good. How are you? Great. Doing well. We framed a couple of different angles looking at addressing trauma. What I specifically feel we can be most productive diving in today, having just reconnected again this week with your podcast and some of your programming. I'd like to look at recognizing trauma triggers and understanding how blind spots affect our emotional reactivity. Yeah, the body remembers, man. Joe, our emotional triggers are witnessed to be a complex series of responses triggering our experience of emotional trauma. Leaning in today, could you give us a brief definition of trauma?
Joe Ryan: So trauma seems to me to be an evolving definition. The more I work on myself and the deeper I go. Five years ago, I had no idea what the word, like it wasn't even in my vocabulary and the pain in my life had gotten so great and I was sitting with the feelings for so long that I didn't understand what was going on in my body because I always run from uncomfortable feelings, but I didn't know it. As many of us do. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was that big awakening of, wait, nothing I've ever done is working anymore. And I'm left with this uncomfortableness inside. Like my emotions are in a Cuisinart all the time. And it's just overwhelming emotions in your brain and your body. So the way trauma shows up for me is there was abuse that had happened before emotional intelligence and logical thought and my subconscious tries to protect me. So it buries those emotions and those feelings. And then I adapt in other ways of defenses to cover up and keep away from that pain. And I kept it buried for so long and I kept running faster and faster. When you slow up and you start to feel those feelings arise and you can't run anymore, you're at that crossroads. It's like I can start pouring more booze in me, I can start running and chasing things to stay away from it, or I can sit with it. So it's unprocessed abuse that is stored inside my body that I've never acknowledged, touched, sat with, felt, processed, or grieved. And that's the way I look at my trauma.

Jeffrey Besecker: You know, you often mention how living with these unresolved traumas is always to be held captive to that sense of emotional responsiveness we feel towards it.

Joe Ryan: Well, I'm afraid of my own body. I'm afraid of my own body reactions. My nervous system is on like 200 RPMs, 24 seven. So I never realized that that was abnormal. because from the time I could remember, I had always been that way. It was slowing down and sitting with it and getting to those feelings that really put this light bulb on where it's like, well, if I don't feel OK just being me, I feel OK performing. I feel OK running. I feel OK mood altering. But I don't feel OK as Joe. And what's the cause of that? and it's the fear of my own internal body reactions. When I get into situations that my subconscious remembers, and then the emotions start, it goes to thought, goes back to the emotions, and these two have a dialogue, and I attach to it, and worthlessness, helplessness, and I just spiral out of control. So somehow pulling back from the emotional feelings and the thoughts, and just not attaching to it, and letting them be. And eventually they will run their course. It may take me laying there for 30 minutes or 13 days, but eventually it's going to run out of power. And then the logical thought part of my brain kicks in because I'm out of the fear. And then I can process what I just went through.

Jeffrey Besecker: Let's look at how you guide others to discovering those undiscovered traumas, how we uncover that unknown thought that's lingering back there. How do we recognize and recover from our traumatic experiences in that regard?

Joe Ryan: Reliving it. emotionally. I used to think that I could think my way out of it if I can figure this out. If I could read something that gave me this little nugget of enlightenment and then I would follow it down that path and I would intellectualize it. I would write it out. The only thing that worked for me was sitting with those feelings and where they led. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do was just to sit in that emotional panic. And as an adult male, to be reduced to a child emotionally where I can't even get up and make coffee because that just felt too overwhelming, was this big mirror of how bad had it have to have been as a child that as an adult, I am emotionally paralyzed when these feelings come up.

Jeffrey Besecker: Joe, we often think of trauma as big dramatic events, yet it's possible to perceive trauma in different ways, which means that smaller, seemingly trivial things can also have that traumatic effect. Do you feel we often discount or filter these experiences in some regard, and how does this affect our ability to navigate the trauma itself?

Joe Ryan: Well, for me, the the physical abuse was easy to uncover and work through. It was that slow, emotional conditioning over years. It's like water dripping on a rock. You don't notice that impression until years go by. And then there's this big, soft, smooth, dead impression in there. I find the subtle emotional abuse is the hardest to uncover because it's that drip. Getting hit with a belt is just easy to recognize. It was like, okay, it was physical abuse. There's the fear, but that slow conditioning over time to go back and connect those dots. So there's an intense fear feeling all the way back in childhood. And I am working in this defensive layers to stay away from it, to connect back to the humiliation and pain and the abuse of being just the worthless feelings is so much harder to get to. This is a very strong, long, painful, rewarding process.

Jeffrey Besecker: You know, I think in that regard, we're broaching that subject of that big T trauma being that dramatic experience, that very life changing experience, very painful experience of emotional, physical, mental abuse versus that little T trauma of feeling that same kind of hurt from a simple statement. That simple statement, as example, you'll never amount to anything. How many times do people hear that going out and through life when they're growing up becomes that impactful Mark that tells you, I'm not worthy. I'm not valuable. I feel humiliated. I feel shame.

