Episode 39. Taming Emotional Triggers: A Brain-based Approach to Communication in Marriage
This episode, get expert advice to learn how to improve your communication. We offer a unique blend of scientific insight and practical relationship advice, empowering you to navigate the complexities of marriage with greater understanding and emotional intelligence.
By learning to balance the instinctual reactions of your limbic system with the rational capabilities of your prefrontal cortex, you'll be better equipped to build a stronger, more resilient partnership.
Discover the roles of two essential brain components, the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex. The limbic system, responsible for instinctual responses and emotions, Triggers the "fight, flight, or freeze" response and can lead to emotional "storms" when overstimulated. The prefrontal cortex, which controls rational thinking and planning, helps regulate emotional responses, which allows for critical analysis and perspective-taking.
We share a personal anecdote from our own marriage, illustrating how misunderstandings and emotional reactions can stem from the complex interplay between different parts of our brains, and offer antidotes to this biological mystery.
-
00:00:02
Welcome to Marriage iQ, the podcast for the intelligent spouse.
00:00:08
I'm Dr. Heidi Hastings.
00:00:10
And I'm Dr. Scott Hastings.
00:00:13
We are two doctors, two researchers, two spouses, two lovers, and two incredibly different human beings coming together for one purpose. To transform the stinky parts of your marriage into scintillating ones using intelligence mixed with a little fun. Welcome, everyone, to another insightful episode of Marriage iq.
00:00:41
Yes, today is a fabulous day, my dear. I am revved up and ready to go.
00:00:47
So why are you revved up and ready to go?
00:00:49
Well, because we're talking about the brain today and how it works.
00:00:54
Well, what is talking about the brain, though, have anything to do with a marriage podcast?
00:00:59
Ah, my dear, it has everything to do with marriage, especially an intelligent marriage for intelligent spouses. That's what I love. Brain anatomy and physiology. Because the intelligent spouse knows that knowing your own identity requires you to know what makes you you. That means our brains and how they function, right? That's where everything starts. But first, let's talk about a story from our own lives to illustrate our point.
00:01:29
Okay, well, there are a lot of examples that we could use from our own marriage on what this brain at work pattern looks like. Our listeners can probably identify similar patterns in their own marriages, but here's just one example to demonstrate our pattern. Earlier in our marriage, we would often be discussing household budget. I would suggest cutting back on unnecessary spending, or at least what I thought was unnecessary, like Scott's travel plans. I thought, instead, we should be trying to save money or invest money. Scott would interpret my suggestions as a personal attack and react defensively. The story he would tell himself was, why do you always put down my ideas or attack what I enjoy? I feel like you're saying I'm irresponsible.
00:02:20
Maybe I was.
00:02:21
Maybe I, on the other hand, was taken back by his response and felt dismissed and unheard when it came to making financial decisions, which triggered, in the limbic system, part of my brain that says, hey, I know what's going on here. You've had similar experiences from your first marriage where it impacted your finances very negatively for several years during and following your first marriage. I didn't even perceive what my brain was telling me. I just had these really intense emotional responses and feelings, which then caused me to probably raise my voice. I'm just trying to make sure that we have a financial safety plan. Why do you always shut me down when I bring up important topics? I think these things that I'm talking about are really important. Now, looking back, I felt fear of our future and that left me feeling powerless. And I felt fear that my voice didn't matter. And that caused me to feel excluded and not important. Scott Triggered by my perceived criticism. I don't even know what part of his past caused that to trigger him. But he also reacted more defensively and reactively, and his was more internally telling himself, I'm always being attacked by Heidi seeing me as a bad guy. And I saw him as the bad guy. We on Marriage IQ talk a lot about identity and coming to know who we are, according to a clinical psychologist named Jeremy Shapiro. As we begin to understand ourselves, we have to realize the complexity of ourselves, because our brain is not a unified whole, because we have different parts to our brain. Rather, we have these two parts, and they're all related to the way that our brain functions. Well, more than two parts, but two that we're going to talk about today. Each of those two parts has a different agenda, and sometimes it seems like they're at odds with each other. But the more we understand our brains, the better it allows us to create our lives in. In a more fulfilling way and our relationships. So let me introduce you to those two parts of the brain. They are often just for ease of remembering them. Amy which is short for amygdala and flow, short for frontal lobe.
