86. the window of threat: How to Work With Your Triggers Before They Work Against You with Danik Bernier (PART two)
It's 2am. You're rocking your baby.
A weird sensation moves through your body and you don't know what to make of it.
You're too tired to understand what's happening - and that's okay.
That's where we left off in part one of this conversation with Danik Bernier, MSW RSW. If you haven't listened to episode 85 yet, start there - Danik shares the story of her great-grandmother and what it taught her about the breaking cycles and the feelings that pulse through us as mothers without explanation.
In this episode, we pick up where we left off. We get into what to actually do with what your body is telling you through triggers and big emotions and reactions in parenting - and why doing it before the hard moment is the piece almost everyone is missing.
Why the Mental Note Matters for Mom Emotional Regulation
Danik noticed something over time: the sensation she felt at 2am was showing up more and more when she was with her daughter - not her son. She didn't know what it meant yet. But she kept taking a mental note.
That's the first move. Not understanding. Not fixing. Just noticing, and then looking back later with a fresh pair of eyes to see if there are patterns.
What she already knew about postpartum anxiety and postpartum depression wasn't fitting with what she was going through. The mental note gave her data to work with when she was ready to look at it.
It happens at the same time, in the same situation, more often than not.
When you are in it, you are giving from total depletion:
Not at zero percent
In the minuses
And that is when unintentional emotional neglect - of your kids, of yourself - becomes a very real risk
No shame here, we have both been there.
FYI - you can have more than one window, and they change as your kids get older. Danik's used to be mornings. Her partner leaves early for construction, she has always been alone with both kids, and every transition until daycare drop-off was a potential trigger. Now her kids are school-age and mornings have more ease. Her new window is evenings when her partner goes out and bedtime is on her alone.
Your window of threat is personal. It depends on your capacity, your home life, and what you grew up with.
How to Work With Your mom Triggers Before They Work Against You
The Proactive Steps for your window of threat
1. Find your window.
What time of day do you lose it most? Morning rush? Dinner? Bedtime alone? That predictable moment - that's your window of threat. Write it down.
2. Ask what you need before you get there.
Not when you're already yelling. Before. When you still feel like yourself. What does your body need in that window to stay steady?
3. Pick one body-based tool and use it before the hard part starts.
Danik does box breathing every morning - not because anything is wrong, but because she wants her body ready before her window opens. Even if the kids wake up happy. Even if nothing has happened yet. She gives herself options before she needs them.
4. Practice it when everything is fine.
The more you do it outside the hard moments, the more your body knows what to do when the hard moment hits. You are not learning a tool. You are building a reflex.
Here's what Danik and I both kept coming back to in this conversation:
The tools you hear about for emotional regulation on instagram don't always work in the moment.
Look at your toddler's little hands.
Notice five things you can see, four things you can touch, etc.
The 5-4-3-2-1 technique.
Box breathing.
Those tools work. Just not when you're already in it. When you're in your window of threat, your logical thinking brain isn't online.
The Somatic Tool That Actually Worked for Me (Kayla, Mom Guilt Therapist and ADHD Mom of Two)
My couples counselor gave me a tool that I thought was completely nuts when he described it.
I was dealing with a lot of unregulated anger.
Not chosen anger - the kind where the situation seems to expect it.
Screaming because people won't put their shoes on.
Flying off because of teeth brushing.
And we had a lot of conversations about my relationship with anger, my history with it, what it felt like to be on the receiving end of it.
What he gave me was a somatic exercise: zoom in on the point of contact where your body is touching something. The ground under your feet. Your seat in the chair. If you can't feel that, focus on your throat - notice the speed and the feeling of what's coming out of your mouth.
Then he told me to practice it 100 times a day.
I looked at him and said, pardon the - I don't have time to pee. Read the room.
He said: you don't have to make time for it. You do it while you're making lunch. While you're talking to someone. While you're in the shower. It's not extra.
I went home, did my homework, and within a week I could feel myself reaching my window of threat - and then it wouldn't happen. I could feel my feet on the floor. I could hear the speed of what was coming out of my mouth. I could actually stop myself.
And then I was mad that it worked.
He didn't teach me how to use the tool in the moment when I was already yelling. The whole tool was proactive.
Why Proactivity Is How Moms Put Themselves First (and get triggered less)
Here's the thing Danik said that landed hardest for me: you're meeting your needs first so that you can meet your kids' needs first.
Not kids first, then mom. Not side by side, because that creates constant tension. It's more like - if you're watching the video it makes more sense visually - the kids are in front and mom is meeting that from behind. But she has to feel resourced in order to meet it.
The proactivity is how you get resourced. It's the chicken that wins.
And this isn't a one-time fix. This tool has ebbed and flowed throughout my parenting. New developmental stage, new communication, new demands on my nervous system - and sometimes I need to come back to it. The moms I see often say: I thought I dealt with this. I went to therapy when my son was two. Now he's six and I'm back to the same theme.
The tools you need change as your kids change. Sometimes that looks like:
Putting yourself first for a whole season before the kids can come first
Putting the kids first and squeezing yourself into the margins
Coming back to a tool you thought you were done with
The proactivity is what makes any of it sustainable.
Journal Prompts for Moms Working on their triggers
What is your window of threat right now - the moment in your day where you're most likely to lose it or shut down?
What does your body do just before you hit that window? Is there a sensation you recognize? Can you name it?
What would it look like to do something for your nervous system before that window - not during, before?
I'm a mom guilt therapist in Alberta and the proactivity piece is something I come back to again and again with the moms I work with.
If this landed, listen to the full episode with Danik - and go back to part one if you haven't yet.
What's your window of threat right now? Drop it in the comments - the more specific the better. You might find you're not the only one.
P.S. Danik hosts a podcast called the Healing Mothers Club - I've already binged a few episodes. It gets to the root of things in a way that generic wellness content doesn't. Go check it out.