Joe Ryan: Yeah. You don't know anything else. You grow up in an environment. You think it's normal. And the mirroring face is telling you you're worthless or you're not good. I remember always hearing, I would be like, I'm lonely. And it'd be like, you're not lonely. There's a house full of people. And then I would be like, wait, what? Yes. Everything inside of me feels lonely. You're telling me I'm not. Okay, now I'm learning not to trust what I feel. That happens year after year where your feelings are invalidated. You start to not trust yourself. So now I become codependent and I need you to mirror back and tell me how I feel about me. So if I see a smiling, mirroring face coming back at me, I feel okay. If you're unhappy with me, I feel that I'm worthless. So there's no middle ground. Either I'm in your good graces or I'm a worthless piece of shit.

Jeffrey Besecker: You're looking for that substantiation in who and what you are from that outside validation rather than being able to say, I feel I am worthy. I know I am worthy. I know I have value.

Joe Ryan: We're all born with narcissistic needs, even a child. You need to be filled up because you are only going to absorb what's mirrored back. So if you had really good support and you had really good mirroring, those narcissistic needs are satisfied as an early age. If they're not, you're spending your rest of your life trying to chase things outside of yourself to fill you up inside. When you start to wean off the external validation and try to self-validate, that's when you start to empower yourself. But it's never been taught. It's never been mirrored. It's never been modeled. And nobody's really talking about it on a deep level. So you're kind of out there on your own trying to figure out your worth, you know, without ego, you know, without that whole grandiose narcissistic thing where I need you to look at me this way so I feel okay. I need to look at myself and be okay.

Jeffrey Besecker: I'm going to tiptoe into this. It's a little bit of a left turn from where we're at now, but I stumbled upon this great notion of enmeshment looking at your material and through a number of your podcast programs. Share with us how that experience of enmeshment surfaces in our subconscious behavior patterns.

Joe Ryan: It is. Enmeshment for me is being taken emotionally hostage. So if you look at a marriage that isn't working and they have a child and the wife is not getting needs met from the husband, they'll triangulate and they will get the needs met from the son or the daughter. They'll use their child to make the other parent jealous and fill them up. So basically you're taking this child and it's born and you are using it to meet your emotional needs because you're not getting it from your spouse. You don't know how to give it to yourself. So you basically become this people pleaser. And I don't know where I end and the enmeshment with this other person begins. I have no sense of self. I have no identity because there's no independence taught and there's no autonomy taught. So basically your role becomes to care give emotionally to your source figure. You never find out who you are. And if you move away, every time you start to move away and try to find the dependence, you're going to be emotionally shamed and guilted and reprimanded and just to be pulled back so that you can continue to feed this person's needs and you're not allowed to have any of your own.

Jeffrey Besecker: In that regard, I feel it's important to understand how we maintain a healthy emotional tolerance and form healthy psychological distance without becoming completely separate or disengaging. How do we navigate that balance from your perspective?

Joe Ryan: It all starts with setting boundaries. You see, if you're enmeshed, you're not allowed to say no. You're going to take all you need from me to fill you up. I can't say no, don't do that. I can't go and live my life. I can't stand up to you because I am waiting for crumbs of love and affection, that I am going to do anything to get that. So for validation and to feel loved, you give yourself up.

Jeffrey Besecker: Socially, we're often given that impression that our self-concepts are the only way to filter and protect that experience, to maintain healthy continuity. In this regard, do you feel there are ways that we can transcend that protective aspect of the ego processes?

Joe Ryan: It's the boundaries. If you don't have your boundaries and you don't have your anger, you have no protection and no sense of self. I have been a doormat, people, please. And without a boundary, you can come into me emotionally, trash my insides, leave. And I have to say thank you very much for stopping by and then clean up the mess. If I can learn how to set boundaries, I can stop you from coming in and trashing me emotionally and me smiling and saying thank you. But setting boundaries to me was abandonment. It was loss of love. It was loss of connection. It was loss of affection. So I still have trouble setting boundaries. I have to think about it three days before of how I'm going to do this. There's 17 reactions I can possibly get. I need to be prepared for all of them so that my trauma response doesn't kick in and I spiral into shame.

Jeffrey Besecker: We talk a lot in our program about that element of emotional reactivity. Let's reel this back. Let's earmark a little bit setting boundaries when we're triggered as a reaction. Let's go back to this notion of establishing what emotional triggers are.

Joe Ryan: It's unconscious. It's in my cells. It's in my being. It's not in my logical thought. It's not in my consciousness. So for me, I get into situations, and even before, it could be three, four days before, there's going to be a disturbance in my body. And I was never aware of it. And then I would avoid the thoughts and the feelings of it. Having no control over your body reactions is just a living hell. For me, it's humiliation. I can't handle being made the fool, feeling humiliated. So I'm always on guard and prepared for that. So if I'm in a social situation, I walk in, I scan the room, I get the feel. I kind of calm myself down. I get comfortable and I try to find all the places that feel fearful for me and try to make myself safe within my own body. And then I get into conversations. But I'll say something that I think is stupid and then that'll trigger me. Oh, I think I just humiliated myself. I have to get out of this conversation. I can't wait to leave the party and then I'll go obsessed about it for a week and a half. And meanwhile, nobody has given a second thought but me. That's just my trauma. It's it's it's a response of the humiliation that I had went through that I'm very my subconscious is just very aware and sensitive to it. It's not real in the present moment. I'm reacting to something that happened when I was 11.