00:04:48
Right. Today we're going to deep dive into those two parts of the brain, the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex, the front of the brain. I actually train my patients on this. When they come in to talk to me about anxiety, it's not just about pushing drugs. It's about understanding what's happening inside of me when I feel fearful, anxious, worried, or depressed. And we're going to talk about that today. The limbic system triggers the fear and anxiety that then feeds on itself to create more fear and more anxiety. But the limbic system isn't all bad. We were strolling along McKinney Square, it was just after Christmas, and we happened into one of these small shops that they have, and it just had a bunch of little sayings on the wall. And I came across this sign, and I stopped in my tracks. I never buy stuff in these little stores, but there was this sign that said. And one day she discovered that she was fierce and strong and full of fire, and that not even she could hold herself back because her passion burned brighter than her fears. So I saw that. I said, that is going on the wall. And it is. It's sitting on our wall. We have it's. It's flanked by two big pictures of us.
00:06:17
I really appreciated that because that is a great illustration of, by learning about the brain and how it functions, we understand our fears better. And one of my fears is public speaking. So that's been really hard for me thinking about doing this podcast. One of my fears has been that I'm not going to make this succeed. There are different things that go on in my head, in that amygdala part of my brain, that are telling me to fear those. And that holds back some of that passion, that holds back some of my ability to become who I want to be.
00:06:58
Right? And it's also an example of the amygdala is not all bad because it allows us to have emotion, allows us to be human. That other side, the passion, allows us to be passionate. And I think it's important to. To know that. And we'll come back to that a little bit later. Let's. Let's kind of jump in here. The limbic system is considered the older part of the brain. It's deeper, more instinctual. We really share this with every other creature out there. Think about it. If you want to swat a fly, that fly flies off because it sees the danger and it takes off. You know, mice, deer, whatever it is, they take off when they sense fear. They sense danger. That is the limbic system. When people lived in the wild thousands of years ago, I guess millions of years ago, and they noticed, they lived in the wild, they noticed a lion coming toward them in an attacking way. That limbic system would kick in and allowed them to experience fear. And then it sent signals to the sympathetic nervous system, which includes the adrenal gland, a small gland that sits on top of your kidney to produce loads of epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol.
00:08:20
That's a lot of hormones.
00:08:22
These are hormones that tells your heart to start racing, to breathe faster, to sweat profusely, and send more blood to your legs so you can start running and get the heck out of there and you can escape the lion. The limbic system is what creates a fight or flight or freeze response. The problem is that we're not being chased by lions in the African Serengeti anymore. But we still have a limbic system. And instead of lions chasing us to kill us, we have our spouses nagging at us, our co workers or bosses whose presence conjures up the very same hormones that attacking lions do. When those fearful feelings don't resolve, they can lead into what's called a limbic storm. If you've ever seen the Movie Inside out too. You'll see what I mean. This is a great movie that tackles each emotion and really brings it together in a way that's easy to understand. And I highly recommend it.
00:09:20
Yeah. If you get a chance for date night this week, that might be a great movie to watch.
00:09:24
Yeah. So the limbic system can become sensitized, meaning it can be more easily changed from a normal quiet state into a raging storm by just one look, one word, one expression from a spouse that's been learned. It's usually tied to a core value we hold that we interpret as being violated. This is no bueno, people.
00:09:53
Can I ask a question about that?
00:09:54
Yes.
00:09:55
So just because you interpret it that way, does that mean that that's what their intent really was?
00:10:03
Not at all. That's the story that we tell ourselves. But it's it. We can become sensitized by just one word, one look, one.
00:10:12
A tiny trigger.
00:10:14
Body language violates that one of those core values that we have.
