The Art of Effective Facilitation: Navigating Trigger Events

Chapter 9

Chapter 9 was pretty interesting too. It talked about triggering events, and we as facilitators react to them in different ways. Ali and I both have a partial list of triggers that this chapter advocated that we write. I think it will help us both to look at what triggers do to us and for us. It could be helpful to us to look at triggers and what we feel like when we are triggered, because if we know how to identify a triggered state, we can react more calmly and follow our own values better than if we react on the fly.

There was also a really interesting chart in chapter 9. It shows different types of self-talk (self talk is defined as what we say to ourselves) and more productive things we can say instead. So instead of saying something like, "I can't handle this," I could instead say, "If I make a mistake, I can use it as a learning moment," which makes a positive (a learning situation) out of a negative (not being able to handle something). One thing I've learned and learned well from RAPP and my training as a facilitator is that I need to be as positive as I can. Sometimes, things go wrong, and that's okay. We can use what went wrong to teach ourselves to do things better the next time. This can be helpful in all kinds of situations, not just in social justice education. Being positive is something we need to do as humanity. Creating a positive out of a negative can change a person's whole outlook on life. It is, I think, on of the best things we can learn to better ourselves.

Another thing I learned, and found really interesting, is that a triggering event has a series of steps it goes through. It starts with step one, when the stimulus occurs. Then it moves through steps two and three (2: stimulus triggers intrapersonal roots, 3: intrapersonal roots form a lens through which the facilitator makes meaning of what he/she is experiencing) to step four, where the facilitator sometimes realizes he/she has been triggered. This is where the facilitator reacts to the stimulus physically, hence the reason this is really the first chance he or she has to realize they've been triggered. In steps five and six, the facilitator reacts to the stimulus by first being influenced by what they made the stimulus out to be, and then they actually react by saying or doing something. Step seven, the last step, is that the facilitator's reaction may be a trigger for someone else. This is, I think, one of the best reasons to know our triggers ahead of time. If we know immediately that the word "____" triggers us, we can react in more productive ways that are equivalent to our social justice goals. Instead of reacting with anger or fear, we can react with compassion and love instead. In this way, all participants feel respected for what they bring to the table.