Jeffrey Besecker: We're searching for that urge to respond or react in a specific or comfortable way that feels familiar, that makes us feel safe. Psychological comfort plays a significant role in creating emotional modulation in intellectual context. Yet, we often get stuck in the double-edged sword of psychological familiarity. Joe, what do you feel is the key to evolving past that level or stage of emotional processing to the next level, so that we move into a more stable degree of emotional maturity?

Joe Ryan: Right. So it's kind of being comfortable with the uncomfortable and moving through that fear, which is, you know, completely insane in my head. When I ask this question all the time, I'll get this reaction. It's like, is this a valid reaction? Is this OK to feel this? Can I say these words? Am I avoiding? Am I hiding? This is whole dialogue that goes on. I think you know, accepting your fear and sitting with it to see where it leads. And it's, why is this fear here? Am I hiding and avoiding to being comfortable or am I moving into uncomfortable situations to learn how to get comfortable?

Jeffrey Besecker: Thank you for opening us to that. You know, I think that's precisely that kind of segue. I hope we could provide with that. I'm going to leave it a little open-ended. That's something we can revisit another time. Let's move back to understanding and uncovering these things. Let's trigger our trauma responses. How can we identify those and reassociate with them, reconnect with them?

Joe Ryan: Well, people with trauma, we haven't connected with our bodies since childhood. I haven't lived inside my body in decades. When you start going inward and start paying attention to the feeling, see me, I would get an uncomfortable feeling. It was like, where's the bourbon? Where's the weed? Let's go chase women. Let's go make more money, whatever it was. just not feeling it. So when that feeling comes up, instead of running from it, kind of let it just absorb you and take you over and sit with it. So I'm afraid of my body and my body reactions. To get through that fear, I have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable within my own skin. And it's painful and it's difficult. And every minute feels like a year. But sitting with it, you're teaching your brain, your body, your cells, that you can handle and become stronger than your body reactions. I have this scared little child that's afraid of pretty much everything on this planet, but I'm in this adult body and it's like I should be able to handle the simple things like going to the counter and returning something because I didn't like it. Like sending back food for me is like, impossible. I start to sweat and it's like because now I'm not in my role. I'm not in my nice guy people pleaser. I'm actually standing up for myself. So I find when I stand up for myself or somebody is crossing a boundary, I don't feel like I have the right or the self-value to speak up for myself. Sitting in that uncomfortable moment where you have that decision, I can either sink back into the false self or I can start to learn how to stand up for myself. The less I avoid, the more empowered I feel.

Jeffrey Besecker: In that regard, we're moving back toward authorship and some degree of ownership in our ability to interact with that emotional response. As we consider that, how do we move into that state of authorship without feeling that need to ultimately hold on to certainty or that sometimes unhealthy need to have control?

Joe Ryan: It's finding out what you're willing to accept and not accept and moving out of your false self family system role. I am really comfortable living in my role because I'm making everybody happy because I can't handle uncomfortable feelings and other people that are directed to me. So learning how to deal with people not liking me, people being upset with not going out of my comfort zone to please other people, that emotion that comes up, it feels like death. It's really one of the most painful and comfortable feelings for me. Learning how to say no, learning how to disappoint by setting boundaries and saying, this isn't good for me. I'm learning about myself. I need to go home now and get some rest. I don't care if you want to go out for the next four hours. I know you're not going to like me for it. I know I'm leaving you. I know you need a wingman. But I can't sacrifice my self-worth just to keep you happy. That is one of the hardest places for me to go. Yes, yes.

Jeffrey Besecker: You know, from my perspective, in order to process those past traumas and release that emotional reactivity, we fall back on this often repeated mantra, think it, feel it, process it, release it. What is this feeling here to tell me? What is it here to truly open my eyes to and uncover?

Joe Ryan: Your body knows way more than you will ever know intellectually. I try to go in my head and reason and work it out. I can't. Your body knows what you need. It's starting to pay attention. So when you get that uncomfortable feeling, instead of running or going, I'm useless, I'm worthless, I'm not competent, I'm not good enough, I can't do this. And all that fear that comes up, it's actually sitting with it. At the beginning, I would sit for three or four minutes with the feelings and I would have to tap out. It was way too intense. But over time, I've gotten that up to hours where I can sit with the feelings and it gets to the point where I'm not going to let you beat me. And I want to become stronger than you. Paying attention to your body and not running from it and embracing it and just really seriously. So I've cut off anger. I've cut off disappointment. I've cut off all of these feelings. And they're so far away from my being that any time I feel anger, it turns into I'm worthless. If somebody disrespects me, I don't go, you know what? You just disrespect me. That didn't feel good. In my brain, I go, I'm completely worthless. If I was better, you wouldn't have done this and upset me. But meanwhile, they don't even know that they did upset me. So paying attention to your feelings and your emotions in your body is the only way that I know to have healed the trauma or healing it. You're never really completely healed.

Jeffrey Besecker: Yeah. Yeah. That fully opens us to absorb that relationship we've formed to that traumatic experience. And it allows us to process how it's affected us. How can we start to then, Joe, move into setting those boundaries when we're triggered as a reaction?

