Exit 2: Safety Goggles
The stimulus triggered your intrapersonal root. Damn. This is already starting to feel bad. But you’ve felt this before, and as such, you’ve prepared yourself for just this occasion. You reach into your mental utility belt and pull out a pair of safety goggles, and it’s through these goggles that you will see the stimulus.
The goggles might be “This isn’t about me. My job is to facilitate their learning.” Before any training, you remind yourself what your role is, and you decide that you’ll take the high road if this stimulus triggers you.
Or maybe your safety goggles are more of the “Haters gonna hate” variety, and you are able to rest in comfort knowing sometimes people are jerks.
Or, if you’re like Sam, perhaps you go with the “I blame society” goggles, and you are able to process the stimulus through a lens that it wasn’t intentional, it wasn’t malicious, and even if it was, the person was socialized to respond in that way. It’s not their fault. Similarly, Meg’s go-to safety goggles are “They learned that,” which helps remind her that they learned what they shared from somewhere (making it not their fault) and giving her hope for unlearning.
Whatever your brand of safety goggles might be, make sure they’re strong enough to hold up to being triggered by this particular stimulus. And, more importantly, create a pair of safety goggles that are appealing enough to you that they keep you from allowing your intrapersonal roots, having been triggered in that moment, to form the lens through which you’ll see the stimulus for you -- because it’s rarely a safe one.
If you can put your safety goggles on, you can exit to the right. If not (and, again, that’s okay!), let’s start prepping our bodies.
Exit 3: Body Prep
Your intrapersonal roots formed the lens through which you see the stimulus. Instead of seeing best intentions, or rising above, you have a thought in your head that is less-than-positive. In the facilitator example way above, this is where the facilitator saw the stimulus as an attack on them and their profession. We’ve created a story now, and we are heading quickly toward reacting to that story. But we still have a few tricks up our sleeve.
As you know (both because you read it above, and because you’ve experienced being triggered before), the reaction generally starts internally in our body, before it manifests externally. To prevent this from making things worse, there are a few different tactics we can use to prepare our body consciously, instead of letting the subconscious take control.
Remember back to the last time you were triggered in this way. Did you close up physically? (e.g., cross legs, arms, hunch shoulders). Did your pulse or breathing quicken? Did you get angry or sad? Want to fight back or run away? Knowing what your cognitive, emotional, and physiological reactions to being triggered tend to be can help you prepare your body to get off the traffic circle.
Generally speaking, body prep is practicing adjusting your body intentionally to counteract what you end up doing unintentionally.
If you close up when triggered, body prep is practicing opening: uncrossing your legs and arms, raising your chin a bit, sitting up or back in your chair, placing your palms facing upward on the table or on your lap. If your breath or pulse start to race, body prep is slowing them down: circular breathing and other mindfulness practices can accomplish this. These are prescriptives for everyone, but they are general pieces of advice we’ve noticed being helpful for many facilitators.
Again, the important thing here is to think about what your body generally ends up doing when triggered, and adjusting your body in ways that intentionally offset those habits. It is you shaping the way your body reacts cognitively, emotionally, and physiologically, instead of letting the story the trigger inspired do so.
Exit 4: Making Meanings
The story shaped your cognitive, emotional, or physiological reactions. You’re noticing this in how you’re thinking and feeling, and you recognize that you are on the verge of losing control. But you haven’t lost control. In fact, you’re approaching an exit we find to be one of the most within our control.
Consider yourself J.R.R. Tolkien, because it’s time to shape some fantasy worlds. This exit is all about writing new stories (the more the merrier: meanings) to consider alongside the one your body is reacting to. Our triggered roots formed a lens through which we told our body a story--a convincing one--and if we don’t come up with something else, it will be this story that forms our intentions in reacting to the stimulus.
When it comes to these stories, there are three important realizations that will be helpful for you: (1) realize that you are telling yourself a story; (2) realize that this story is not reality; and (3) realize that our stories can shape our reality, or our reality can shape our stories, or we can hold them separate.
The “reality” we talk about here is the as-close-to-objective facts about the situation as you can muster. The temperature of the room, the number of people, the ways people are sitting, and the words being exchanged.
The “story” is the meaning behind all of those things. For example, a story might be it’s hot so everyone is irritated; or there are too few people in this training, so that individual person is feeling threatened and put on the spot; or that person is leaning back because they are disengaged; or they said that because they wanted to hurt me.
