What if your triggers weren't signs of weakness, but proof your nervous system is working exactly as designed?
In this Therapy Is My Cardio workout, Jessica walks you through a four-step real-time regulation practice for mild, everyday triggers: the critical email, the tense conversation, the racing heart in traffic. You'll learn to identify what's activating you, notice where it lives in your body, and choose a grounding intervention — whether that's breathwork, orienting, or gentle movement. Think of it as a small but mighty nervous system workout. Because healing doesn't happen in one big moment. It happens in hundreds of small ones, just like this.
Welcome back to Healing is My Hobby and welcome to our Therapy is My Cardio segment where emotional work becomes a workout and healing becomes the movement. Healing isn't something we master overnight, it's something we practice. And the more we practice, the more our nervous system learns that we have new options. This month on the podcast, we've been talking about trauma, what it is,
how it lives in the nervous system and how it shapes the way we react to the world. And I warm up today, I wanna do something a little bit different. Instead of just talking about trauma responses, I wanna walk you through what it looks like to regulate one in real time. Before we begin, I wanna be really clear about something. We are not working with overwhelming trauma triggers today. This workout,
is only meant for mild triggers, the everyday moments where your nervous system gets activated. Things like someone sending a critical email, a tense conversation, getting cut off in traffic, a moment where you suddenly feel anxious, defensive, or shut down. These moments are actually perfect practice opportunities because regulation isn't about never being triggered.
It's about learning how to move through activation safely. So today we're going to do four simple steps together. We're going to identify a mild trigger, notice your body's response,
intervention, and observe what changes. think of this like a small,
nervous system workout working.
So step one, identifying a mild trigger. Take a moment and think about a recent situation that activated you just a little bit. Not the worst thing that has ever happened to you, just something small where you noticed your body react. Maybe your heart sped up, maybe you felt defensive, maybe you shut down or wanted to escape the situation. Pause here and picture that moment just lightly.
We're not diving into the story. We're noticing the activation.
Being in a home with four other people, I am activated all the time. Traffic here is crazy. So my example here is just being activated with my partner and I felt my heart rate speeding up. I felt my face getting.
And that's why we're shifting, perfect that I say that, because we're shifting our attention from the situation to the body. And so as you're thinking about this trigger, I'm thinking about this trigger just like I talked about, where do we feel this in our body? Maybe it's tightness in your chest and not on your stomach, tension in your shoulders, heat in your face, a feeling of restlessness. There is no right answer.
Trauma responses are nervous system responses, and the nervous system always shows up in the body. And ask yourself a few gentle questions. What is my body doing right now? Is it bracing, is it holding, is it wanting to move? Just observe, we're not fixing it.
Now we're going to move into practicing a regulated.
Now we're going to move into practicing a regulating intervention. I'm going to give you three different options for an intervention. You can choose whatever feels most comfortable for you. Option one, slow breathing. Take a slow breath in through your nose for about four seconds. Exhale slowly through your mouth for six seconds.
longer exhales tell the nervous system you are safe enough to slow down. Try that for a few breaths.
Option two, orienting or grounding. Look around the room you're in now. Name silently to yourself three things you can see, two things you can hear, and one thing you can physically feel, and one thing you can feel physically. I see my bright yellow.
water bottle, my electrolyte bottle, my microphone. I hear gentle Zen music playing outside and I hear my voice.
Physically, I can touch my lip gloss.
These things help your nervous system and give you a reminder, I am here, I am not in danger right now. A third option is gentle movement. Roll your shoulders, stretch your neck, press your feet to the floor. Movement tells the nervous system,
that energy can move throughout the body safely. Take about 30 seconds with whichever option feels best. Let's notice what changed. Check back in with your body. Ask yourself what feels different. Maybe the activation dropped from an eight to a five. Maybe the tension softened a little. Maybe nothing dramatic changed, but you feel a little more space, and that matters.
Because the goal of regulation is not perfection, the goal is capacity. Every time you help your nervous system move from activation towards safety, you're literally building new neural pathways. This is how healing happens. Not in one big moment, but in hundreds of small moments like this.
As we begin to cool down, I want to leave you with one important reframe. Most of us grew up believing that if we were triggered, it meant something was wrong with us. But being triggered actually means your nervous system is doing exactly what it was designed to do, protect you. The work of healing isn't eliminating triggers. It's increasing our ability to regulate after them. The more we practice this, the more our nervous system learns.
I can feel activated and still come back to safety. That is resilience. That is nervous system flexibility, and that is healing. So if you wanna keep experimenting this week, try this. The next time you notice yourself activated, pause and ask, what is my nervous system needing right now? Then give it one small regulating action, not 10, just one.
because healing like any hobby gets easier the more we practice.
For me, and I know I say this all the time, but breathing in for a count, and then out through your, in through your nose for a shorter count than your exhale. So in, two, three, four, through your nose, out, two, three, four, five, six, through your mouth, activates the parasympathetic nervous system. So for me with my example, what happened at that time was that
⁓ the situation didn't change, but I just kept breathing and calming myself and when I cued my body into safety, then I had opportunity to really explore what was really going on and dive in a little bit deeper, which was really incredibly helpful for me. And so the point of today is for us to start recognizing our physical cues to triggers.
and hopefully you can engage in one or a few of the options we went through today. And hopefully that will help build your toolkit for managing.
for helping to regulate your nervous system. I'll see you next time on Healing Is My Hobby. Thank you for listening. If you wanna find out more about the podcast or read my blog, you can go to healingismyhobby.com or on social, on Instagram and YouTube, at healingismyhobby. If you wanna know more about my clinical practice, you can visit my website, jessicacolarco.lcsw.com. There you can sign up for the newsletter.
where you get all kinds of tips, tools, and resources, or you can check it out, or you can follow me on Instagram, at Jessica Kolarko, LCSW. Thank you and have a great day.