Joe Ryan: So my process had been, I would sit with the feelings and I would get comfortable with them to the point where I wasn't terrified of them. And then I start, I'll lay there and I will visualize a boundary that I'm going to need to set. And I just kind of like go into this meditative place of feeling the fear reactions that I'm anticipating by setting the boundary. So it's like I prepare myself alone in a dark room to go out and be with humans. After a while and the practice of doing that, it's like lifting weights. I go into the gym. I'm not benching 240 pounds. I'm starting at 10. You know, once I get up to about 75, somehow the boundaries start to kick in without thought and the fear slowly subsides. But you have to start very small. Setting boundaries with myself is the way I learned how to set boundaries with others. Like the example I gave before, I was out with my friends and they're all going out and having a good time, and then I bail. And then you get all the shame, all the male shame. What are you, a wuss? You gotta get up. What are you, old man, all of this? And it's just like, I need to self-discipline with myself and set those boundaries. And I absorbed the abuse, and I would still go home in shame for the first couple of months. But after a while, it got to the point where I got so used to hearing it, it didn't affect me. And I'm like, You guys are going to be miserable tomorrow. I got a huge day. I'm leaving. Get over it. I used to think I could sit, think and prepare, and then I would be ready. It's keep implementing it, keep practicing it. And then there's this competency you build, and it's a foundation of these building blocks of self-discipline and self-boundaries where then you can set more with others.

Jeffrey Besecker: On that note, you so often share how knowing what you want and why you want it becomes that key step in learning how to set those boundaries healthfully. As we explore that idea, why are clear values such a significant part of emotional competency?

Joe Ryan: Well, for me, it was always, you know, I was never looking to feel good about me. I was just looking not to feel bad. So I just pain managed for forever. And once the pain became manageable and acceptable and it lessened and I had that other part of my brain, it started to be and removing the false self. So incorporating emotions that you would cut off and allowing yourself to have it. I woke up one day and I was I didn't know who I was. So I basically withdrew from everybody I do. I kind of isolated and I started to figure out the things I wanted. And I started to envision the life that I wanted to live and how I wanted to feel about myself. And I slowly started to move that way. I would try things on. And some were comfortable, and some weren't comfortable. And I would hold on to the ones that were comfortable, and then I would go try six other things. So out of trying 20 things, three felt very comfortable, and I incorporated them into my life. And they became a foundation of self, because I never felt good about anything. So now I have three things I felt good about, and I learned how to go find things that make me feel good, and I listened to my body. And when it felt right, I slowly learned how to not talk myself out of what I wanted. See, my identity is pain and suffering. I have to be worthless. I have to be helpless. I have to be a victim. Empowering myself by actually going and doing what I wanted and building upon that started to slowly take all those things away.

Jeffrey Besecker: You know, to me, that's such a powerful key, such a powerful set point to develop a clear awareness of your needs and wants and presenting them in that non-shameful proactive way. We start to resist our programmed and projected need to respond in that reactive nature.

Joe Ryan: Right. So this is a simple example, but there's a place downtown that has this great chicken sandwich and it's like 58 blocks from where I'm at. I really had a craving for it. I went through this list in my head was, well, it's a long trip. It's a big effort. You're safe in the house. Nothing's going to happen to you. Like there was this endless list of ways to talk me out of it. And I go, but I'm craving it and I desire it. Why would I talk myself out of this? So it becomes acknowledging the negative thoughts and the way you talk yourself out of it and the way you kept yourself, quote unquote, safe all of these years living kind of isolated and moving out of that. So my soul was desiring this ridiculously good chicken sandwich. And I spent 45 minutes debating whether I should leave the house and go do it. After a while, your soul and your desire starts to get stronger than the negative thoughts. Does it always win? No. There were days where I just throw up the white flag and I'm like, listen, I just can't talk myself into it today and I'm going to have to accept that. But the key to that is not beating yourself up for it, because I'd be like, you're such a loser, you're so lazy, you're so fearful, you're so this, and then you just start compounding that self-hate and you stay stuck. So if I can't do it and I don't feel strong enough, I just have to accept the fact that, listen, today I just couldn't talk myself into doing what I wanted.

Jeffrey Besecker: Humor me, if you will, a minute on this. So often, I like to relate this kind of to a broken glass analogy. You know, so often we view our issues, problems, struggles, troubles, you know, all of the like as a broken glass. When that glass breaks, rather than simply sweeping up the pieces that are scattered around, discarding them in the dustbin, We spend all of our time rooting around in that broken glass, searching through the pieces, trying to make sense of why the glass fell, how it fell, needing to know the cause.

Joe Ryan: Yeah, it's self-hate, man. Like, I have to be perfect at any mistake. See, I need to shame myself and beat myself up harder than anybody else, because it hurts less when I do it. So if I make a mistake, I need to go into what a loser I am, how worthless I am, and explain everything that happened from the way I reached the floor of the glass. I was thinking about making you happy. I was distracted. I said, whatever bullshit excuse I'm making up at that point. But I can't look bad. to others, but I can look bad to myself, so I will stay in that self-hate as a way of protecting myself from you hating on me.

