150. Trigger Warning: What To Do When Everything Sets You Off After Infidelity

After betrayal, even the smallest thing (a song, a smell, a glance) can send your nervous system into overdrive. Triggers feel like invisible landmines, pulling you back into moments you never chose to relive. If you're exhausted by how reactive you've become, or if everything feels like a warning sign, this episode is for you.

In this special 150th episode, I break down what it really means to be triggered after infidelity. I share how to recognise and respond to these moments with compassion, awareness, and emotional authority, so they no longer control your life.

Expect real talk, practical tools, and a fresh way of understanding your own healing process.

Key Takeaways:

• Triggers aren’t signs of weakness; they’re your nervous system doing its job.

• Understanding triggers means separating sensation from story.

• Learn the three-step process to pause, locate, and respond when you're triggered.

• Emotional self-regulation is a skill you can build, one moment at a time.

• Healing isn’t avoiding triggers; it’s meeting them with clarity and choice.

💬 Reflection Questions:

When was the last time you felt triggered? What did your body try to tell you in that moment?

Connect with Luke:

• Website: www.lifecoachluke.com

• Instagram: @mylifecoachluke

• Email: luke@lifecoachluke.com

Join the After the Affair community at www.facebook.com/groups/aftertheaffaircommunity

Episode Transcript:

The After The Affair podcast with me Luke Shillings is here to help you process, decide and move forward on purpose following infidelity. Together we'll explore what's required to rebuild trust not only in yourself but also with others. Whether you stay or leave I can help and no matter what your story there will be something here for you.

Let's go. Hey, welcome back. You're listening to The After The Affair podcast.

I'm your host Luke Shillings and you're listening to episode number 150. How have we got here? 150 episodes. Quite unbelievable and thank you ever so much for being here whether this is your first time here or whether you have been here from the beginning.

I can't express my gratitude enough for all of the messages and the downloads and the comments and the likes and the ratings and everything that has brought us to this place together, this journey that we are all going on together. So thank you. Okay, so today's episode.

Let's be honest. One of the hardest parts of healing after betrayal is that everything can start to feel like a warning sign. A song, a word, a place, a smell, a plot line on a TV show, even a tone of voice or an expression on a stranger's face and suddenly you're right back in it.

Even if nothing bad is actually happening, your heart races, your stomach drops, you feel tense, unsettled, on edge, your breath becomes shorter and the worst part, you can't always explain why. So, if that's where you are, if you're exhausted by how reactive you've become, if you're tired of feeling like a live wire, this episode's for you because today we're talking about triggers. Not to shame them, not to bypass them, but to understand them and eventually to work with them, not against them.

So, let's redefine the word trigger. Let's just strip the shame from the word, shall we? Because too often the moment someone says I'm triggered, there's an eye roll, a sigh, a subtle suggestion that you're overreacting, being dramatic or just a bit too sensitive. But the truth is a trigger isn't proof that you're broken.

It's not evidence that you're failing at healing and it's definitely not a sign that you're weak. A trigger is your nervous system doing its job. It's your body saying something here feels similar to a pain that I felt before.

Not because you're stuck in the past, but because your body doesn't know yet that the past is over. It's a flashback without a story. It's like a warning bell without a visible fire.

It's a sense of unease that rises before your mind can even form a sentence. It's like the smoke detector that is linked to the fire station. It senses some smoke in the air so it beeps and shouts at everybody and connects to all of the other smoke detectors in the property and they're all going off like crazy.

And then it is directly linked to the fire brigade and before you know it the fire service is there with the firefighters ready to put out the fire and it turns out the toaster had just had the bread in a little bit too long and just become a little bit burnt and that was enough. It didn't require the fire service. It didn't require a major panic.

It just required you to turn the timer down on the toaster next time. But the smoke detector didn't know that. It knew that when it detects smoke that could mean serious danger and therefore it is going to activate all of the alert systems.

It's not going to pause and check the exact source, the exact cause that has triggered it. The smoke detector is akin to your amygdala, a part of your brain that acts just like the smoke detector. That's on the constant lookout for danger and is actually essential for keeping it safe, certainly on a survival level.