Now, with the distinction between reality and story in your mind, you’re ready to start constructing some worlds. If in between reality (what’s happening) and story (why it’s happening) you can imagine a wall: being able to separate these concepts gives you power[17]. If your trigger is telling one story, and you are able to come up with a second one, that first story loses its power. This is even more true if you can come up with three, four, or five different stories. These can be stories you make up in the moment, or ones you have prepared.
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A great story to have in your back pocket is “I’m feeling really triggered because I care, and I care enough not to make someone else feel this way.” All of the Safety Goggles that you have access to can also serve as stories. From each of these stories, or all of them combined, you can make meanings from your body’s reaction, and from your time thus far on the traffic circle, and choose the one that best aligns with your goals as a facilitator.
The more meanings you can make, the more likely you’ll be able to exit the traffic circle here and not let the One Story form the intentions with which you react.
Exit 5: Non-Reacting
So, you didn’t make your own meanings, and instead, the intention of your response was shaped by the story formed by your intrapersonal roots. It’s time to start thinking about Non-Reacting, instead of Reacting. This is our last chance to handle this internally, so it’s a worthwhile exit to devote some thought and practice to. First, let’s distinguish what we mean by non-reacting.
Reacting is the effect that comes after a cause. There is no separation between the two, and the effect is determined entirely by the cause. For example, “If you push me, I’ll push you back.”
Non-reacting is a cause without an effect. For example, “If you push me, you pushed me. That’s it. I was pushed.”
Instead of a cause leading to an effect, another cause might follow a cause, something we would describe as being proactive. In a facilitation setting, this can look many different ways: (1) it can be the facilitator providing a prompt for reflection; (2) asking a question instead of providing an answer; (3) taking a moment of pause, and waiting until a participant acts; or more.
All three of the above practices are what we’d call non-reactive responses to a stimulus, and all three will help you avoid retriggering someone else, or yourself. When in doubt, the third option above is always powerful (even when not triggered), and taking several deep, silent breaths before responding (three, five, ten, etc.) is usually all it takes.
For the first two, if you’re reaching for what your prompt or question might be about, the triggering event you
are experiencing can sometimes provide guidance. Briefly explaining what you were experiencing, then prompting a silent reflection, or asking a reflective question, might remove you from the traffic circle. That said, this is riskier, and is something we wouldn’t recommend until you’ve had experience navigating this particular trigger.
Finally, the most true non-reaction is no response at all. This is a time where having a co-facilitator is clutch, and they can jump in if they notice you’re triggered (or you can signal them) and respond for you. Or you can ask the group to respond, “Other thoughts?” is a wonderfully generic prompt. You can take a brief break, if your schedule allows it (we are always pro-break).
Or you react. And everything that was happening internally is now visible, in one way or another, to the group. Hey--we’ve all been there. Let’s see what we can do about that.
Exit 6: Name Reaction
You reacted to the stimulus. Now it’s dig yourself out of a hole time[18], and we’ll give you two steps to do so: name and apologize.
Saying what you are feeling or thinking is powerful. To share what is happening with you in a particular moment is an undervalued tool, both in ourselves as facilitators and for our participants.
When we say “name,” what we mean is to describe--for others in the room and also for yourself--how you just reacted. In naming a triggering response, don’t focus too much on the “why,” or it may sound like you’re defending yourself.
Often, all it takes to defuse a triggering event is to name that it is happening. “I’m feeling triggered,” might do that, and can come in handy at any point earlier in the circle, as well as now. Adding more context can also help: “I’m feeling triggered, but what was said wasn’t wrong. It just struck a particular chord in me.”
In naming how you felt and what happened, be sure you use as much “I” language as possible. For example, instead of “you triggered me,” you can say “I was triggered.” After naming, move swiftly into apologizing.
Your apology can be short (and it really should be). “I’m sorry for reacting that way.” Or it can be a pivoting point to turn this experience into a teachable moment for others, if that fits within the goals of your facilitation. “And I’m wondering…has anyone else ever reacted in a way they weren’t proud of? Can you explain what that feels like?”
Our goal here is to prevent our reaction from retriggering someone else, or from retriggering ourselves. But if we can’t do that…
Exit 7: Recenter
Your reaction triggered someone else. What are you going to do about it? We have only one thing to say, in addition to the two steps we suggested above: validate.
If you notice that you’ve triggered someone else with your reaction (or, just in general, that someone is being triggered), (1) name what you’re seeing, (2) apologize for it happening, and (3) validate their experience of it.
