09-28-2026 Become Untriggerable09-28-2026 Become Untriggerable
Levelheaded Talk
Dr. Andrea Vitz explains how Emotional Sobriety and EMSO training can help someone become untriggerable by changing long-held emotional reactions. The episode focuses on building inner strength so that other people’s behaviour no longer controls a person's internal state.
6:21•28 Sept 2026
Becoming Untriggerable: Building Emotional Sobriety with Dr. Andrea Vitz
Episode Overview
- Emotional Sobriety focuses on understanding why destructive emotions are produced, rather than just managing them forever.
- EMSO training uses a formula of catching old thinking, practising new thinking, and preparing for difficult situations.
- Becoming untriggerable means familiar triggers no longer hijack your emotional state, even when people behave badly.
- Reducing other people’s "access" to your emotions lets you choose boundaries, conversations, or exits from a stable place.
- Long-term training can change emotional patterns that have been in place for decades, making freedom from triggers possible.
“I want you so strong internally that someone else can behave however they're going to behave, and you still have access to your intelligence, your maturity, your discernment, and your values, your character.”
How do people cope with the challenges of staying sober emotionally, not just with substances? This episode of Levelheaded Talk zooms in on a bold idea from Dr. Andrea Vitz: that you can actually train yourself to become "untriggerable". Dr. Vitz breaks down what she means by that, making it clear she's not talking about becoming numb or letting people walk all over you.
Instead, she explains how those familiar emotional explosions around certain people – the spouse with the tone, the parent with the look, the colleague with the criticism – don't have to run your internal life forever. She points out that two people can have the exact same experience and yet react in totally different ways, which means "something else is going on" inside us. That "something else" is the focus of Emotional Sobriety (EMSO) training.
As she puts it, "The goal is to understand why you are producing those feelings or emotions in the first place, and then train your brain and your body until that old response is no longer necessary." You’ll hear about the EMSO formula: catching old thinking, practising new thinking, and preparing for historically difficult situations. Dr. Vitz is straightforward about the fact that change doesn’t happen overnight, especially if you’ve been reacting a certain way for decades.
There’s training, there’s effort, and yes, you’ll still get triggered sometimes. But she also talks about reaching a point where those old triggers simply don’t hijack your emotional state anymore. Instead of losing yourself, you stay steady enough to decide whether to speak up, set a boundary, leave, or even recognise when the other person might be right – all from a stable place.
If you’re tired of feeling like other people have "complete and total access" to your emotions, this episode offers a clear, practical path toward emotional strength. Could becoming untriggerable be the next step in your recovery journey?
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