00:10:19
And for you, one of your core values is being competent. And so if you present something and either I question it or I roll my eyes or whatever, then it's attacking that part of you that helps you feel very competent.
00:10:35
Well, core, yes. Competence is one of my core values.
00:10:38
And so then you feel attacked.
00:10:40
Right.
00:10:40
Because of that.
00:10:41
So I become much more reactive than I normally would.
00:10:45
Okay. Well, the prefrontal cortex is where rational thinking, planning for the future and self control happens. It works slowly and rationally while we try to figure things out. It has the ability to think critically, comprehend the reasons behind events that are happening, interpret their significance, and even consider how this is going to impact the future.
00:11:12
It allows us to step back and seek different perspective, make things fit in a rational way to ask ourselves, is the story I'm telling myself really true?
00:11:24
That's good. Because as humans, the way our brain works is to make stories out of all of our circumstances.
00:11:33
Right? Right.
00:11:33
That's how we process things. That's not a bad thing. It's just the way it is. But it's not often accurate.
00:11:41
So the, the, the prefrontal cortex applies brakes to the limbic system. Limbic systems like the gas. Prefrontal cortex, like the brakes, it allows for more so called executive functioning. Why do executives make more money?
00:11:58
Why?
00:11:59
They have well functioning prefrontal cortexes.
00:12:03
So are we not born with that part of our brain functioning very well? I mean, it sounds like the amygdala is more inherent, but the, the prefrontal cortex then takes conscious development.
00:12:17
Yeah, this is kind of the newer part of the brain, Whereas the limbic system is the older part of the brain, so to speak. And, yeah, I think some people are naturally born with more developed or they develop better as they age. Okay. To have a better developed prefrontal cortex.
00:12:36
Okay. The limbic system is responsible for motivation and emotion. One part of it, the amygdala, like we've talked about, is most importantly responsible for the emotions fear and anger. The hippocampus. Remember when we used to teach our daughter Cassidy, the hippocampus? To use hippocampus in sentences often so everyone would see how intelligent she was? The hippocampus is close by, and it acts like a big memory bank of those past threats, like we talked about. When it recognizes enough similarities between a current situation and one of those past memories, it triggers the amygdala to create those same emotional, physical, and behavioral reactions that worked in the original situation, like this story I talked about. Also, for example, those who have experienced PTSD from, like, a spouse's betrayal may be triggered by just a beautiful woman or a man passing by them and their spouse or somebody who's experienced the loss of a business or unemployment may be really triggered by a dip in income or a bad review at work. The limbic system says, I've been here before, and this is bad again, followed by those really intense emotional reactions.
00:13:59
So when we are triggered, we feel like we need to go to our opponents or our adversary or our enemy, whoever it is, who's. Who's creating this anger within us to go over to their house and blow it up. Our prefrontal cortex shuts down that idea because of the scandal it would cause at work, probably losing your job, relationships, likely going to prison as well, for a long time.
00:14:28
So it just helps you think more rationally.
00:14:31
Right. The prefrontal cortex is not all good, though.
00:14:35
Hmm.
00:14:37
It's very interested in keeping us looking good in front of others, keeping up with the Joneses, so to speak, comparing to others. It makes us do some things that we don't really want to do in order to keep peace sometimes. So don't be thinking that the limbic system's always bad. The prefrontal cortex is always good.
00:15:00
So maybe one part of that part of the brain is a little more developed if we're continually comparing ourselves to others and seeking to balance that out a little bit.
00:15:11
Yes. Balance is going to be the word of the day today.
00:15:14
Okay.
00:15:15
There are little alleyways in the brain called tracks. They're little bundles of neurons that connect things Together. And guess what? The limbic system and prefrontal cortex are connected together by these tracks so they can communicate with each other. How do we take all this information and make it into something practical? I'm glad you asked. We need to learn how to take the negative effects of the limbic system that cause serious anxiety and worry and then reroute them, push them toward that prefrontal cortex so we can start looking at things more rationally. There are a couple of books that I read and several studies. One of the books is called you'd Brain at Work by David Rock and you'd Best Brain the Science of Brain Improvement by John Medina. Research has shown that simply learning to recognize our emotions by verbally expressing our feelings is about half of the solution. Just recognizing and verbalizing our feelings, we.
