EMDR Therapy in Phoenix & Tempe -How Trauma Triggers Sneak Up & What to Do About It
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When Triggers Catch You Off Guard
It’s funny, isn’t it? Well, funny isn’t exactly the right word. A better, more fitting word might be infuriating, unsettling, or even an emotional roller coaster that you didn’t know you had gotten on. Hi, my name is Kandace and I am a certified EMDR Therapist offering EMDR Therapy in Phoenix and EMDR Therapy in Tempe, and in this blog I want my own experience with trauma and how trauma triggers sneak up and what we can actually do about them.
Trauma can be sneaky like that. It has this knack for showing up in our daily lives in the most surprising and mostly uncomfortable ways, and it can feel like we are being slapped in the face by it. You’re going about your day, minding your own business, maybe even feeling pretty good, and then bam! — something completely unexpected triggers a wave of anxiety, fear, discomfort, insecurity, or even rage. Maybe it’s the smell of a certain perfume, the way someone raises their voice in a meeting, or simply sitting in a silent room. Suddenly, you’re on edge, and you don’t know why.
Or maybe you do know a certain environment is triggering, but you tell yourself it’s no big deal—until you are flooded with emotions, body messages, or even flashbacks to earlier memories. One minute you’re fine, the next you’re fighting off intense anxiety, perfectionism, or even dissociation. If you’ve been living with unresolved trauma, these moments aren’t just random—they are your body’s way of telling you something important.
And you might be wondering: What does this therapist know about trauma triggers? With full transparency, I am human too. In 2024, I experienced two traumas that I am still working to recover from. More on that in a moment.
When We Keep Pushing Emotions Aside
I want to pause here and say, we are all guilty of pushing or emotions aside at times. We are all guilty of pushing emotions aside at times. Life is busy. We have jobs, families, and never-ending to-do lists. So when a difficult emotion rises up—whether it’s sadness, fear, or anger—it’s easy to say, “I’ll deal with this later.”
Spoiler alert: most of us don’t actually get to it later.
Sometimes emotions rise when we’re in the middle of a parent-teacher conference, grocery shopping, or a work meeting. We can’t always pause in the moment. But here’s the thing: emotions don’t just disappear. When you push them down, they tend to fester, build, and ultimately spill over in ways you don’t expect.
This is especially true with trauma. Unprocessed emotions don’t just quietly fade away. Instead, they often show up as perfectionism, chronic worry, irritability, trouble concentrating, or even physical symptoms like headaches, muscle tension, or stomach issues—all your body’s way of saying, “Hey! There’s something here you need to deal with!”
My Personal Experience With Trauma
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This last year was really hard in a very personal way. I struggled with two miscarriages. I share this in this space for a few reasons.
First, because miscarriage is highly stigmatized—like many other silent struggles. No one should go through this alone or feel like they are alone in it.
Second, because trauma doesn’t go away when we ignore it. I have seen time and time again in the work I do with others that when we shove our traumas under a rock, they don’t do us any good. I’m working with my own therapist to process it so it doesn’t wreak havoc on my body and brain.
And third, because so few resources exist for pregnancy loss despite its prevalence (10-20% of pregnancies). The lack of support for something that happens to 1 in 5 or 1 in 10 pregnancies is mind-boggling, considering how few people speak about it and how little is out there on how to deal with it (past a clinical medical model).
All of that to say, I, too, have been guilty of pushing emotions aside. But as you probably well know, if you are dealing with trauma and it’s triggers, that same thing will knock on your door again, waiting to be dealt with. So in the new few paragraphs we’ll talk about why it’s important to see your triggers for what they are and real techniques (yes that I actually have used) to deal with them.
Understanding Triggers: Why They Keep Coming Back
When trauma (or repeated stress) happens, our bodies and brains go into survival mode. The goal is to get from Point A (the traumatic event) to Point B (a place of perceived safety). Survival becomes the priority.
Fast forward to daily life, and suddenly minor stressors feel overwhelming. You might react far more intensely to something seemingly small. That’s because your body is storing unprocessed trauma. This is why trauma responses can feel disproportionate—they’re pulling from past experiences that haven’t been fully integrated.
It might feel like these trauma triggers happen out of completely no where, but when we take a closer look we can often find that in some way our bodies or our brains are being reminded of that initial trauma and our reaction to the trigger is a message that something is off. It makes sense that this can be overwhelming, and for those of you that have worked on your trauma and are having a total face/palm moment right now saying, “WTF?! I thought I worked all this sh*t out!” it’s understandable to both feel surprised and frustrated. I get it, I’ve been there.
The silver lining in this is that whether you have worked on your trauma or you are starting from square “Ah, so that’s why I blow up when I experience XYZ” whether you notice or not, you have tools at your disposal that you didn’t have when you encountered your trauma, you’ve already been through your trauma, so even though moving forward out of trauma takes work (hard work, if brutally I’m honest), it’s often really rewarding. In moving forward out of your trauma, you start to make an active choice for yourself and choice is the very opposite of trauma.
Healing is about recognizing these patterns and choosing how to respond.
