Build the exit on a calm day.
Use it when
- The same thing keeps setting you off and you cannot predict when
- You only notice you are activated once you are already there
- Today is a good day and you want to spend it on something
- You see the pattern in hindsight every time and never in advance
The steps
- People — every person who reliably activates a stress response. Name the specific behaviour, not the person: "when she raises her voice," not "when she's around." The first you can build an exit for; the second just makes you dread someone.
- Places — environments that shift your state. Include the calming ones — half of this map is an asset list.
- Situations — conflict, evaluation, uncertainty, loss of control, feeling excluded, being misunderstood.
- Sensory cues — sounds, smells, textures, tones of voice, lighting conditions that carry associative weight from your Line.
- Time and state vulnerabilities — time of day, and the conditions that narrow your window: tired, hungry, isolated, overstimulated, in pain.
- Early body signals — for each trigger, the first physical sign, before the full response arrives. This is your interruption window.
- If-Then responses — for each trigger, a specific pre-committed response.
What to expect
The map may come out longer than you expected, and about half of it is an asset list. What you leave with is the early body signal for each one, which is the part there is still time to act on.
If this isn't the one
- You have the map and the response is still automatic → The Rewiring Protocol
- One trigger keeps producing the same thought loop → The Thought Record
- You are activated right now and cannot map anything → The Now Protocol
Where it comes from
- Session 11 — the full handout
- Session 11 — Trigger Maps
- Supported
Prefer it one step at a time? The same protocol as a guided runner in the app, which also keeps a private record if you want one.
This is one of the tools a seventeen-session series teaches, ninety minutes at a time, in a room of six to twelve people. It is peer-facilitated, free to host, and every handout and worksheet it uses is free to take.
Where this one comes from
You have just run one protocol. Behind it is one idea: everything you do is paid for out of a single account, and almost nothing is charged at the moment you do it — which is why the fifth repetition is worse than five times the first, and why a bad night does not present its bill until the following afternoon. Shoulder the Bill is that argument as one continuous read, written out of a workplace injury and the four years afterwards. The manual is the one you open at a page. The Workbook is the one you write in.
three books, one system →Check what stayed 3 questions
Answer in your own words, out loud or on paper. Nothing is scored, nothing is marked, and nothing is stored — this is for noticing what you have, not for anybody to grade.
What state do you build a trigger map in, and what is it for?
What the material says
Building an early-warning system. Do this during a calm state.
For each trigger the map records a physical sign. Which one, and when does it appear?
What the material says
the first physical sign, before the full response
What is the anchor phrase, and what does it say about timing?