00:16:25
Take it from back here and we.
00:16:28
Move it to up here, right from the limbic system to the prefrontal cortex. We stay anxious, worried, and depressed because we don't know how we feel. We don't know how to verbalize it. We don't know how to say it. We don't know what we don't know.
00:16:46
You know, I've felt that way sometimes that I can feel like my brain's in an Olympic storm, as you called it. But there are some charts.
00:16:55
Emotion will. You can Google it.
00:16:56
Yeah.
00:16:58
Once we're able to know what we are feeling, we can now label it. Once we label it, we need to express it verbally by using I feel statements. This is huge, people. And. And yeah, if you need help, like Heidi said that emotion will. And if you can Google it, you can look it up on Amazon.
00:17:18
There's a huge wall version out of fabric that you can just tack up to your wall in whatever room you typically have emotional meltdowns or Olympic storms.
00:17:30
Yep. So I want to pause here, a note on labels. Labels are important not to condemn us, but to educate us. Some people really don't like the idea of labeling. It puts us in a corner, in a peg, in a box. However, at the same time, it also allows us to become more knowledgeable. So labels are not all bad. They're also very, very good.
00:18:08
What kind of labels? Give me some examples.
00:18:11
Bad labels or good labels?
00:18:12
Both.
00:18:13
Well, if I call someone, someone an addict, or if I call myself an addict, does that make me. Does that force me into a life of addiction? I can't ever get out of this. Or does it allow me a pathway to move forward, if I'm an addict, to say, okay, I might be an addict, but what can I do to now move forward, learn about this and, and learn how to thrive. It's same thing with emotions. I think there are emotions, feelings, usually just a few that really. That I have. And if I. If I verbalize, I feel annoyed, I feel angry, I feel disrespected. That's going to allow me to move that message from the. The limbic system, start moving it down to the prefrontal cortex so I can start standing back and say, okay, I feel annoyed. Yeah, I own that feeling.
00:19:23
It'll pass.
00:19:24
I own that feeling. And when you own it, it's powerful. It brings you power.
00:19:31
I have a friend who even talked about taking that emotion from your prefrontal cortex and in your mind, bringing it and holding it in front of you so you're visualizing. This isn't who I am permanently. This is just something that's passing through me.
00:19:50
So getting back to again, the. The limbic system, prefrontal cortex. It's important to note that the limbic system is not all bad and not just bad emotions. It's also good emotions, too. It's excitement, it's passion, it's fierce. Like in that sign downstairs in Heidi's office. She was fierce. Her passion burned brighter than her fears. Yeah, the limbic system's awesome. It's passion, it's romance, it's fire, excitement. That's good. Prefrontal cortex can also be not so good. We can move into obsessive compulsive disorders. White knuckling, controlling everything so much you can't hold on forever.
00:20:36
So that comes from the frontal lobe.
00:20:39
That's the prefrontal cortex trying to push the brakes so much so that you can't enjoy life. Okay, so it's a, It's. It's a fine balance here between the two. We want to apply this in a practical way so that you can start learning about yourself, about your emotions, about your brain, and really learn about yourself better. Some of the things I have my patients do when they're in the office, and we're talking about anxiety, we're talking to depression. Anxiety is endemic, by the way, and social media has a big. A big part in that, but it's. It's everywhere. And we have to learn how to treat it with. Not just with drugs, but learning about ourselves. So ask yourself, what are. What are my big three positive feelings? What are my big three negative feelings?
00:21:48
That's where that emotion wheel, or feeling wheel.
00:21:51
Yeah. If you don't know, just. Just think about it. Sit with yourself. Ask yourself this Week. What. What are the biggest things, the biggest emotions? For me, there's three big ones. I can just think off the top of my head. I feel disrespected. I feel ignored or underappreciated.
