Triggered in Marriage, Parenting, or Friendship? How to Respond Without Overreacting OR Shutting Down
Episode Notes
What if getting “triggered” isn’t the problem… but a signal?
We all have moments where our body reacts fast—your heart races, your defenses go up, and suddenly you’re not responding from your wisest self.
In this episode, Dr. Alison sits down with Dr. Kelly Flanagan to explore what’s really happening in those moments—and how to respond with more clarity, connection, and intention.
Together, they unpack what’s happening behind reactivity and what it looks like to interrupt that cycle in real time.
You’ll learn:
- Why being triggered is a normal nervous system response
- How to notice your reactions before they take over
- The difference between protection mode and connection mode
- How to set boundaries without escalating conflict
- Why an open heart leads to wiser—not weaker—boundaries
If you’ve ever felt stuck in reactive patterns in your relationships, this conversation offers a grounded, compassionate way forward.
More Resources:
Order Dr. Kelly Flanagan’s new book, The Road Less Triggered.
You can preorder Dr. Alison’s newest book, The Secure Soul, and immediately receive the first 3 chapters as well as early access to the companion guide!
Connect further with @dralisoncook on Instagram
Curious what Family Role may have shaped you? Take the Family Role Quiz to learn how you may be showing up in your relationships with others.
Want to hear more like this? Start here:
Episode 203: Staying Close When Connection Feels Hard: The Relationship Skills No One Has Taught You
Episode 180: When People Push Your Buttons — The Power of Curiosity Over Control
📖 Find a full transcript and list of resources from this episode here
Don't forget to browse this week's sponsors, who make it possible for me to bring you these resources for free + provide you with additional discounts!
- Quince - How you dress affects your mood and you can trust that Quince has you covered in every day sustainable wardrobe staples. Go to Quince.com/bestofyou for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!
- Aqua Tru - Join 98% of customers who have made their drinking water cleaner, safer, & healthier by visiting AquaTru.com and use promo code BESTOFYOU to get 20% off today!
- StoryWorth - Give your loved ones a unique keepsake you’ll all cherish for years—Storyworth Memoirs! Right now, save $10 or more during their Holiday sale when you go to StoryWorth.com/BESTOFYOU!
- MOSH - Save 20% shipping plus FREE shipping on the Best sellers Trial Pack or the plant-based trial pack when you visit MoshLife.com/BESTOFYOU.
*Some of the links above are Amazon affiliate links. If you choose to purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.
TRANSCRIPT
The first step is that our nervous system activates. That's the physical response. The second step
is that our heart closes to what's happening. We enter a state of resistance and defensiveness
about what's going on. And then the third stage of being triggered is that we choose to let that
happen. And usually when that happens, we actually escalate the entire cycle, the entire pattern,
and the entire response. The practice of open-heartedness was changing the people around me even
when they didn't know I was practicing it. What I say now is that you don't have any power over
your people, but you have tremendous... around your people.
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to this week's deep dive episode of the best of you. I'm Dr.
Allison, and I'm so glad you're here with me today. This conversation is such a good one.
I thought about it for days after we recorded. We both stumbled on a couple of just wise truths
that really will stick with you. We're talking about what happens in those moments when something
in you gets activated fast. We all know what it feels like when your nervous system takes over,
your heart starts to raise, and suddenly you're not responding from your wisest self anymore,
right? You're reacting, you're defending, you're shutting down, you're over-explaining. Maybe you
start to rage clean. Maybe you start to rage bike, as you'll hear in this episode as my guest
shares it didn't go so well for him. And this is why I love today's conversation,
because it takes a word that gets used a lot, we see it all the time, the word triggered,
and brings it back into a grounded, clinically wise, deeply human conversation.
Because yes, we all get triggered at times. There are triggers that are rooted in deep trauma.
And also there are just those everyday moments when our nervous system interprets something
relational as danger. Maybe your spouse makes a comment. Maybe your teenager rolls their eyes.
Maybe a friend asks for one thing. more. And suddenly you find that your body is on high alert.
So the question we're dealing with today isn't how do I become a person who never reacts because
it's not realistic. And I love that about today's guest. The question for all of us is how do I
begin to notice what's happening inside of me sooner so that I give myself a better chance of
responding with more wisdom, more clarity, and more love. and by the way several of you had emailed
me asking for an episode on what to do when you're triggered especially in the context of marriage
so this episode is for you if you find it helpful i hope you'll share it with a friend or with
other people because this is the kind of information that the more we all understand it the better
we'll be in our families and our friend groups in our communities when we give each other a little
grace as we're working through these very normal moments of reactivity today Today's guest is Dr.
Kelly Flanagan. Kelly is a clinical psychologist, author, speaker, and a thoughtful guide at the
intersection of emotional health, relationships, and spiritual growth. He's the author of several
books, including his brand new book. It's called The Road Less Triggered. I love that title.
It explores how to move from protection mode back into connection mode in the moments that matter
most. Kelly also hosts an online community. It's called The Less Triggered tribe and he'll share
with us at the end of the episode if you want to join that community how to be a member of that
where you practice these principles in real life what i appreciated so much about kelly is that he
doesn't just speak as someone kind of with his own expertise he brings his own life to the story he
shares with us some of his own moments of being triggered, right? And what happens inside the body.
He uses his own self, his own nervous system as a case study for us to kind of walk through this
three-step process that happens so fast inside all of us when we get triggered.
