There’s no doubt that overwhelm from daily life situations and challenging relationships with your children, spouse, family or co-worker can be triggering. These triggering events and relationships can cause emotional flooding .  Emotional flooding is the body’s response to being overly aroused by physical and emotional sensations. When a person experiences too many or high emotions, their body may go into “shutdown” mode in order to reduce the feeling of overwhelm that comes with emotional flooding. This can look like oscillating between feelings, mentally withdrawing, or having a fight-flight-freeze reaction.

There are many situations that can induce emotional flooding, and these will largely depend on an individual’s personal triggers. Triggers often develop from early or highly impactful life experiences, and will set off the brain during situations where there is a perceived threat, where someone feels voiceless or disrespected. These can be related to specific emotions, situations, or interpersonal conflicts.