00:22:19
And what are three positive ones you feel?
00:22:22
I feel passionate, excited. I feel abundant.
00:22:31
Those are great. I like those better.
00:22:33
So. So don't. Don't just focus on the negative feelings that you have, but also the positive. And then practice. It's like going to the gym. It's. You can't. You can't develop your. Your muscles because. Become stronger without practicing, working out. You can't become a better dancer or a better football player without practicing or piano. This is the same thing. We're practicing feeling our emotions. And every time we do that, we're helping to move that limbic reactivity into moving it into the prefrontal cortex. So we can start then looking at things more rationally. We can start asking ourselves, is the story I'm telling myself true or not?
00:23:34
So let me see if I understand what you're saying. If I'm feeling disrespected, I sit with myself. I'm feeling flooded. Ultimately, that what. That's what that means, right? I'm feeling angry or afraid or some kind of emotion that I don't really know. I'm sitting with myself. I'm thinking. I'm looking at my emotion wheel or feeling wheel chart and thinking, what is it that I really feel?
00:23:59
Right?
00:23:59
And then saying that I feel. Yes, I feel disrespected or I feel. Whatever it is, I feel angry.
00:24:07
Right.
00:24:08
Whatever it is.
00:24:09
Notice we are not saying I feel that you are making me angry.
00:24:14
I feel like you're a big fat jerk.
00:24:16
Yeah.
00:24:17
Does that work?
00:24:18
No.
00:24:19
I feel like you're taking advantage of me. Does that work?
00:24:22
That is an automatic fail.
00:24:24
Why?
00:24:25
Because you're now putting it on someone else.
00:24:28
Okay.
00:24:28
You're not owning your own feelings.
00:24:31
Okay, so when you.
00:24:33
When I verbalize, I feel attacked to you.
00:24:37
Is attacked an emotion?
00:24:38
It is. It's. It could be, sure. But if I say that, I'm not saying you're attacking me.
00:24:46
This is just how I'm experiencing.
00:24:48
This is my experience you're giving me. This is how. This is how the world around me, what it's telling me right now, what I feel like it's telling me because.
00:24:57
Of my past experiences, because of any triggers, because of my life up to this point.
00:25:02
It doesn't mean that it's true.
00:25:04
It's your interpretation. The story that you're Creating to make sense of the world.
00:25:09
So. But that's at least a start. You see the difference. I feel like you're attacking me. No, I feel attacked. Very different.
00:25:21
I think one really good part of understanding this is that if. If you say that to me, I could feel attacked by you saying that whatever I did just caused you to feel attacked. But in reality, if I also pause and I just think that is just his experience based upon his past life up to this point, and it's okay for him to feel an emotion that's not a hundred percent roses and rainbows in my behalf.
00:25:52
Well, you're right. You could interpret it that you're attacking me, but it's. It's my experience. And I'm not saying I'm not judging you. I'm not saying you're doing it. I'm just saying this is my experience right now, and I feel attacked.
00:26:10
So, period. That brings it to your prefrontal cortex, where you can start thinking about it differently.
00:26:17
Right.
00:26:17
For me, you doing that allows me to get curious and to say, can you explain to me that process or what it was exactly that I said that might have triggered something in you to. To help you feel that way.
00:26:34
Right. In a perfect world, that would happen. I. I think that it would still be pretty. It could still be pretty hot. Right.
00:26:43
Or maybe later that would be a conversation.
00:26:46
Possibly.
00:26:46
Okay.
00:26:47
But what we're asking everyone to do here is learning to own our own feelings without judging, passing judgment onto others, onto our spouse. We're not saying to our spouse, you're a bad person, you're a jerk. I feel. No, not at all. We're only taking and owning our own emotions. I feel this way. And no, nothing else.
00:27:16
So after you name it, what happens at that point?