And the framework alone that he lays out is so helpful. But we also got into some deeper questions
that so many of us wrestle with. I kept asking him the same kinds of questions over and over. How
do I stay? open-hearted, which is a big thing Kelly talks about without becoming a doormat?
How do I set boundaries? We have a great conversation about boundaries without turning them into
battles, right? And what if someone else really is behaving badly? What do I do then?
Is it still my job to work on my own response? One of my favorite lines from Kelly in this episode
is this. He says, an open heart doesn't make your boundaries weaker. It makes your boundaries
wiser. I love that because so many of us were taught to think in these binaries,
right? Either I stay quiet and keep the peace or I speak up and risk disconnection.
Either I'm loving or I have limits. Either I'm compassionate or I'm strong. But what Kelly helps us
see is that true emotional and spiritual maturity holds these things together.
Such a great conversation. I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Dr.
Kelly Flanagan.
Kelly, I'm super excited to have this conversation with you. We have so many overlaps in our work.
I want to start with your own journey through working through triggers.
You share quite personally. in this new book about your own experiences of being triggered.
I think it's really interesting that you are a clinical psychologist and you are married to a
clinical psychologist. And it does not make one immune from this work.
So share with us a little bit about how your own journey has unfolded through this work.
Yeah, absolutely. It is amazing that no matter how much information you have,
And no matter how many tools you have, we still can get hijacked in that moment in relationships
and in life, right? That moment where the nervous system takes over, we switch from connection mode
into protection mode. And now we're on the defense rather than really sort of drawing upon our best
tools to be together. And certainly was the case for me.
I mean, I started off that year not on a good footing. I was in a difficult business partnership
with my best friend, did not handle it well, was getting triggered, blew up that business
partnership and blew up the friendship in the process. So I was sort of like... coming into COVID
with the landing gear up already. And then the kids are schooling from home and becoming zombies,
as I like to say. And I was just getting triggered left and right. And for me, it sort of
culminated on a Sunday afternoon that morning. My wife had convinced me to go ahead and put in an
above ground pool. Like, you know, all the pools in the area are going to be closed. So we got to
get that above ground pool finally. All right, let's do it. So she goes out on a Sunday morning and
hangs the hose over the side of the pool, the garden hose, to fill it up, and she puts a rock there
to anchor it. But the rock wasn't heavy enough, and we didn't go back for five hours to check it.
And when I went out in the afternoon, the pool was bone dry, and the backyard was just a muddy
lake. And I recognized that moment, right? Like, I'm triggered, right?
And I'm going to say and do things that sets my relationship back. tremendously and so i was like i
got to get out of here and blow off the steam and so i need to take a bike ride today so i hopped
on my bike not the wisest thing to do to cycle at 35 miles per hour on asphalt when you're not
really paying attention because you're frustrated and i went over the handlebars and i broke my
collarbone in two places on the asphalt road. And the bones did not heal stronger in the broken
places. I wound up with a couple hinges in that collarbone. They're called fibrous tissue non
-union fractures made for a really long and painful recovery for the rest of that first COVID year.
And I got to New Year's Eve going into 2021. And I was literally looking for fitness resolutions
for the new year. And I came across this incredible quote by Michael Singer. Don't let anything in
your life be important enough that you're willing to close your heart over it. And that quote sort
of hit me harder than the asphalt road had. It was like, wait a second. It really isn't the
situations in my life that are creating my suffering. It's my reaction to the situations in my
life. Despite all my training, despite all my knowledge, something's taking over in that moment.
And it's creating a lot of suffering for me. And so I set a New Year's resolution going into 2021
that moment to moment, I'm going to notice my heart closing and try to open it back up.
And that was easier said than done. And it launched me on a bit of a journey, both personally and
professionally, to learn what happens in that moment to us and how do we learn to keep our hearts
open so that we have access to all of our best communication skills and all of our best connective
capacities. And that ultimately culminated in this book I've written. Wow.
What a story, right? There are consequences to how we behave when we're triggered,
as you learned in a very profound way, right? Help me understand this,
Kelly. Is it normal? And I kind of know these answers clinically, but to this day,
I still find myself in these positions. I know my listeners find ourselves in these positions. Is
it normal to have that immediate reaction, right? You see the flooded yard. To me,
that's a normal, like, of course there's a feeling in that moment. So walk us through that.
Give me some examples. Before we hit record,
you started talking about different examples of this. It's not just marriage. It's with our kids.
It's with our friends. These are normal, everyday moments. First of all, give us some examples.
Does everybody have these moments of... we call triggered,
you know, that moment. And then let's get into how can we begin to change that so we're not rage
biking and hurting ourselves. Rage biking. That's such a great term. I love that.