This all might sound like, “I’m noticing that you are feeling angry. I’m sorry that my reaction caused you to feel that way, and I just want you to know that it’s entirely valid you’re feeling angry.” Or something similar. The order doesn’t matter so much as the “and”-ness of it all. Make sure you don’t accidentally invalidate your validation by following it up with a “but.”
It’s not always apparent when you’ve triggered someone, or when someone is feeling triggered. Different people have different triggering responses. We recommend that if you notice yourself reacting from a place of being triggered, or when there is a statement made that is likely to trigger others, you check in with the group, “How is everyone feeling after that comment?” And, if someone mentions a triggering response, do your best to help them recenter.
Be a Responsible Driver
As a facilitator, you are putting yourself in a role of responsibility. It is this choice that allows us to feel comfortable stating that it is your job to navigate your own triggers, and not retrigger someone else--something we would never say about a participant in a training, or a person at large.
Learning from Emotions
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou
There was an auditorium full of college students, and Sam had just finished performing a show about navigating the concepts of identity and social justice. After some claps, Sam moved into an open Q&A with the crowd, where his general rule is “You can ask me anything, as long as it’s not about my nipple[19].”
A student raised his hand. He identified himself, then explained that he often offends people by accident, by using the wrong language, though his intentions are always kind. He said “It really sucks when it happens. What am I supposed to do?” Sam could hear an intense sadness in his voice.
Sam replied, “How does it make you feel when that happens?”
“Like I’m a bad person.”
At this point, Sam was forced to put his facilitator cap on and make a choice we often make: between the two roads of intellectualizing or emotionalizing. And like in Frost’s poem, we are sorry, but you cannot travel both.
The intellectual road (where Sam might lay out steps to help the student rebound, or explain why intentions don’t matter as much as the outcome, etc.) is often the one we choose. It feels safe. That path is worn, the steps are marked, the view is clear. But this chapter is about the road less traveled by, the road Sam chose that night.
Why we walk the emotional road
In our upbringing, we[20] were socialized against showing emotions in public, professional settings, or learning spaces. We were taught that emotions would get in the way of our ability to contribute or benefit. In some ways, this is true: creating a space for and acknowledging emotions does get in the way of intellectualizing, but that’s not always a bad thing.
Remember the “gut feeling” difference between hearing “And” and “But” when someone doesn’t agree with you? In tapping into that, we’re learning from an emotion. When we talk about emotions in this chapter, we’re talking about all of the responses you have to a stimulus that aren’t explicitly intellectual: sometimes we hear them in our heads, sometimes we feel them in our bodies.
The benefit of taking the emotional road in facilitation is that, if it is done well, it can lead to integrated, persistent learning. We remember emotions, and emotional experiences anchor memories for us, even while we forget some of the details[21]. The experience of being personally affected by something in the moment, compared to just thinking about it hypothetically, plants deep roots, which, if nurtured, can grow into powerful learning.
The risk is that you’ll get lost in the woods and not see a clear way out. This is the reason why a lot of us avoid exploring the emotional road in our facilitation, and this chapter will give you some tools that we hope will muster your courage. First, we’ll discuss how to invite emotions in, then how to recognize when they’re present, and finally what to do to make the most of them.
Inviting Emotions into the Training
Throughout this book, we’ve been sprinkling breadcrumbs that will help you find your way as you venture down the emotional road.
In How to Read a Group, we discussed the various ways you can check in with participants, a skill you’ll rely on in helping folks learn from emotions. In the Both/And chapter, we talked about how important it is to hold the space for your participants’ varied realities. The “Yes, And…” Rule and Asking Good Questions will both be drawn on constantly as you invite emotions into the room; think of them like flashlights to illuminate your path. To invite emotions into the training, you’re creating a call for vulnerability, where folks are likely to be triggered--this goes for facilitators as much as participants--and in the past couple of chapters, we discussed both of these ideas at length.
We have this chapter here, at this point in the book, because we believe emotional learning to be risky, necessary, and uniquely powerful; and doing it well demands every trick
in the book.
If you’re convinced that emotions are essential for learning, it’s important to intentionally invite emotions into the setting. Remember, as we discussed earlier, many of us have had prior experiences with learning environments where it wasn’t okay to be emotional, so we must make an effort to explicitly state that it’s okay in this space.
How to invite emotions into the room
We’ve mentioned a couple of times that it’s important to actively invite emotions into your training, if you want your participants to feel comfortable accessing and sharing them. A lot of the ways you can do this well are right at the start of any group experience, when the participants are still in the process of figuring out their place in the group, the norms, and what they’re going to share or not share.
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