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- Hey everybody.
My name is Kati Morton
and I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist.
And today we're gonna talk about some trigger words
or words that our society has deemed to be bad.
But I actually think that they're incredibly helpful.
And if you like videos like this,
make sure you like and subscribe.
It really does help.
But let's jump into that first word.
Attention.
We hear phrases like this all the time.
You're just doing it for attention
or he's just always needing attention from other people.
We hear it as if attention is a bad thing to need.
And this is often labeled
especially in the mental health space.
People who have a suicide attempt,
people who self injure, it's so often thought of
as something that is quote, done for attention.
And that is a bad thing.
But the thing that we forget is that we as humans
are actually wired for connection to others.
Meaning, we need attention in order to survive.
Think about us as babies, right?
We are first born.
We have to cry.
We have to make noise, whine,
do things in order to get the attention
of our caregivers so that our needs are met.
And then when our needs are met
let's say our mom or dad, or whoever's taking care of us,
grandma, aunt comes to feed us.
We look them in the eye and that actual sucking
and swallowing of eating soothes our nervous system.
And we feel connected to our caregiver.
That's incredibly important to our development
our attachment, all sorts of mental health ramifications.
Trigger word number two, overreacting.
We hear this all the time.
You're just overreacting.
We can even think it about ourselves.
I'm just overreacting.
We have all these judgements.
Again, assuming that an overreaction is a bad thing
but as a therapist, I love overreactions.
Overreactions are when our emotional response
to something is greater than the situation itself warrants.
Hence, over reaction, right?
I'm reacting more than I maybe should.
And the reason I love these,
and the reason I think these are great is this tells us
that something bigger is going on.
Just take a second
and think about the last time you overreacted, right?
Mine was just a couple of days ago,
I was really grouchy with Sean
and I lashed out essentially for no reason.
I overreacted because he was dragging his feet
and I was hungry.
I was hangry.
I was losing my mind, low blood sugar, start freaking out.
And I get mad.
I overreacted.
Why?
Because I wasn't taking care of my basic needs
which led me to be more vulnerable to my emotional reaction.
So think about it.
An overreaction is just a little indicator
that something else is happening.
If someone cuts us off in traffic
and we lose our minds, that's an overreaction.
It doesn't make us a bad person.
It's just we need to be curious about where that comes from.
It's information.
I think that's the thing about our emotions and our response
to life that always frustrates me is people wanna judge it.
And I always think it's helpful information, right?
If we're just being a detective about our experience
then when we have an overreaction, we can think,
hey, am I taking care of my basic needs?
Is there something bigger going on?
Or why am I feeling so upset, right?
Just asking ourselves sometimes
why am I so upset by this can be incredibly helpful.
And also I think we would all agree
that overreacting doesn't feel great
and we don't like doing it.
So to assume that we are overreacting on purpose
or doing this for some other reason is just wrong.
We don't like it.
I often don't even feel like myself.
I do things.
And I'm like, oh my God, that just,
it just feels bad, right?
And I'm embarrassed.
Or I have some shame about what I did
or guilt about the way that I responded.
Trigger word number three, sensitive.
You're being too sensitive.
That's not that big of a deal.
You're overreacting.
You're too sensitive.
I heard those terms all the time growing up
that I was just too sensitive.
And to be honest, I didn't really understand what that meant
or how I could change it.
So instead of even seeking to understand my sensitivities
and learn that I'm a highly sensitive person or an empath
also a people pleaser, there was a lot going on.
Instead of doing that work, I decided to stuff it down
and ignore those sensitivities and pretend
that I was tough, right?
And I became like the angriest,
most upset version of myself.
And I often think back there's even songs
that will remind me of that time.
And I call those like my dark years
like when I was having a really tough time
because I was too, quote, sensitive for the world.
But being sensitive can be incredibly helpful.
Sensitivities tell us
when maybe a boundary has been crossed.
Do you know that feeling when someone says or does something
and you think ooh, or, oh my God, or you can be like,
I do this when I am in a restaurant or a bar,
and I've shared this before with you guys,
and someone walks up behind me
that I do not know and touches my low back.
Ugh, hate it.
I like roll like this.
And a boundary has been crossed.
I feel it.
My sensitivities tell me that that has happened.
Or if I'm watching someone else do something
that's kind of cringey, that's me being sensitive
to how I know society's gonna react.
So sensitivities are not bad things.
They actually tell us a lot of helpful information.
It can also tell us where we need
to maybe put up an emotional boundary, right?
If someone says or does something that's not okay
and it hurts our feelings, right,
we feel sensitive to that.
That can tell us that, hey, maybe we shouldn't allow people
to treat us that way.
Or we should say something or speak up
or set some boundaries or perimeter around
what's okay and not.
And this can also be helpful
in enmeshed situations where there are no boundaries
or we can feel ourselves affected
by someone else's mood.
Sensitivities tell us all of that.
They can tell us what's actually going on
and instead of shutting it down like I did
when I was a teenager
just stuff it deep down and become like a rage-filled human,
I can instead acknowledge that it's happening
and look for some reasons why.
For me, when I was being, you know, quote, too sensitive,
it was actually my brain and body telling me
that I felt disconnected or I felt hurt or misunderstood.
Having that kind of emotional reaction
was actually telling me something that I needed
or something that was going wrong.
And by paying attention to that and tapping into it
then I could be empowered to make change or to, you know,
communicate to someone
or take action to feel more connected.
But without that, I'm just left feeling all of those things:
disconnected, hurt, upset, et cetera.
