Dysregulated and Disillusioned? Why Triggers Still Happen

You’ve been doing the work.
You’ve gone to therapy.
You’ve read the books.
You’ve made real progress.

So why are you still getting triggered?

It’s disheartening—maybe even disillusioning—to feel like you’ve come so far in your healing journey, only to find yourself dysregulated by something that seems small or out of nowhere. If this sounds familiar, know this:

You’re not broken. You’re rewiring.
And healing isn’t linear—it’s layered.

Why Triggers Still Happen

Even after significant healing, your nervous system may still be carrying the impacts of trauma—especially if the trauma was repeated or prolonged. This includes childhood abuse, emotional neglect, or relational trauma that disrupted your sense of safety and belonging.

When life is calm, it’s easy to believe you’re “past it.”
But a subtle reminder—an expression, tone of voice, a life experience, or external or internal sensation—can throw your body back into a state of defense.

That’s because your brain and body learned to survive, not necessarily to feel safe. And when the underlying dysregulation hasn’t been addressed at the root, old patterns resurface—even if your mind knows better.

This isn’t a failure. It’s a signal.
And it tells us that healing needs to go deeper—beyond cognition alone.

Why Addressing Both the Brain and Body Matters

Many people begin trauma healing with talk therapy or cognitive tools—and those can be incredibly helpful. But when trauma is stored in the body (and it often is), we also need to address the nervous system, attachment systems, and somatic memory.

Think of trauma as being layered into your experience:

• How you think

• How you feel

• How your body responds

• How you relate to others

To truly shift those patterns, healing must meet you in all those places.

Three Categories of Evidence-Based Approaches to Support Trauma Recovery

You don’t have to experience all of the approaches to experience healing across the domains of impact, but you do need an approach that seems accessible to you. For instance, some individuals find cognitive-behavioral approaches to intense and triggering. There are other routes you can go, if that’s you.

Here’s a simplified way to think about different types of healing modalities—and how they support different aspects of trauma:

🧠 Cognitive-Behavioral Approaches

These approaches help you examine and reframe trauma-related beliefs, make meaning of your experiences, and gradually reduce fear-based responses.

Examples include:

• Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT): Helps you challenge and change distorted beliefs related to the trauma.

• Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE): Helps reduce avoidance by gradually confronting trauma memories in a safe, structured way.

Helpful for: Understanding your thoughts, reducing shame, processing trauma narratives, and decreasing avoidance behaviors.

❤️ Attachment-Focused Therapies

These therapies aim to heal relational wounds caused by trauma—especially when the trauma involved caregivers or those in close relationships.

Examples include:

• Attachment-Based Therapy (ABT): Focuses on rebuilding trust, emotional safety, and secure connections.

• Sensory Attachment Intervention: Often led by occupational therapists, this approach uses sensory integration to support emotional regulation and strengthen the caregiver-client bond.

Helpful for: Relationship repair, co-regulation, rebuilding self-worth, and creating felt safety in connection.

🧘‍♀️ Embodied or Somatic Approaches

These approaches recognize that trauma is held not just in the mind, but in the body. They help reconnect you to bodily sensations in a safe, regulated way.

Examples include:

• Trauma-Sensitive Yoga: Encourages choice, interoception, and safety within movement—especially for those who feel disconnected from their bodies.

• Somatic Experiencing: A body-based method that helps you release stored survival energy and complete trauma responses that were interrupted.

Helpful for: Grounding, nervous system regulation, reconnecting with the body, and releasing stored trauma.

This is not an exhaustive list of approaches either. There are many types of approaches and it can be useful to learn about each one to determine what resonates for you. If you are curious about approaches click here.

You Don’t Have to Heal All at Once

One of the most compassionate things you can do on your healing journey is to let go of the pressure to fix everything right now. It takes time to move calm your nervous system down and move past the triggers. In the meantime, it may mean you’ll be able to respond differently—with awareness, self-compassion, and tools that help you return to safety faster.

And if you’re feeling discouraged?
That doesn’t mean you’ve failed.
It means your nervous system is still protecting you the only way it knows how.
And that’s information—not failure.

Final Thought: You’re Not Starting Over

When you’re triggered, it can feel like you’re back at square one.
You’re not.

You’re meeting a deeper layer of healing.
You’re uncovering something that’s ready to be healed—maybe for the first time.
And that is powerful.

For me, it took various approaches spread over years to finally find one that brought me back to a calm state — no longer triggered. That approach was network chiropractics. For you, it may be some other approach. Trust your intuition about which approaches feel right to you!

Want to Go Deeper?

If today’s post resonated with you, here are a few ways to take the next step:

🔹 Explore More Insights from Lilli – Browse articles on trauma, resilience, healing, and rising strong.
🔹 Work with Lilli One-on-One – Coaching to help you reclaim your life and move forward with clarity and strength.
🔹 Book Lilli to Speak – Bring powerful, trauma-informed insight to your organization or event.
🔹 Download the Resolve to Rise Companion Guide for tools, reflections, and support as you continue your healing journey.