Seeing Triggers as Messengers (Instead of the Enemy)
It can often be helpful to see trauma trigger as messengers relaying information, rather than the enemy or another way to pass judgment on ourselves (I see you perfectionists!) But what would happen if we saw these triggers as signals and not setbacks, because after all, they’re only setbacks if we allow them to set us backwards. What if we could choose to move forward with a little bit more knowledge, self-awareness and hopefully with a bit of self-compassion.
Next time you encounter a trigger, instead of saying, “I hate that I get triggered like this,” what if we asked, “What is my body trying to tell me? What do I need in this moment?”
In my personal experience, when I started to recognize what I was experiencing was a trauma trigger, acknowledge where it was coming from and that I was in the middle of feeling activated from it (as activation has a beginning, middle and end - if we let it), I could then move into the question of “What do I need right now.”
Sometimes I had to verbally process it, other times I used an EMDR resource, and other times I needed someone else to hold space for me. Each time, the key was naming it so I could move into actively dealing with it.
How to Work Through a Trigger in the Moment
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When you experience a trigger, try these steps:
Recognize it’s a trigger and ask yourself, “What do I need right now?”
Ground yourself using the 5-4-3-2-1 method or deep breathing.
Regulate your body with movement or self-holding techniques (like a butterfly hug).
Create a mental pause by verbalizing, “This is a trauma response, not a real-time threat.”
Validate your feelings by saying, “I notice I’m feeling ____ because ____.”
Every time you acknowledge a trigger instead of pushing it away, you build resilience and move one step closer to long-term healing.
After stepping away from the trauma response itself, it’s important to regulate your nervous system! This can be finding some co-regulation with a trusted individual, taking slow deep breathes, or using a guided imagery exercise (here are some of my favorites). This helps your body re-establish that it is in fact safe here in this moment and that we are not re-experiencing a trauma, which (bonus) this helps us build new neural pathways out of trauma!
Long-Term Healing: How to Work Through Triggers Over Time
One of the biggest myths about trauma is that you have to “just get over it” on your own. That if you were strong enough, healed enough, or insert unrealistic expectation here, triggers wouldn’t affect you anymore. But trauma healing doesn’t work that way. It’s not about willpower—it’s about working with your nervous system, not against it.
Healing isn’t about never getting triggered again—it’s about changing your relationship with those triggers, it’s about knowing that just because you still get triggered doesn’t mean you’re failing at healing. Here’s a few things I have found can help.
Therapy (Especially EMDR & Body-Based Healing Like Somatic Breathwork): EMDR helps reprocess trauma so it no longer feels like a present threat.
Building Self-Trust: Facing emotions instead of avoiding them builds confidence and resilience.
Giving Yourself Permission to Heal at Your Own Pace: Triggers don’t mean you’re failing, remember healing is non-linear.
You don’t have to white-knuckle your way through healing. Working with a therapist who understands trauma means you get tools, support, and a safe space to process what’s coming up, instead of carrying it alone.
Closing Thoughts - What This Means From Me as an EMDR Therapist in Phoenix and a Trauma Survivor
EMDR Therapy Phoenix EMDR Therapy Tempe - Kandace Ledergerber (she/her).
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If there’s one thing I hope you take away from this, it’s this: you are not broken, and you are not alone. No matter how overwhelming your triggers feel or how exhausting it is to face the same emotions again and again, you are not failing—you are healing. Healing isn’t about erasing the past or never being triggered again; it’s about learning how to navigate those moments with more ease, more self-compassion, and more tools that actually help.
Healing isn’t a straight road. It’s full of twists, setbacks, and moments that feel like you’re back where you started. But every small step matters. Every time you pause to acknowledge what’s coming up, every time you use a tool to regulate instead of shutting down—that is progress. Even when it doesn’t feel like it.
You don’t have to do this alone. Whether it’s therapy, support from loved ones, or simply giving yourself permission to feel without judgment, your well-being is worth prioritizing. If trauma and triggers feel like they’re running your life, there is help. And if no one has told you this yet: you deserve support. You deserve a space to process, to heal, and to move forward.
If you’re looking for EMDR therapy in Phoenix (or in-person EMDR Therapy in Tempe), I’m here to help. You can book a free 15-minute consultation by clicking here.
And if therapy isn’t the right next step for you, that’s okay too. Just know this: your emotions make sense, your healing is valid, and you are capable of moving through this—one step, one breath, one moment at a time.
You’ve got this. And you don’t have to do it alone. 💛
TL;DR (Key Takeaways)
Triggers aren’t random—they’re messages from your nervous system.
Suppressing emotions doesn’t work—they resurface in other ways.
Healing isn’t about never being triggered but learning how to respond.
Therapy and self-compassion are powerful tools.
You are not broken. You are healing.
My Specialties Include EMDR Therapy Tempe, EMDR Therapy Phoenix EMDR Therapy Intensives, Anxiety, Sexual Abuse, and Cycles of Family Trauma.
If you found this article helpful, check out When Our Body & Brain’s Safety Mechanisms Start to Interfere with Our Lives: Overthinking, Perfectionism, Anxiety, and Freezing Through a Trauma-Informed Lens and these guided visual meditations that I use as EMDR Therapy Resources in my clinical work!