Jeffrey Besecker: As we move into emotional dysregulation, we often operate from automatic subconscious reactions. For instance, activation of the autonomic ladder, default neural programming, and conditioned beliefs. In short, we develop a pattern of confirmation bias. With the confirmation bias playing a considerable role that leaves us searching for those familiar associations. In that regard, Joe, how do we move beyond those biases?

Joe Ryan: It was simply an accident and all I needed was a dustpan and a broom. But we have to complicate this shit out of everything, like. Like just pick, sweep the glass up, get you water and move on. It's such an identity that trauma victims just hold on to that we are, you know, we didn't make a mistake. We are a mistake. And to stay stuck and feel somewhat safe in our role, we will just continue to do it. It's so hardwired in our brain that we can't see from another perspective. You know, I made this mistake. I left my phone in the cab and then I ended up finding it. I beat myself up the entire time. And my friend and I, we had to go walk and go find the phone. And I like apologized for like seven hours because I inconvenienced you. And it was like, she was just like, it was just a mistake. What's the big deal? And I'm like, well, obviously you haven't lived with my trauma.

Jeffrey Besecker: You know, do you feel from that perspective that shifts us into that victim mentality that becomes our own self-sabotaging belief so often?

Joe Ryan: It does. And not having a mirroring face when you're younger and you, you know, that becomes the identity, negative or positive, whatever identity you take, there's a safety in it because you know the rules. You know how you're supposed to act and you know how to not make you feel worse. Like if I just owned up and said I made a mistake, then I would have to just deal with the guilt and the shame that I was really feeling. But instead of having to deal with those emotions, I just put it out there and I'm like, I feel horrible. I feel remorseful. I feel guilt. I feel shame. I feel all of this. It's so much easier to put that on yourself than pretend it's not there and internalize what you feel you're perceiving from this person when really you're perceiving it from your childhood the way you were brought up. It's not really happening in the moment. You just kind of regress to like age 13 when you broke the handle off the drawer.

Jeffrey Besecker: In that instance, returning again back to our brains and bodies, we're revisiting those events and looking to validate those feelings.

Joe Ryan: Yeah, it's programming. It's just this natural response. I mean, I brush my teeth the same way I always have. Like, I never think about it. It's just an automatic response. It's the same thing with the negative thoughts in your head. They formed long before we were emotionally intelligent enough to understand what was going on. So by the time we got to a certain point, it was already there. And that became the identity. And it's safe. I choose abusive relationships my entire life because I understood the rules. I didn't feel like I had value. I felt like I deserved it. And this is where I was supposed to be. It's just ingrained in you. When you can pull away and detach from the thoughts and the emotions that are having that argument and see how you are beating yourself up and see how you're viewing yourself, it's so much better. But you can't do that alone. You need a therapist. You need a coach. You need somebody who's compassionate that can take your perspective and say, OK, I see how you're looking at it, but here's nine other ways to look at it. And I'll be like, my whole thing was, yeah, but and they were like, you need to stop at the yeah. Like soon as you go to that, but you've just negated all the nine perspectives I gave you.

Jeffrey Besecker: But what we put after that, but becomes the butt of the joke of what we often become. I like to relate this in this regard. So often we hear that well-worn phrase. I think, therefore, I am so often. I think I'm worthless therefore I am worthless. Cognitive reappraisal is such a wonderful tool as we reframe those perspectives. What tips or insight can you share with us about reframing our emotionally triggering experiences?

Joe Ryan: And it's really hard to get there and you're not going to think your way to it. It is so I have all this this heart this pain all of it inside of me that And so when you're abused as a child, your survival is on the people who are raising you. If I see them as incompetent, I'm going to be more fearful for my safety. So I internalize the abuse as I'm worthless, and then I carry that forward. And I keep those thoughts and I have nobody to counteract that because I'm in hiding and I'm not telling anybody how worthless I truly feel because I create this false self. And I go, hey, look at all these accomplishments. Look what I've acquired. Look at how confident I am in this one area. If I was just able to be more human and show all sides of it, you're going to start getting mirroring faces. But we stay in this hiding. And we hide all of our worthlessness and we feel like if anybody sees it, we're going to be left alone forever. Because what I don't find lovable in me, I don't think anybody is going to see as lovable.

Jeffrey Besecker: That's such a tough place to operate from. In those situations of insecurity, why do you think we tend to distort or dissociate from our inherent humanity?

Joe Ryan: When I go back and I try to get to a place in childhood that was difficult, I've been trying to go there with an adult mind. When I go into the feelings and I feel like that scared little child, something happens in my brain that makes me realize that I was eight years old and I was in a very dangerous place and it wasn't my fault. It wasn't my doing. I just got caught in the crossfire of whatever was going on in that house at the time by feeling the feelings and going into, because if I do it as an adult, I'm going to try to stop the feelings, especially as a man, because I don't want to feel fearful. I don't want to feel childish. I don't want to feel hurt. I don't want to feel victimized. I don't want to feel any of that. When I can go in and feel it and realize that this happened to a child and the child had no other recourse but to absorb it, that is healing for me because then I have more compassion for myself. Then I have more understanding instead of beating myself up for not being good enough or strong enough. It's like, how can I be a strong human when my strength didn't get a chance to develop or evolve because it was beat out of me? So I have to look at it from me as a child and I find that very empowering and very healing and it's compassion and understanding for what you went through.