I'm going to steal that. That was great. I sometimes rage clean, you know, I might be cleaning the
dishes, but really I'm, you know. Yes. Rage biking was one of the unwisest things I've ever done.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a great question. And what I've discovered is that when you put the word triggered
on the cover of a book, it's triggering to people because the word triggered has a lot of baggage
attached to it. And one of the things I address in the book is that from a clinical perspective, as
you and I know, triggered is something we associate with a serious psychological disorder called
PTSD in which people have a very specific traumatic experience and certain present day experiences
trigger them to feel like they're back in that. that past experience so in that sense it's a sort
of a rare phenomenon that happens to a very specific set of people but on the other side of it you
know it's sort of that's a word that's been sort of taken over by popular culture and you can you
get like a tiktok influencer who gets the wrong kind of cold foam at starbucks and suddenly they're
telling you know a million online followers that they're triggered and in that sense it doesn't
really mean like much of anything so i think it is important to be clear about what i mean by that
yeah And I think of being triggered as essentially like a three-stage process. And the first step
of the process is that our nervous system activates. If your nervous system doesn't activate,
you're probably not triggered. You're probably just having a response. But the first step is that
our nervous system activates. That's the physical response. And you really can't do a whole lot
about that. The nervous system is designed to activate. We wouldn't be here if it didn't activate
voluntarily. If you are walking through a dark parking garage in the middle of the night and you
hear footsteps coming up behind you, you want your nervous system to activate. If your child steps
out in front of traffic, you want your nervous system to activate.
But if you tell your teenager to please do the dishes... And they look at you like you've just made
the most unreasonable request in the world and roll their eyes at you and your nervous system
activates. It's a different story, right? Your nervous system is specifically designed to activate
when you're in mortal danger. And so something about this moment with your teenager just made your
nervous system interpret it as mortal danger. So we need to start to slow down around that moment a
little more. So the first step is that nervous system activates. The second step is that our heart
closes to what's happening in that moment. We enter a state of resistance and defensiveness about
what's going on. My nervous system is telling me this is dangerous. I don't want to participate in
it anymore, and now I'm in a state of resistance against it. And then the third stage of being
triggered is that we choose to let that happen. We choose to let our heart closed. We choose to let
ourselves stay in a state of resistance against this. And usually when that happens, we actually...
escalate the entire cycle the entire pattern and the entire response so what we want to do is we
want to help people not not somehow like surgically remove their nervous system they're never going
to do that they're also never going to be able to eliminate their heart closing because god has
given us a heart that can close if we've got more than we can handle in the moment that can kind of
go nope i don't want to participate in this but we do want to restore people's sense of choice and
empower them to be able to open their heart back up and participate with what's going on in the
wisest way possible, right? Which doesn't mean necessarily being passive. It doesn't mean being
weak, so to speak. I often say an open heart doesn't make your boundaries weaker. It makes your
boundaries wiser. With an open heart, you're sort of able to show up to the moment with all of the
things you've been gifted with. So we want to restore people's ability to do that. And when you
really start to pay attention to your heart closing, you realize, yeah, it definitely happens a lot
oftentimes in the marital relationship because there are things you're expecting from that
attachment that you're not expecting in other attachments in your life, and so that one can become
a really triggering one. It happens all the time with your kids.
Bedtime's a classic. You think you're finally to the finish line of your day, and you're going to
get a little bit of time for yourself, and then they keep pushing that bedtime later, super
triggering for a lot of parents. Teenagers are particularly triggering. I think it's their job.
But our family of origin relationships with siblings, with our parents,
with bosses, these are all situations in which we can sense that our heart is starting to close to
what's happening. And if we can be empowered to keep our heart open, we'll engage it in the wisest
way possible. Wow. That's a really helpful overview.
And I love how you're painting that picture of it's not quite what we see on TikTok. It's also not
always in this category of PTSD. But somewhere in the middle,
we do have these nervous system responses. And especially I love how that list of relationships
makes a lot of sense, where there's some hot button. wiring that's going to inevitably go on.
That's right. And how we, I love what you said. I want you to repeat it, that it's not that we
don't have boundaries in those moments, especially when you give the example of the teen, right?
It's not that we're, it's not, and again, that would be a flight response or a fawn response. It's
not. what we're after, we're after a wiser response. I love that. You know,
parents ask me all the time, for instance, like, so when my teen's acting out, do I have empathy
for them or do I set boundaries with them? And it reveals that we sort of assume those two things
can't go together, that we can't have an open heart and boundaries at the same time. And my answer
is, oh, you have to do both all the time. You know, like that if you try to set boundaries without
empathy, you'll set those boundaries aggressively and in a controlling way usually that will just
sort of set the relationship up for a battle. But if you think that having an open heart doesn't
mean that you can't have, that it means you can't have limits, you can't have expectations, you
can't have boundaries, you can't have things you want, then you essentially become a doormat. And
what we're aiming for here is the capacity to be able to regularly express your boundaries,
your wants, and your needs with an open heart rather than shutting down. That's so good. So this
leads me to my next question. You make this distinction between connection mode and protection
mode. And what you're saying there reminds me of this because that flip of the switch happens
quick.
Usually, it's not like we're consciously, it's just the flip switches. And in that moment,
in that quickness of that moment, we want to reach for connection mode, not protection mode.
Once that reaction becomes more obvious, like, okay, I am triggered or I am having a moment.
I don't want to flip into protective mode. I want to flip into connection mode. How do we bridge
that? Yeah. One of the first things I address and that what I realized early on was that if my
nervous system was dysregulated, I couldn't switch back into protection or to connection mode.
Right. Like your nervous system will override your higher mind. which will go,
oh, wait a second, I don't need to be protecting here. Everything's okay. You actually have to
train your nervous system to know it's okay again before you can make that switch back into
connection mode. And so one of the first things I recommend in the book is,
number one, is really starting to tap into what's really a superpower.
It's your sixth sense. It's called interoception. It's the sixth of the senses.
