You’re at a competition, waiting to get onto the ice for practice ice.
The group ahead of you is finishing up.
On the far side of the rink, you hear a coach shouting.
Tearing into their skater because they weren’t able to land their jumps during the session.
Your body freezes.
Your mind fogs up.
You can’t move.
You can’t think.
You can’t breathe.
The announcer calls for the end of the practice session.
The skaters head towards the boards and collect their stuff.
The ice monitor opens the door and the skaters file off, then your practice session starts.
As soon as you step onto the ice, you know you’re in trouble.
Everything feels wrong.
Your muscles feel tight.
Your feet feel like lead.
Your stomach feels nauseous.
You skate over to your coach and place your skate guards on the boards.
Then, you begin a practice session straight out of one of your nightmares.
Triggers
Have you ever experienced a reaction that was vastly out of proportion to a given situation?
You might have experienced a nervous system trigger.
Triggers are caused by trauma that happened in the past, here are some examples:
- Getting shamed by a coach.
- Getting yelled at after making a mistake.
- Having your lesson cut off if you pop a jump.
- Getting shamed in front of your peers.
Of course, these examples are just the tip of the iceberg.
Note, trauma doesn’t only develop from “significant” events.
It can develop from events that are seemingly “benign”.
“Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.”
― Peter A. Levine
Both of these types of events can cause traumatic reactions after the fact.
It all depends on the person experiencing them.
Maybe, your coach yells at you and your nervous system senses danger.
You want to fight, but you can’t punch your coach.
You want to flee, but you’re in the middle of a lesson.
In the end, you’re left with one option, freeze.
Afterwards, you try to be tough.
You suck it up and push through, instead of giving yourself time to process.
This means your body isn’t able to resolve the trauma, so in the end it might become a trigger.
This is the opposite of what happens in nature.
When an impala is attacked by a predator, it freezes.
Then, when the danger is gone, it automatically processes through and resolves the effects of the traumatic event.
In humans, these triggers can lie dormant for weeks, months, years, or even decades.
Later, they can pop up, seemingly out of nowhere.
Maybe it’s on the ice.
Maybe it’s somewhere totally unrelated.
But, suddenly out of nowhere you’ll have a large-scale reaction that is totally out of proportion to the given situation.
Trauma
Years later, you hear a coach yelling at another skater and your nervous system activates.
Even though the yelling isn’t directed at you, you go into freeze.
On the surface, this reaction seems out of proportion to the given situation.
But, this probably has something to do with an experience from your past.
When triggered, your brain doesn’t distinguish between the past and the present.
Your body goes straight back to the past.
You feel all of the same emotions and physical symptoms as if it is happening right at that moment.
Trauma develops differently for everyone.
For some, it’s caused by a huge life threatening event.
More commonly, it’s caused by a smaller seemingly insignificant or a series of repeated events.
Remember, your nervous system’s only job is to keep you safe.
If your nervous system doesn’t have a chance to process through the event, that trauma can be stored in the cells of your body.
Then, when faced with an event that is similar to a past event, that stored memory can trigger the nervous system.
Keep in mind, not all events create trauma and not all trauma creates triggers.
Triggers and mental game
Since you’re reading these articles, you’ve probably started working on your mental game.
If what you’re doing is working, great.
But if there are some situations that you can’t handle, you might be dealing with trauma from the past.
Working through trauma by yourself is a difficult process.
In cases like these, it can be helpful to work with a professional.
If you think this might be you, and you want to learn more, I’m happy to talk about it with you.
If skaters took Mental skills training as seriously as they do their on ice technical skills, they would find that their technical skills would improve exponentially.
Start here. Download “Confidence Myth Busters,” a complimentary eBook and make a change.