Jeffrey Besecker: So often out of that defensive mechanism, we push those tendencies to react, respond back into our subconscious. They become blind spots. Do you believe the ego filters created by the construct of a separate self can sometimes subconsciously reinforce that sense of dissociation?

Joe Ryan: It's, I was the king of everything was a blind spot. I had no self-awareness. I just was in false self, you know, working off of a script forever. So it was, you know, there was this flow chart. If I get this reaction, I'm going to act this way. If I get this reaction, I'll react that way. Being I wasn't present, I was always preparing so there were no blind spots because you don't want to be caught off guard. When you are so shameful, you don't want to be exposed before you're ready to be exposed because you have no boundaries and you don't know how to react. It's like this big light is shined on worthlessness and everybody in the room is saying that's a bad signal. Everybody can see that you just were exposed, right? So blind spots, instead of going into the shame, like I said before, I would say something I thought was stupid or fell flat, didn't get the reaction, I'll obsess for two weeks over it. Having the understanding and the compassion for yourself to understand that we couldn't fully develop living in the moment because of the trauma. And we can't prepare for every blind spot. And your body knows the fear, even if you don't. How many times are you caught off guard in a conversation or at work? You think you're doing the right thing. Learning from the blind spots. to fear them, I used to hate them, I would go into hiding, lean into them and see where they lead. Why did you have this massive emotional reaction? Why did you either cower and withdraw or push back in anger and rage? Your body's telling you to take a look at these things, but we don't want to. If I get angry and rage, I'll go into shame because But, you know, I hurt somebody else because of it, or I take, absorb the hurt. There's middle ground to reason with yourself once, obviously, once the trigger goes down and your brain comes back online. Blind spots are so difficult because what they are, they're blind. And until they show themselves, don't ignore them. Pay attention to them. Write it out. Speak it out. Sit with it. Try to see where it leads. Pay attention to the feelings. What is your body telling you?

Jeffrey Besecker: I think it's important that we emphasize that there is no shame in having these blank spots. We are often simply susceptible to experiencing them as an adapted personality trait or pattern of behavior that becomes hidden from view. We move back into that comfort zone. We bury them because they activate those trauma triggers. We adapt them as a defense or protective mechanism.

Joe Ryan: It's a learning opportunity when they come. It is. It's almost getting shot, like getting shot, like with a gun. Right. You know, you're walking along. You're having a great time. The relationship's going good. And all of a sudden you hear something and it's like, oh, my God, I don't know why, but I just lost every ounce of confidence. I'm starting to sweat. I'm in panic. Abandonment's coming. Whatever comes up for you and you just spiral. and react, but it's it's a split second, but there's a pause. So I attach to it and I'll just ride it. It'll just pull me down to the abyss. If you can kind of pause and pull back from that feeling and it takes practice. No, listen, nobody likes to be caught off guard, man. That's just embarrassing. But be human about it. Be human to yourself. Don't beat yourself up. We all have them. And ninety nine point nine percent of the time, everybody on the other end, when you hit that blind spot, has no idea, you think everybody does, you feel completely exposed. So if you can kind of keep your composure, get through whatever you're in, and then go home and take care of it and stop processing it.

Jeffrey Besecker: From your perspective, how do we begin to notice and become more aware of these triggers and become more aware of what these blind spots are?

Joe Ryan: For me, it's, I say this all the time, I have to humiliate myself to myself. I have to go in and look at when I'm full of shit, when I'm lying, when I'm pretending, when I'm putting on a false self and ask myself why. And it's because I don't feel good enough as me. So I instead of putting myself in a situation and getting embarrassed with the blind spots, I try to uncover the blind spots to myself. So if I can own things that I don't feel good about myself, if somebody calls me, if some if I pretended to not be insecure, which I did forever because I'm so insecure. When somebody would say you're insecure, I would melt. It would just completely take me over. Once I start to own my insecurities, if somebody calls me out and goes, look how insecure this guy is, I'd be like, yeah, right. Can you believe that? I don't know where I went with that. Where'd all my confidence go? So when you start to own your own embarrassment, it's hard for people to embarrass you with what you're hiding if you don't hide it anymore.

Jeffrey Besecker: Yeah, I think it's crucial in those cases we need to learn to move from subjectivity to objectivity. I'm going to break this down a little. Objectivity being not influenced by personal feelings or opinions and considering and representing facts. That's hard to do, to just consider what the represented facts are or what we believe are just the essence of something. Those filtered distortions, paratoxic distortions to more accurately label them perhaps, can put us in an unsettling place to receive outside support and compassionate feedback. Feedback that helps us unravel those blind spots. In short, we can't see any further than our own self-constructs. What actions can we take that help us ease beyond those ego filters as we open to a more empowering sense of vulnerability?