And interoception is the capacity to tune into your body and to notice your body sensations. So
everyone who's listening has already done that dozens of times today when they thought, I'm hungry,
or I have to go to the bathroom, or man, I'm really more tired today than usual, or I could use
another cup of coffee. You're tuning into your bodily sensations and making sense of them. But we
do it unconsciously. And we don't slow down to actually go, wait a second, I could use that
superpower to start to notice when I'm getting triggered. Because the reality is, we think of
triggers as happening instantaneously and dramatically. When you really start to tune into the
subtleties of your body, you realize that your nervous system functions a little bit more like a
furnace, where the pilot light kicks on. Right. And then you start to hear the starts to rumble a
little bit as it heats up. And then eventually the furnace kicks on on full blast. So one of the
first things we encourage people to do is actually start to tune into your body first. That's going
to give you an 80 percent, according to the data, an 80 percent earlier warning that your heart's
about to close and you're going to shift into defense mode. So if you can notice it sooner.
You might actually be able to make a choice of like, I don't want to do the defensive thing. Can I
give you an example from this morning? Oh, my goodness. My wife and I, I will admit,
I'm neurotic about my first cup of coffee in the morning. I like to pour the first cup out of the
pot. I've got it all set up. There's no question I'm neurotic about it. Well, this morning I see my
wife grab a mug from the counter, and I immediately hop up and I go pour my cup of coffee.
And she says to me, you always got to be in control and have it your way, don't you? I could feel
the tightening in my chest, right? Now, I know that that tightening is a sign that I'm about to
close my heart and go into defense mode. About a cup of coffee here, let's remember. And so the
temptation in that moment is just to allow it and to allow it to happen and to switch into defense
mode. But because I've noticed my body tighten, I've got... little bit more warning to go, do I
really want to start to act offensively? Because if I start to act offensively, what I'm about to
do is I'm about to list all of the things that I do for her and my family that I don't want to do
and try to make the case that I'm not quite as selfish as she just suggested.
And escalate something that isn't worth an escalation. No,
over a cup of coffee. And so... But what I've got to do in that moment,
if I'm not going to close my heart and shift into defense mode, is I've got to get that body
regulated. I've got to get the nervous system regulated and go, okay, you're in your kitchen. This
is just a cup of coffee, and you're not being chased by a tiger on the Serengeti. You're good. You
do a little bit of breathing. And then I have a choice about whether or not I want to get
defensive. And the temptation will be to jump into defense mode. And so one of the challenges is
just to sort of watch the thoughts and the urges starting to come up, you know, rather than acting
on them. We say watch them instead of wielding them. And so I watched all those urges to defend
myself come up. And I asked myself in that moment, what would it look like instead to set an open
-hearted boundary in this moment? Like, what would that look like to not just shut down and
disconnect? And the answer was to say, I don't think that's totally true about me.
I wonder if you could come up with any situations in which I have not gotten what I wanted and made
some sacrifice. In other words, instead of defending myself, invite her into sort of joining me in
seeing me as a more whole person than I was just characterized as. And she was willing to sort of
step into that. And so really just looking.
For the bodily sign, you're about to close, you're about to get defensive, telling the body that
you're safe, teaching the body that you're safe, and then looking for that opportunity to open back
up and find a different way to move forward.
The older I get, the more I want to live with intention, especially with the way I eat and take
care of my body. Because food isn't just fuel, it's part of how we show up for our lives. That's
why I've been loving Mosh Bars. You may have heard about Mosh on Oprah's Favorite Things. They were
founded by Maria Shriver and her son, Patrick Schwarzenegger, with a mission to create a
conversation about brain health through food, education, and research. Maria's father suffered from
Alzheimer's, and their story is one of the reasons this mission is so meaningful. Mosh goes beyond
your average protein bar. Each bar is made with with ingredients that have been shown to support
brain health. And Mosh is the first and only food brand boosted with Cognizant, a premium nootropic
that supplies the brain with a patented form of cetylcholine. And honestly, I'm picky about protein
bars and Mosh tastes amazing. I love their peanut butter crunch, their cookie dough crunch, their
PB chocolate crunch, their chocolate brownie crunch, their lemon white chocolate crunch. They are
all so good. And what's even more special is that Mosh donates a portion of proceeds to fund gender
-based brain health research through the women's Alzheimer's movement. two-thirds of Alzheimer's
patients are women. If you want to find ways to give back to others and fuel your body and your
brain, Mosh Bars are the perfect choice for you. Head to moshlife.com slash best of you to save 20
% off plus free shipping on the Best Sellers Trial Pack or the new plant-based trial pack. That's
20% off plus free shipping on either the Best Sellers Trial Pack or the plant-based trial pack at
moshlife.com slash best of you. Thank you, Mosh, for...
this episode.
That is such a great example. It leads me because I wanted to go right into a question that I got
from a reader that I thought would be perfect to ask you because of the topic of your book. But
that's such a great example. If you did speak up for yourself, you weren't a doormat,
but it was from a different place. And I think that's the... that we go into these binaries.
It's either I don't say anything and then I'm a doormat or I defend myself and it doesn't really
help. And that's such a beautiful, you noticed, which allowed you to make a wiser response.
And I'll notice for myself, over the years,
my husband and I will find kind of almost humorous ways. But again, shows the regulation.