00:27:22
Well, as we said earlier, it'll. It pushes that into the prefrontal cortex where we can start looking rationally. Is the story that I'm telling myself true? If I feel attacked, it allows me to stand back. Is this person really attacking me? But if I don't say those words, I will never get into that frame of mind that allows me to start looking at it that way. It just. It's always going to be they're the enemy. Who the enemy. Always the enemy.
00:27:58
Yeah.
00:27:59
This is just a door that opens up. It allows that door to open where further conversation can. Can go.
00:28:08
You have your feelings, I have my feelings. There may be responsibility for both people. I'm. I'm really sorry. My voice got kind of elevated because my emotions were flooded. I was Feeling flooded.
00:28:27
Right. So in. In this just opens the door to.
00:28:31
Further conversation, which then allows us to have a more rational conversation.
00:28:35
Right.
00:28:36
Okay.
00:28:36
But if we can't open that door, it's so simple to just open that door. I feel ignored. I feel lonely. I feel attacked. It allows us to start changing our thought process just with those words I feel statements.
00:28:56
I have a question related to that. Then if we are finding, not necessarily in a circumstance where you and I don't see eye to eye, but where I'm feeling flooded for whatever reason, something that happened, can I shift my focus to another emotion on that emotion wheel or another feeling on that feeling wheel and tap down that overreactive emotion by shifting my focus?
00:29:27
You can. Like, it takes. It takes a lot of. Of effort.
00:29:32
I've heard just focusing on gratitude can help us tap down over reactivity.
00:29:38
Well, and I think it's important to. It's. It brings up a very good point. It's extremely important to do I feel statements for positive feelings too.
00:29:48
Good point.
00:29:50
I feel excited right now. I feel passionate right now. I feel grateful. Just in awe right now. Just labeling those. Those feelings. When you have the good ones too, it helps you connect with yourself to know yourself better.
00:30:11
I would think that would bring more joy to our lives if we could really focus on and pay attention and label those positive emotions more often.
00:30:21
Yeah. So this week, something you can do right away, it think about your top three positive and negative feelings and write them down. And practice, practice saying I feel statements, not saying I feel you're a jerk. I feel you're mean to me. That is not allowed. It's only I feel blank, whatever emotion it is.
00:30:53
I would also invite our listeners to be observant of our own emotions. What part of my thought process led me to feeling triggered or feeling an emotional storm?
00:31:10
And then with your spouse this week, invite them to also sit down and come up with their top three emotions, both positive and negative. I guess I use feelings and emotions interchangeably here, but what are their top three? And then practice, practice, practice. You may find a whole new world opening up to you as you learn yourself, your own brain, your physiology. It's wonderful. It makes for a very, very intelligent spouse and a highly scintillating marriage. If you can know yourself better, helps.
00:31:49
Us be more emotionally intelligent as well. Or that is emotional intelligence.
00:31:55
It is, It's. This is one of the core emotional intelligence pillars. As we finish up here about the four cornerstones. This is really all about identity. Knowing. Knowing who we are, knowing what makes us tick, what ticks us off and then coming together, working on this together, seeing that magic happen. It also requires intentionality. Some of you might not like sitting with yourself and having a meeting with yourself. I do. I do it all the time. I don't know why other people don't because it's really awesome. But if, if it's uncomfortable for you, just, just, just try it. Sit with yourself and decide. What are these, these feelings? The most important ones? The top three, positive and negative. And practice.
00:32:54
And with that, have a great week, everybody. We'll see you next week.
00:32:59
And remember, the intelligent spouse knows that to change from a stinky to a scintillating marriage first requires a change in themselves.
00:33:08
Thank you for joining us on Marriage iq. We hope today's episode sparked some great insights, but why stop here? Stay connected and keep the momentum going. Follow Marriage IQ on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube for more great content on this topic.
00:33:25
Head over to MarriageIQ.com to grab your free ebook on building a scintillating marriage and subscribe to our newsletter for exclusive tips, updates, and resources.
00:33:36
Invite your family and friends to join the Marriage IQ community. Keep exploring and we'll catch you next time on another exciting, exciting episode of Marriage iq.