Joe Ryan: Yeah, I mean, it's it's your brain. There's a part of your brain that just takes over and there's no logical, reasonable thought that goes on. And it's like everything just goes on high alert. It's just it's fear, fear, fear. And you can't process and think. You know, learning how to breathe into my body, learning how not to attach to that panic and that fear, trying to get my brain to come online a lot quicker, not identifying with that part of me, that that that shame part, that embarrassment part. It's you know, it's pausing at the trauma response. Like there's this there's this narrow second you have. where you can attach to it and just go right down the hole or you can kind of breathe and let it pass. If I don't attach to it, I'm good, but it takes practice. And here's the thing, you have to actually be caught, you know, in blind spots over and over and over again. So the more you put yourself out there, the more you push, your limits and walk into that fear, the faster you're going to learn how to process these things. But it's that one split millisecond of a pause that makes all the difference in the world. I am not my trauma. And I did not know that for so long. When I realized that it's just a part of me, it makes me react in certain ways. It doesn't make me useless. It doesn't make me worthless. It's just a part of me that I have to incorporate and own. And once I own it, I won't fear the responses coming. If I go into a trauma response now, if it's not that intense, I could actually talk myself out of it and say, OK, you just your nervous system just went completely online. This is a trauma response. Just breathe. It will be over. Don't attach to the thoughts and don't keep telling yourself how worthless you are as a human being because it's just going to make it worse.

Jeffrey Besecker: So often we're in that relationship to our experience with ourselves and others from that notion of subjectivity. It's based on or influenced by our personal beliefs, our past experiences, our feelings, our opinion of something. This is where many of us remain in our perspective, and there is no shame in it, yet it's not fully of service to ourselves and others.

Joe Ryan: For me, I wasn't real. I wasn't real, and I wasn't genuine. I did not know that. How could I have not known that I was completely living a lie for so long? I had to get to the lowest point in my life and recall memories of things that have happened that I didn't know to completely strip my false self away and realize that I need to build myself as me. I've adopted a belief system that was given to me. I didn't have a choice. I didn't get to choose my religion. I didn't get to choose where I lived. I didn't get to choose the beliefs that were put on me. I didn't get to choose my heritage, but I adopted it as my own. I never questioned any of it. When your life gets stripped down to nothing, you get to actually look at the world with a clearer slate and go, what do I believe? What are my feelings? What are my beliefs? What's my empathy? How do I look at the world? I was looking through it as a multi-generation hand down of a belief system that I had to live that way to survive in this house. And if I didn't, I was out. So I felt like I had to do that the rest of my life, where now I just start to figure out who I am and what I believe, and I get to build upon and make my own belief systems.

Jeffrey Besecker: When we start to heal those inner emotional wounds, when we start to awaken to those traumas and start to bridge that gap where we're healing some of that covered up pain, we start to evolve into that state of inner subjectivity where we are able to connect and relate to others from a more emotional, neutral perspective. We free ourselves of those judgments and attachments. In short, we develop an expanded window of tolerance.

Joe Ryan: And then you start to find people who have more of your belief system, and then you have more of a positive mirror, and then you can start discussing things and expanding on ideas. Where when you grow up in a place where you're only allowed to talk about these six things, but you're not allowed to talk about these 7,000, it limits you. When you start to find out who you are, people start to gravitate. I mean, right now we're having this conversation. If I didn't go through what I went through, I wouldn't be exploring these ideas with other humans. And it feels so incredibly good on every level to find people who speak the similar language that you do, because you're growing up in a place where you don't feel like you belong and you feel like you're alone and you don't fit in. When you move out of that and you start to find your tribe, so to speak, there's an empowerment there. And there's a, there's a healing there and there's a positive mirror. It is just, you're not going to do it unless you leave this family system, find out who you are and what you believe, and then gravitate and people gravitate towards you. And then you just, the growth is just, just accelerate.

Jeffrey Besecker: And that sets us up with that empowerment to start to define those more effective boundaries with those that do not align with us that do not resonate with those core values? Do you feel we might also utilize those boundaries as a defensive coping mechanism or shield that hinders a deeper connection within all areas of our conscious being?

Joe Ryan: Once you start to own your own belief system and you truly start to live it, I don't need you to agree with me. I don't need you to see it my way. I feel comfortable and confident in what I believe and the way I live my life. And you're less judgmental of other humans. because you found this place of peace and belonging where they have found something that's different than yours but you don't really care that they look at it your way because you have what you need and everybody's going to fit into different places so when you start to feel good about yourself and the people around you and it has that ripple effect out I don't need that outside. I don't need people to see it my way. I don't have to fight to get my point made. It doesn't matter. I know that I own it and I believe it. And that's enough.

Jeffrey Besecker: Hmm. That's so powerful, Joe. That's so powerful.

Joe Ryan: Yeah, it's it would it would be great if we could all just get rid of the false self and the hate and just, you know, we should all just walk in and throw all our crap on the table and start sorting it out because underneath it all, we're all the same. We just want to be us, be genuine, give and receive love and enjoy our existence while we're here and do the best we can for ourselves and the people around us. It's when you get into that self-hate and that, you know, having to have people believe what you believe and see your way because you're not strong enough to stand on your own with what you believe.