So I'll say something like, you know, once I'm able to, and it's not coming out sideways and it's
not, it's genuinely coming from a more regulated place. I'll say, oh, you know,
just, just sort of a, oh, you know, and then, which is a cue for him to go, oh, I, I didn't, or,
you know, or he'll, he'll do it to me. Like, and it, it just is that cue of, um,
I'm not defending myself, but I'm letting you know. Right. that didn't feel fair,
you know, just those normal everyday moments. I, but I love that where you said,
I don't think that's completely true, you know, and then inviting it's inviting connection.
Yeah. Yeah. What all that's a great example. I like, I'll often say to people, you may,
you'll be less reactive, but you won't be less responsive. Yeah. Right. So you may pause for a
little bit. Yes. But that pause you eventually hit play on and then you show up with a more open
hearted, wiser way of addressing it like you did. Like, ouch, like you're basically instead of,
you know, instead of responding with your protections, you're being vulnerable about your pain.
Yeah. Right. That's a wiser, more open hearted way to respond. I think of a time like I was driving
my middle guy. He's 18 now. So this was probably a few years ago and he was he was 15 at the time
because I was driving him around. He was just. he was hitting me with both teenage barrels, you
know, and sometimes I'll say to my kids, like, all right, it's enough teenager for now. And that's,
you know, that's enough for today. But in this case, I remember I said to him, I go,
dude, I love you unconditionally, but I don't drive you unconditionally.
And I'm going to give you a choice. Like if you want to start to treat me differently, like we
could be good, but if you don't, I think you're walking the rest of the way, you know? And I think
there was no doubt in his mind that I do love him and that I was just simply setting a boundary on
how I'm going to allow myself to be treated. And so we're trying to find that sweet spot where
those two things can go together. That's so good. And there's power in that. And I think that even
when we think like scripturally, right, it's not about being a doormat. It's about that there's
more strength that especially our teenagers, but anybody kind of picks up on from that.
Like, oh, they mean it. They're not. There's a grounded response to my button pushing that,
oh, even if they don't change instantly, they sense that, the people around us.
It's powerful. And true strength feels safe to people, right?
I think in that moment there was a boundary, but my son didn't. feel unsafe in the midst of that
boundary. There was clear structure to it. You have a choice. Here's your options. And so what we
discover is that when we can show up openheartedly in those triggered moments, we actually create a
greater sense of safety. Even as we show up fully, we're creating a greater sense of safety for our
people, which actually, the thing that causes you to close your heart is that you feel unsafe.
So as we're showing up in that way and creating a sense of safety for our people, we're actually
inviting them to open up as well. So I want to read this reader question because it gets at that.
I love how you said we're inviting them to open up. There's more of an invitation.
Here's the question that one of my listeners wrote in.
When I'm the one who gets triggered, especially with a spouse, is the right move always to work on
my own response? Or should my partner also be working on not triggering me in the first place?
In other words, whose work is this? And your example is a good example of that, right?
So I thought that was kind of an interesting question. It's a great question.
It's on all of our minds. Right? Like, you shouldn't trigger me. You know this is a trigger,
you know? So how do we navigate that? You know, one of the things I like to say is that in a
situation like that, Yes, you have actually 100% ownership of how you respond to that triggering
moment. And they have 100% ownership of how they showed up that triggered you.
And that sort of undoes the whole process of who should be working on themselves more in this
moment. That the only thing we can ultimately control is ourselves.
And so we might as well invest our time and energy in working on that. And I'll say a couple things
about that.
The reason I feel so strongly about that is the example I often give.
Last summer we were here in the upper Midwest, heat wave, humid. I was sitting here in this very
chair one afternoon, and I could feel the heat rising in my office. I'm like, what's going on? Air
conditioning's not kicking on. I went into the furnace room, and it was sort of rapid cycling,
going on and off real quickly, so it wasn't working. And so what I did for the rest of the week is
instead of calling the HVAC guy, I just brainstormed ways to cool it down outside instead of
cooling it down here in the house. It's just a joke, of course. I would never do that. But that's
actually where we spend a lot of space in relationships. How do I get the weather to change? How do
I get the weather to change versus going to the control board? dealing with what's going on there
in the control board, calling the HVAC guy, calling the therapist or the coach or your pastor,
whoever you need to help you kind of deal with that control board. We spend a lot of time trying to
control the weather, the behaviors, the thoughts, and the feelings of our people, which is entirely
out of our control. So that, to me, is just an example, a metaphor that helps us realize that that
energy we put in trying to get the other person to change is wasted energy, and we can redirect it
at ourselves. Having said that, one of the most powerful learnings for me in this whole process
happened actually a year to the day after I made that original New Year's resolution.
We had just returned from a Christmas vacation in Mexico as a family. It was the second COVID
Christmas, and we're like, I don't know if we'll be able to get together with families. Let's just
get out of Dodge and do something different.
triggered travel I don't I don't travel well I don't I don't mind the whole flying and potentially
crashing like for some reason it's getting to the airport late and then finding my way to the hotel
you know it just all stresses me out and I get triggered but I was almost a year into the practice
of open-heartedness and and my my only sort of intention going into that trip was no matter what
happens I'm gonna gonna keep my heart open to what's going on And so we get back from Mexico,
and we're sitting around the dining room table, and we're setting our intentions for the next year
as a family. And my wife says, hey, why don't you tell the kids what you've been practicing for the
last year, this open-heartedness thing? And so I shared with them a little bit of what we're
talking about today. And my daughter, who was 12 at the time, she looked at me, and she said,
that must be why every time something went wrong on the way to Mexico, I looked at you and I felt
calm.