But like the smoke detector it doesn't check in to see how severe or serious the problem actually is. It bypasses your prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain where we make executive decisions, where we're able to take in the information and actually choose a response. Instead it increases your heart rate.

It tenses your muscles. It scrambles your brain in an attempt to make sense of the signal but it's too late because your body is already preparing to run. It's already preparing to fight or flight or freeze.

And underneath it all your system is asking one very important question. Is it safe to let go yet? And that question isn't petty, it's not performative, it's trauma. Doing exactly what it was designed to do, protect you.

So instead of silencing it, shaming it or rushing even to fix it, what if we could learn to listen to it? What if we could say, ah there you are, of course you're here. That was a lot to go through. That's not indulgence, it's awareness, it's healing.

Because being triggered doesn't make you fragile, it makes you human. And recognising it, naming it, staying with it, even just for a few seconds longer than last time, that's not weakness. In fact it couldn't be any further from weakness, it's strength.

Look there's no one size fits all to the different types of triggers but what I often see are split into really three main categories. We have emotional triggers, these are the obvious ones. You hear that song, you drive past that hotel, maybe a Facebook memory pops up from the week that it all fell apart.

Your body tenses, your grip tightens and you're back in a timeline that you didn't even ask to remember. Then we have relational triggers. These are often a bit subtler.

Your partner says something completely normal but your brain hooks it onto something that they said once during the affair. They look away and suddenly you're questioning everything again. And then finally we have internal triggers and these are the ones that people really don't talk about enough.

Perhaps you feel close to your partner and panic. Maybe you felt joy and the guilt floods in. You've had a really good day but you're waiting for the other shoe to drop because after betrayal even feeling good can feel dangerous.

See the real problem is not the trigger but it's the story that you attach to it. And here's the shift that changes everything. I had a client say to me triggers are physical.

I disagreed and I said to her the response to a trigger can be physical. The trigger itself though is just data. It's just information that is coming in through our senses.

It's a signal. It's a whisper from your nervous system and it's completely neutral. It's your body speaking through vibration and sensation, not sentences.

But what happens next, that's where the spiral begins. So let's use a common example. Perhaps you see their phone light up from across the room.

Just for a second. No message read. No suspicious behaviour.

Just a light. Your heart rate spikes. Your stomach flips.

Your breath shortens. That is the trigger. It's your body remembering how it felt last time.

The time you caught them texting. The time that they lied. The moment everything shifted.

But then the mind kicks in and suddenly you're flooded with they're hiding something. They're talking to her again. I can't believe I'm in this position again.

Why did I let my guard down? And boom. Now you're not just feeling a moment, you're reliving a story. But the truth is you can honour that feeling without obeying the story.

You can say this feels unsafe without needing to prove that it is. You can pause and breathe and acknowledge. Our body is just reacting to a past experience, not necessarily a present danger.

You don't have to gaslight yourself. You certainly don't have to accuse or escalate or spiral either. You can simply witness the trigger.

You can be the space where it gets to unfold without being the puppet of every thought that follows. And that, that's emotional authority. It's self-regulation.

That's self-trust in action. Because healing isn't about never being triggered again. It's about responding to the trigger with clarity, compassion, choice.

And that is a skill. And a skill is something that you can learn. And you do that by practising one moment at a time.

So let's get practical. Because the truth is understanding your triggers intellectually doesn't make them disappear. You can read the books, you can do therapy, you can know all of the whys.

But your nervous system doesn't speak logic. It speaks sensation and vibration. It speaks survival.

So no, triggers won't just vanish because you're aware of them. But they can begin to soften. And they become less overwhelming.

Especially when you meet them differently. Here's how. Step one.

Pause and name it. As soon as you notice yourself spiralling, freezing, shutting down, or just suddenly on edge. Pause.

And then name what's happening. Out loud if you can. Even in a whisper.

I'm feeling triggered. My body is reacting to something. I'm not okay right now.