Jeffrey Besecker: That's such a powerful message and it can be a real and raw place to exist within when we haven't developed that level of emotional maturity. Finally today, Joe, if you were to share three tips with us about addressing those triggers, embracing emotional maturity, and expanding our ability to form a healthier window of tolerance, what would those processes look like?

Joe Ryan: I liked it best when I was a high school guy, cuz we just ragged on each other so much. We called each other out that you couldn't hide. That was the best time, because whatever your blind spots were, they weren't blind for long. Because you had eight guys just going, dude, when you do this, you're a mess and we hate it. And it's just like, I didn't even know I was doing that. I think more people, radical honesty, right? Just be able to tell people and be that accurate mirror, not only in the positive ways, but in the ways that because the blind spots do hurt you and they hold you back.

Jeffrey Besecker: You know, there again, we're going to step into that notion that objectivity is the guiding view, meaning feel the emotions which come up, process, get the insightful feedback and then release it.

Joe Ryan: I have this process and it's almost exactly what you said. The ending of it for me is the real part of the release is I will get it like emotionally start to sob. You know, and as a grown man, it doesn't sound really masculine, but there's this process. And if I go through it, it doesn't get to the sobbing. I know it's not out of me. So it's you know, it's kind of weird to kind of wish to cry. But there's such like I'm done with it. I can go through that entire process six times with a certain event until the sobbing comes. I don't feel like it's truly released. And then my whole body is just so much lighter. And I just feel like joy fills that space where the stuff that I just grieved the left. And it just keeps building and building and starts to push this up more and more. And every time you feel uncomfortable, instead of going, oh, God, here we go again, it's more of, all right, here we go again. What's next? We're going to get more of this out of us. This is a good thing, not a bad thing anymore.

Jeffrey Besecker: And handling that feedback can become that uncomfortable space. Guiding this back, ultimately, how do you feel we guide others to embrace that level of emotional integrity.

Joe Ryan: I find the coaching really, really rewarding. I don't ever want to feel and sit with what I did for so long, and I don't want anybody else to. The fact that I've kind of come on the other side of this, helping people get out of that pain is just rewarding. And the more you can take somebody out of that pain and they can live a better life, the more that ripple effect is gonna happen. They're gonna be more joyful and feel better about themselves and have tools that they can give to their spouse and their kids and their aunts. And it just can make the world a better place. It's that light bulb that goes on. And we all know that light bulb when that clarity comes. And it's like, oh, nice. I don't have to like, you know, I can now have control over this and not over me. Watching somebody look across the screen at and seeing that happen and the relief I just find great joy in it. The codependent in me wants to give them a hug through it. You know what I mean? I want to take them out of their pain a little and just be that people pleasing guy. But I know that they have to sit in it and experience it and grieve it. And they're so brave and courageous to actually do this in front of another human. and go to these deep, dark places. But that's the only way that I know to feel better about being you.

Jeffrey Besecker: So true, Joe. And yet in that instance, we can't let go of acknowledging the fact of the beauty in that simple hug.

Joe Ryan: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It's going to be a virtual one. But, um, you know, you let them. I've had so many therapists try to take me out of my feelings over the years that I know when people are in their feelings, you have to let them take it as far as they're going. They need to go. They will take themselves out of it when they've had enough. And for some people, that may be a three minute conversation. For other people, they may sit in it for 35 minutes. But you have to allow people their reality and their experience and let them get to those feelings. Taking people out of it does nothing. And if you don't do the work as a therapist or a coach and you haven't gone to those places, see, nobody can take me where I haven't been. because it's going to make me too uncomfortable. So doing the work yourself and getting to the darkness, the really dark, crazy, painful, hurtful stuff, if you can sit there yourself and live with it, you can sit with somebody else. And that's what people need. I was lucky enough to find a therapist that was incredible. She went everywhere that I needed to be, and she never once took me out of what I was feeling. And I learned to trust that I could go as deep and as dark as I needed. And when I would look up, she was sitting across from me. And that's what I try to give to others.

Jeffrey Besecker: Joe, I want to thank you for sharing this very real, authentic look at trauma and for being willing to open up to that vulnerability to revisit that past with us. I'm so grateful for that today. Thank you. Thank you. This is a great conversation. I really appreciate it. It has truly been a good conversation, a great conversation to dive in so many of those aspects of trauma from someone who's truly lived and experienced it. Where can our listeners go to connect with you and your trauma recovery program? And it's not you, it's your trauma, your podcast exploring the processes needed to heal anxiety, trauma, PTSD, and other after effects of abuse.

Joe Ryan: You can find me at joeryan.com. I've got all the links to coaching and social media and the podcast there. I usually spend most of my time on Instagram at Joe Ryan. And if the podcast it's on all the platforms, it's not you, it's your trauma. Yeah.

Jeffrey Besecker: It truly has become one of my fast favorites. So much great information there, not only about exploring trauma, but coaching through many adverse things we experience in life. So reach out to Joe, reach out to the podcast, tune in and be open to learn. Thank you. I had a great time. Thank you, Joe. I'd love to do this again soon. Anytime. It was awesome. Really was. Yeah. It's been my pleasure. Thank you.