The practice of open-heartedness was changing. people around me even when they didn't know i was
practicing it right what i say now is that you don't have any power over your people but you have
tremendous power around your people right that you can become the soothed nervous system that
soothes nervous system the calm soul that calms souls and the open heart that opens hearts and that
this is really the power that we wield is the way that we show up especially if we can show up calm
and open-hearted We are creating, now we're the weather, right?
That's powerful. Now we're the weather, right? That can influence the temperature inside of someone
else's house, so to speak. And so that's my encouragement to folks is that when you choose to fully
invest in owning your response to those triggered moments, not just to sort of like white knuckle
it and get through them, but to genuinely transform the way that you show up to those moments.
You are a powerful force for change in the system. You and I know this, right? Systems theory says
that when one component in the system changes, the rest of the system is forced to change to adapt
to it, right? So as you transform, you will be transforming the relationships that you're in. And
sometimes, and I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this, whether it's marriage or even with
parents, especially those, you know, or siblings.
And sometimes when we begin to change ourselves, other people in the system don't like it and can
get worse or come after us more to try to push those buttons.
Because there's something in that pattern that felt, you know,
wasn't healthy, but felt comfortable to that other person. What would you say to folks?
How do you deal with that in your practice and with folks where that? is the result, where you're
doing your own work, and maybe it reveals more toxicity or even more pathology than maybe you were
even aware of as you're pulling out of that unhealthy dynamic. Yeah, oh, absolutely.
And we also know from systems theory that... first the rest of the system tries to maintain what's
called homeostasis, right? It doesn't like the fact that that one part of the system is changing.
So it tries to tug it back, back into place. Um, and one of the things that you discover in the
process is that, um, you sort of, you resolve to yourself here,
you know, this is, this is my personal growth. I'm going to learn how to navigate these triggered
moments with a more open heart, show up more open heartedly. And that's going to be enough for me.
And then you do it and nobody changes or they get worse. And now you're frustrated and your heart's
closing. And you start to realize that your open heart was just a closed heart and subtle disguise.
You were hoping that you could have some control over them. by opening up,
showing up differently. And I think a lot of your listeners will notice that a lot of what looks
like personal growth is secretly just a hope that our change will change our people in the
direction that we want them to change. And so what you're really starting to surrender to here is
the reality that you don't ultimately have control over the most valuable things in your life.
You don't have control over it, right? You have control over how you show up to those things and
you're learning how to live through because a lot of, Michael Singer also says,
if you want to know why you do what you do, don't do it and then watch what happens inside of you,
right? And so what happens is we try to take control of the people in our life in subtle and not so
subtle ways in order to calm it down inside here. If we can be in control of this situation or get
them to change in this way or get this reaction from them, it'll be calm in here. But we develop a
tremendous amount of resilience and power when we can endure that unpleasant feeling in here,
get through it without having to assert control. We're actually much more powerful at that point
than if we were trying to control them. Yeah, go ahead.
This is, I think, where our spiritual grounding can help because I want to know you're not saying,
and this was actually my next question, don't set boundaries. No. Because what's so nuanced about
what you're saying is someone could hear this as...
Just let it go. Let somebody mistreat you. Let somebody walk all over you.
And I know that, right, but what I- I thank you for naming that, yeah. Yeah, so keep, so right,
it's, and you've kind of already, let's drill back down on it. It's, I cannot, and that's,
there's a grief in that. I cannot. And actually, there are millions of ways every single day we're
actually trying to control the people around us, our kids, our spouse. And when we start to really
let go of that, it is a spiritual journey of like, wow. And it doesn't mean we are at other
people's mercy either. So keep going with this. This is incredibly profound.
Yeah, I love the way that you're digging into this. To me, this is fundamental.
We have to break through this. dilemma in order to get into really healthy territory and
relationships. And so one of the ways of breaking through it is to recognize that oftentimes when
we don't set a boundary with our people, that's our way of trying to control them. We're not
setting a boundary because we don't want them to get upset. So we're trying to keep them calm. We
don't set a boundary because we're afraid they won't like it. And they'll distance from us or they
might even threaten the relationship. So that's our way of staying sort of stable in the
relationship, right? Someone asked me recently, like, what's the hardest boundary to set in
relationship? And my answer was the one that you think will cost you the relationship. The one that
you think will create more separation if you said it, right? We're always afraid of that
abandonment and loneliness and rejection. And so the hardest boundary is always the one that you
don't think someone will like and will cause them to distance from you. And so it's really powerful
to recognize that when I'm staying quiet and not expressing myself and not setting a boundary,
that's actually, I say, I'm not a control freak, but I'm a control sneak. I'm a terrible control
sneak. And that's a control sneak. It's a way of maintaining. some steadiness and stability in the
relationship by staying quiet. So ironically, this is wild. Like when you show up open-heartedly
with a boundary, and by the way, in the book, I talk about how boundaries are the third stage of a
process. The first stage is actually just saying what you want. And when you open-heartedly
express what you want, you'll be surprised how often people help you get it. If they don't,
you can decide to escalate it to a need. And once they realize, oh, it's that important to you,
they will also be more likely to help you get what you need. But then if that doesn't happen, then
you express it as an open-hearted boundary.