But that is okay. So why does this help? Well, because naming interrupts the autopilot. It brings you back in to the present moment.

It puts language to what would otherwise just feel like chaos. You're not suppressing it. You're not dramatising it.

You're simply saying, this is real. I'm feeling it. And I'm still here.

Step two is to locate it. In the body. This might seem small, but actually it's really powerful.

You know, ask yourself, where am I feeling this? Not the story. The brain's going to want to try and intellectualise it. It's going to want to try and think of the causes and then the solutions and all of the problems.

But we're not interested in that right now. We're not getting involved or carried away with a thought spiral. We just want to know where the sensation or the vibration is that you feel.

Is your jaw clenched? Are your fists tight? Is your chest feeling heavy? Maybe your stomach is doing flips. Your body is always the first responder. It senses danger before.

Brain often has words for it. So check in. Notice the heat, the tension, the flutter, the pressure.

Even placing a hand on that part of your body can signal safety. It tells your system, I'm paying attention. You're not alone in this.

Then step three, choose a response. Now comes the choice point. That small, powerful window where you decide, what do I need right now to stay with myself instead of abandoning myself? It doesn't have to be dramatic.

Maybe it's as simple as you just step outside for a minute of air. Maybe you press your feet into the ground and take three deep breaths. Maybe you ask your partner or friend, can we pause this conversation? Maybe you grab your journal, write it down and revisit it when you're feeling calmer.

You don't have to fix it. You just have to stay. Stay connected.

Stay curious and stay kind. Because that's what healing actually looks like. Choosing to respond instead of react.

It's choosing to stay with yourself rather than against yourself. It's choosing presence, even when it's really uncomfortable. And every time you do that, you're teaching your system.

We don't run from pain anymore. We meet it. We move through it.

We survive it together. That's not weakness. That's the beginning of real safety.

Here's what I want you to take away from this. Your triggers are not the enemy. They're the invitation.

They're not proof that you failed. They're not signs that you're too damaged to heal. They're indicators.

Flashlights. Pointing to places in your system that still need gentleness, attention and care. Not because you're doing something wrong, but because you're still carrying weight, emotional residue, old wounds, beliefs about your worth that were never truly yours in the first place.

You might be carrying the shame of somebody else's betrayal. The pressure to be okay too soon. The self-blame that grew in silence when the truth felt too heavy to name.

And triggers? They don't expose your weakness. They reveal where you're still waiting to be met. So when a trigger flares, and it will, you have a choice.

You can move into judgement. I should be over this. What's wrong with me? I'm so broken.

Or you can move into curiosity. What is this part of me trying to say? What does this feeling need from me right now? Can I stay present with it just for a few seconds longer than I did last time? Because every time you meet a trigger with gentleness instead of judgement, every time you pause, breathe and stay instead of spiralling or shutting down, every time you say, I hear you, I see you, I've got you, to the part that is scared or angry or bracing for impact, you're doing something extraordinary. You're rebuilding internal safety.

Not through logic, not through control, but through presence. You are telling your body, we're not in that story anymore. We're here now.

And here, we're allowed to feel. We're allowed to pause. We're allowed to heal.

One breath at a time. This is what trauma recovery actually looks like. It's not perfection.

It's not avoiding triggers, but learning to meet them with compassion, wisdom and choice, so that they can no longer run your life from the shadows. What you're feeling isn't irrational. It's not weakness.

And it's certainly not a flaw. It's the residue of something very real. But you don't have to be held hostage by it.

You can learn to stay with yourself, through the trigger, through the tightness, through the storm. And you won't do it perfectly. You don't have to.

You just have to keep coming home to yourself. Because the goal isn't to never be triggered again. The goal is to know what to do when you are.

Thank you ever so much for being with me here on this 150th episode of the After The Affair podcast. As always, it's my absolute pleasure. If you have any questions, or you'd like any further support, please contact me, luke at lifecoachluke.com. Or come and join me over at Instagram at my life coach Luke.

I look forward to speaking to you all very soon. Take care. Goodbye.