And I also see being sensitive is kind of
like my superpower, you know,
because I can read situations really well.
And that has been helpful in relationships.
Like if Sean is acting a little bit off
I can check in with him nicely.
I'm not like, what's wrong with you?
That's not helpful.
But I can say, you seem a little off, what's going on?
And I can circumvent maybe an argument,
stop it from happening by just checking in kindly
and seeing if there's something I can do.
It's also incredibly helpful as a therapist
because I can sense people's differences
in mood, in the way their bodily behavior.
It really has been effective in my job.
Overall, being sensitive has helped me in job interviews,
meeting new people and all the things that I do online.
And it can even mean that we're more creative, right?
Because we might notice the eccentricities of life
or the little details of something that's beautiful.
I always feel like if people have a very creative outlet,
let's say they're a photographer
or a filmmaker or a, I don't know, pottery, artist,
sculptor, any number of things.
It's because they're sensitive
and they're aware of their environment
and they've take in all those beautiful details.
And the fourth trigger word, anger.
Why are you always so angry?
Ooh, anger's not a good look on you.
We have a lot of judgment around anger.
And I have to be honest, I still struggle with it.
I think of anger as like out of control,
dangerous and upsetting.
And I've done like spent my whole life trying to pretend
that it doesn't exist, probably because I never had conflict
in my house growing up.
So I'm like, I don't even know how to deal with this.
What does real conflict look like?
But anger, just like all of these other trigger words
can be incredibly helpful.
And I even remember growing up feeling like being a lady
meant that I couldn't be angry and I don't mean this.
I'm not making this like a gender-based thing.
But in my experience, I grew up if you guys don't know
in a very traditional Christian household
and I don't know if it really came from there
or if it's something I interpreted,
'cause I don't remember someone telling me
that ladies couldn't be angry
but I do remember this specific instance.
We had moot court in
I think middle school and I was the judge.
And I remember keeping people in line
and telling people you couldn't do that.
And the objections overruled or whatever.
And my teacher had said,
and I don't know why this, like,
I mean it stuck with me forever that if I was a boy
that it would've been great,
and I would've been seen as a wonderful leader in the court,
but because I was a woman I could look
and I'm quoting him here,
I could look somewhat like the B word.
And so I should keep that in mind as a lady.
And that has never left me.
Like, I always think that no matter who we are,
anger is helpful and it doesn't matter
if we're a guy or a girl, we should be able
to express it healthfully.
And standing your ground and being firm is not anger
and it's not inappropriate.
And the reason anger is incredibly helpful is
because it's a secondary emotion.
And what that means is it's covering for another emotion.
Anger arrives second on the scene.
The first emotion to arrive is usually something
like hurt, upset, disconnection, vulnerability,
anything that makes us feel a little bit
what I would call like your soft, squishy middle, right?
I talk about puffer fishing all the time.
If our spines are in that soft squishy part of ourselves
that's that first emotion to arrive on the scene.
And it's usually something that means we could get hurt.
Ooh, we're so soft and squishy.
Danger.
We shoot our spines out and those spines are anger.
So the emotion arrives,
the secondary emotion is anger and it's protective.
And that's why it's incredibly helpful.
Not only in therapy, but in life to recognize instead of
just letting anger, like I would do, stuff it down
and let it run through my life like wildfire.
If I can acknowledge, hey,
I'm feeling really angry about this.
This really pisses me off.
I wonder what else I'm going through?
Do I feel really vulnerable right now?
Do I feel really disconnected?
Misunderstood?
Has someone done something to hurt my feelings?
Have I not clearly expressed myself?
If I can ask myself those questions,
I know sometimes when we're in a fit of anger
you can't ask yourself anything
and you just have to let it pass through
but taking the time to reflect and think
about the real emotion will help us be more grateful
for the anger.
Because again, anger's protective.
It's coming to our aid to make sure
that our feelings don't get more hurt
or we don't feel more misunderstood.
And so acknowledging it, thanking it for its role
and then allowing ourselves to feel what's truly going on.
I swear to you, it's hard.
It's like a new muscle you have to work.
It's like taking Pilates for the first time.
And you're like, I didn't know that muscle existed.
It's like that.
But doing that work is life changing.
And another layer of that work and what I'm still
trying to do myself is to get to know my anger.
When does it show up?
And it can show up in different ways, right?
So like, why is it passive aggressive today
instead of outwardly aggressive?
How come I'm lashing out at a stranger
that I don't even know?
Like if I'm just curious
about the anger itself and where it's coming from
and what it looks like, and more importantly,
what it feels like,
the better able I can be to navigate it in the future.
Maybe managing my triggers.
What set me off?
How come I'm so upset?
Did I not sleep well?
Is this a self care thing?
Am I not doing my halt, right?
Am I extra hungry?
So I'm lashing out.
The more I pay attention to it, instead of ignore it,
the better able I will be to manage it.
And the best way to move into healthier ways
to express our anger.
I know a lot of you are thinking, oh,
I'll go to a rage room and like break shed
or just cause chaos and scream around my house.
Research actually finds
that by doing those kinds of actions,
we only build on our anger.
And so truly, I know you're not gonna like this answer
but the healthier ways to express our anger is
through communication and connection.
Because again, our anger is secondary.
And so once we can identify that primary emotion,
then we can do things to help ourselves feel better,
to soothe, and to give us what we really need.
I hope that was helpful.
Society often tells us certain things are bad
when I think that they are actually good things.
But do you have other trigger words that you wanna add?
Are there things that I missed?
Please share those in the comments down below
and I will see you next time.
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