That's actually a step into surrender and not controlling,
ironically, when you set a boundary. Because as soon as you put yourself out there and you express
yourself, they're free to respond however they want, right? And how they want could hurt. And now
we have to learn how to stay open-hearted through the lack of support, right?
I often say that the one thing we're always trying to avoid in relationships is the experience of
loneliness. And loneliness has three pillars, feeling unseen, misunderstood, and unsupported.
So when you tell somebody you want something, when you set a boundary around it and they don't
support you in it, that feels really lonely, right? And so it's quite the opposite of what we
think, that actually you're surrendering control when you set a boundary because you're allowing
them to respond however they want. And then you're saying, if you continue to respond that way,
I might have to do this. Right. Um, that's a totally different, that's a totally different thing.
You're not telling them what they have to do. You're letting them know, like I did with my son,
what I will be doing the rest of the way. Yeah.
Did you know that three out of four U.S. homes have toxic chemicals in their tap water? Even when
your water looks perfectly clear, it can still carry contaminants that you don't want in your body
or in that of your families. And here's what's frustrating. Standard fridge and pitcher filters
often don't remove most of what's actually in question, and bottled water can come with
microplastics. That's why I'm excited to tell you about AquaTrue. It's a countertop water purifier
that's tested and certified to remove 84 contaminants, including chlorine, lead, forever chemicals,
and microplastics. AquaTrue uses a patented four-stage reverse asthma. system that goes way beyond
ordinary filters, so you get clean, great tasting water you can trust. And I love that there's no
plumbing and no installation. You literally set it on your counter and start using it. I use it all
the time. I use it whenever I'm drinking water, whether hot or cold. I use it for cooking. I use it
in my humidifiers. It's so easy to use. Aqua True has been featured in Business Insider and Popular
Science, and it was named Best Countertop Water Filter by Good Housekeeping. Plus, 98% of
customers say their drinking water is cleaner, safer, and healthier. Right now, go to Aquatrue.com
for 20% off your purifier with promo code best of you. Aquatrue even comes with a 30-day best
tasting water guarantee. That's Aquatrue.com, A-Q-U-A-T-R-U.com, promo code best of you.
Yeah, I will be driving alone if you continue to. I don't want to. Yeah, it's not something you're
trying to get them to do again, which is the control. So this, yes, you're right. So this is
chapter seven for the listener. It's called set boundaries without. battles.
It's not a power play in that traditional sense. It's actually a move of strength. What is a shift,
just as we're winding down here, kind of a nugget that... a boundary boundaries i think are another
one of those things i've written a lot about boundaries they're so misunderstood on the tiktok
culture the therapy culture right um but they're so powerful um when you really understand them and
i like how you cast it as the shift that makes a boundary feel like an act of love instead of an
act of war it's really an act of and and i would say that love is All three of the loves Jesus
commands, love of God, love of other, and love of self. Absolutely. It's real love. It's not
pleasing love. It's the love of, there's too much truth and love here for me to,
it's a grounded strength. How do we make that shift, Kelly? Help us all.
That's a good question. And a lot of it has to do with the sequence of how this all tends to play
out. So what often happens is that you stay quiet. trying to be loving right when really you're
maybe being a little controlling ironically but you're staying quiet staying quiet but what happens
is i often say a resent resentment today is a boundary you didn't set yesterday right But
resentment is the emotional experience that goes along with not setting healthy boundaries. And so
you stay quiet, you stay quiet, you stay quiet, but your heart's closing all the time. You're
getting more and more resentful, more and more frustrated, feeling more and more mistreated. And
then what happens is your heart closes all the way and then you set the boundary. So it comes out
aggressively, it comes out in controlling ways. And so you've sort of set up the situation for a
battle. I often say, if you wear gloves to church, a boxing match will break out.
And so if you set a boundary with a closed heart, you're going to end up in a battle, not a
collaboration. What we want to see you do is we want to see you not close your heart and then sort
of set a reactive boundary. We want to see you set a boundary in order to keep your heart open.
When you feel like you can't keep your heart open unless you set a boundary, that's the time to set
it. You actually don't get to decide, ironically, where your boundaries are at.
Your heart decides that for you. If I can't keep my heart open without setting a boundary, I guess
I've got to set one. I'll give you an example.
Back when I was doing traditional outpatient mental health and clients would no show for a session,
it would mean that their insurance doesn't pay and they're going to have to pay the full. the full
fee out of their pocket which is never never very pleasant so they would come into the next session
and i would hand them an invoice for the full fee and almost invariably they'd look at it and
they'd be like oh you must be really mad at me if you're charging me the full fee and i would say
to them no i'm charging you the full fee so that i don't get mad at you right i'm setting the
boundary so that my heart doesn't close to you i didn't give you that invoice Good.
Right? If I didn't give you that invoice, you'd walk out of here today and I'd be resenting you a
little bit. And I'd be disconnecting from you with my closed heart. This invoice is keeping me
connected to you right now. Wow. Oh, okay, I get that. And then they'd happily pay it because it's
a symbol of relationality rather than penalty, right? That's a great...
Way to look at it. I could see that. And you really have to buy into that. But I could see that
with even a friend you love. You know, I if I don't say no now or if I don't do this now,
I will. Yeah, that's boy, that is nuanced. But that's a great example. A friend asks you to to do
one thing and you gladly do it. Right. And then they're like, oh, yeah. And next week,
can you buy a $200 ticket for our table at the fundraiser? And if you sense that your heart will
close to that, that you're going to be at that fundraiser silently resenting it,
you need to set a boundary now so your heart doesn't close. Actually, I can't do that one. And now
we're still in open-hearted relationship.
That'll preach. I want every listener to think about that for a second, right? How are we not?
I mean, that hits me. And I've been talking about this stuff for years and it's because it's so
hard. Those hardwired. And I love how you're naming the quiet ways.
we, oh, I just don't want to have the conflict or I just don't want to make the person mad or I
just don't want this to be uncomfortable. Yes. That's all about control. It's, it's, it is.
Yeah. I mean, it's not, I mean, sometimes we're just being a nice person or we're tired or
whatever, but, but often those patterns are every, the more we make those decisions,
the more I, that's, that's when that heart suddenly will start to go. I'm just kind of done with
this person or I'm kind of done with this volunteering. And that could be prevented by our own
honoring of the open heart. Exactly. The irony being that what we're mostly walking around doing in
relationships is trying not to end up lonely. For the human being, that's about as painful as it
gets. And so we don't set boundaries.
Because we fear that a boundary will leave us separate and alone. But then what happens is our
heart starts to close down and now we're separating anyways. Now we're sort of trapped inside of
the aloneness we create with our own heart. So we actually, boundaries are this sort of
foundational, they form the foundation for the capacity to stay in connection and to not be lonely,
essentially. And the people you belong to will be the people who really appreciate you setting
boundaries. And those that don't, won't. Stick around. Yeah. And that's part of the discerning in
real time. And it is vulnerable. I mean, this is ongoing work. I know you say in the book, this is,
we're in, I feel so much in process with all this. There's so many different iterations with
different seasons of life. And I'm in a new season of kind of figuring this out and I'm in a new
community. And it is vulnerable, right? To sit with that. Okay,
someone. may not appreciate this, even though I know, like even a client or,
you know, in your situation, a client, I don't like this, but that's okay. I know, I know what's
going on here. I know this is about keeping my heart open and God knows, you know, that's that
spiritual piece. Like I can anchor in that and I'll be disappointed and sad if the other person
doesn't respond well, but I have to let that go. I can't control that outcome.
That's so powerful. And my encouragement to listeners is, as you are pointing out over and over
again, it's so much easier said than done. And if that's the case,
if you find yourself in a situation where this conversation leads to that awareness of,
oh, this is one of those moments. My heart will close if I don't set a boundary. And you find
yourself unable to do it anyways.
Because... afraid that that boundary will lead to separation and disconnection and loneliness
usually.
My encouragement to listeners is to just sort of in that moment, there's an opportunity.
Because the reality is for us adults, loneliness isn't terribly threatening. Like, you know,
if friend A rejects you, you have 100, you can text or 1,000 people you can get to on Facebook.
And there's just all sorts of ways to mitigate loneliness as an adult. But there wasn't when we
were kids. And so if there's this part of you that is just going, I can't tolerate the threat of
loneliness and rejection in this moment, probably isn't an adult part. It's probably a younger part
of you that couldn't handle loneliness, that didn't have the freedom to manage it in adult ways
when they were young. And so it's just an opportunity. If you can't set a boundary, if you just
can't bring yourself to do it, cool. like don't don't hammer yourself for that get tender with the
part of you that is feeling really threatened by the fear of separation and and show that part of
you some love and help that part of you be a little bit less lonely in the moment i love that
that's great because i i agree with you i yeah that's a great um a great word to just be gentle
with the part be aware of it that this is a part of me But be gentle with that part of you because
it's there for a reason. And it's got data from the past. And you do go into that in the book,
those past strongholds. Tell my listeners where they can find you, Kelly, where they can find your
book and all the things you're doing out in the world and the goodness you're providing. If you
want to find out more about the book, you can go to roadlesstriggered.com. It's also just
available anywhere where books are sold in paperback and digital and audio. I'm very excited to
announce it hit the USA Today bestseller list recently, and we're very excited about that. It was
out of stock for a while once the first print run was sold, but it's back in stock, which is very
exciting. So you can get it anywhere. I also host an online community on Substack called the Less
Triggered Tribe, where we're actually taking the principles from the book, and we're actually
like... going through the journey together on a weekly and monthly basis. Yeah. So drkellyflanagan
.substack.com is where you can find the Less Triggered Tribe and you can join for free and join us
there. And then my website is drkellyflanagan.com. Okay. So we'll link to that in the show notes,
but that sounds like a great resource for folks who are really trying to apply this in real time.
It takes practice. It's not magic. I love that you're doing that. That's beautiful. We have a
group. sort of coaching community call the third Friday of every month. And literally this topic
comes up every time because we just have such a bunch of gentle souls in our community, right? And
they're like, they're wanting to show up more fully and they're wanting to show up with healthier
boundaries and they're working through all these questions. So you'll fit right in. I love it. I
love it. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us and with so many others. It was great to
be here, Alison. Thank you so much. You too. Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of
The Best of You. It would mean so much if you take a moment to subscribe. You can go to Apple,
Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen to or watch podcasts and click the plus or follow button.
That'll ensure you don't miss an episode and it helps get the word out to others. While you're
there, I'd love it if you leave a five-star review. Join us each weekday for the best of you every
day, a brief daily reflection to help you start your mornings with a steady dose of wisdom.
Remember, as you become the best of who you are, you honor God, you heal others, and you stay true
to your God-given self.