Why Small Fights Feel So Intense — And Why Logic Doesn’t Help

One minute you’re in an ordinary moment — the next, you’re dealing with tears, anger, shutdown, or intensity that feels wildly out of proportion. And you’re left wondering: What just happened… and why does this feel so serious?

In this episode, Martina unpacks why small moments can trigger massive reactions — and why these moments don’t come from drama, weakness, or emotional immaturity, but from a nervous system that has learned to treat certain situations as threat.

Using a real-life story after a late flight, Martina opens the door into what’s actually happening inside the brain and body when someone is triggered — why logic disappears, why emotions escalate fast, and why your partner can suddenly feel like the most unsafe person in the room.

She breaks down the fast track of the amygdala, how implicit memory stores old experiences as sensations rather than stories, and why anger so often shows up to protect something far more vulnerable underneath.

From there, the conversation turns practical — without turning you into the emotional caretaker.

In this episode, Martina explores:

• Why you feel before you think — and why explaining yourself during a trigger often makes it worse
• How old emotional states get activated through the body, not the mind
• Why partners unknowingly become stand-ins for childhood attachment figures
• How to co-regulate with compassion and maintain clear boundaries — so empathy doesn’t become self-abandonment

This episode is for the women who want deeper connection — but refuse to lose themselves trying to keep the peace.

Because understanding trauma isn’t about walking on eggshells.

And love isn’t meant to come at the cost of your nervous system.

Follow Martina on Instagram @femmagical for behind-the-scenes content, updates, and more!

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Love what you heard? Leave a comment or review to let Martina know what resonated with you.

Also, share this episode with friends and family who need a reminder about the importance of health and boundaries.

Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice.

Chapters

• 0:00 Why Tiny Things Trigger Big Feelings
• 2:45 Sedona Trip And The Shower Gel Blowup
• 7:30 Choosing Connection Over Defensiveness
• 12:10 The Brain’s Threat Detector At Work
• 16:45 Implicit Memory And Body States
• 20:35 Why Small Triggers Hit Harder
• 24:30 Anger As A Secondary Emotion
• 27:15 Attachment Dynamics In Partners
• 30:10 Repair, Boundaries, And Compassion
• 32:30 Takeaways And A Playful Signoff

Transcript

Martina: 0:00

Have you ever been snapped at for something small that you actually had to pause and think like what? Did I miss something here? Did I do something wrong? Why does this feel so intense? Because obviously, logically it does not make sense, and yet emotionally that super hits. And today for this episode, I've prepared something for you. I will start with a personal story and why I dug into this topic because I I think this is super super valuable. And we're talking about why tiny things, whatever it is, a towel that's misplaced, a cup that's not been removed, or a shower gel in my case, I'll give you more context to this in a minute, can create massive emotional reactions. Why, let's put it more casually, why some small shit causes big reactions in adults and why most of the time, if you're on the receiving end, it was never about anything you did, you said, or the way you looked. So I want to start with a story from my own life. I don't know if you watch my stories on Instagram, if you follow me on social media, if you don't do, we have been just in Sedona with my mom and my husband, obviously, and my my furballs. It was an amazing and fantastic time. And we went last weekend, which was Monday, was a public holiday in the US. So obviously, we took this uh yeah, this opportunity to just travel and take my mom to Arizona and Grand Canyon, and it was just fantastic. So long story short, before before I go and digress here, how amazing this trip was. I so we came home late on Monday. So we arrived in our apartment at 11 p.m. I think until I, you know, until we were in the apartment, it's actually like 12 of 11:30, you know, next day is obviously a working day. So I did everything I could to just get into bed as A P. And I'm usually someone who has a rule. Whenever I arrive home, I unpack. I unpack everything because I don't want to wake up to suitcases that has have not been emptied because I know from my past sometimes a suitcase just was not unpacked for weeks on ends, and I just don't like it. Right? So we went to bed and then next day my husband obviously had to go to work very early, so he was in a shower and I was running forth and back and just you know unpacked both of our suitcases because I know if I don't do his it will stay in the suitcase for a while. To his defense, obviously he's very busy, he's in the hospital, so you know I I do it on his behalf. So basically, sorry, my coffee machine in the end in the back is actually just turning off. Let me just take a moment and a sip of coffee. So it was Tuesday morning, early. I was still not really awake. All I wanted to do is get rid of these stupid suitcases. So I did. And my husband showered, he came out of the shower, and he was looking at me very annoyed and said to me, How is it possible that you have so many shampoos and conditioner bottles in the shower, but there is no freaking shower jail? And he was not very, very happy. He was actually irritated, he was annoyed as fuck with me, and he was not happy. And I was like, Oh, you know, I was not prepared for that reaction because he was really, really pissed at me. And I know when an adult reacts extremely exaggerated towards a tiny fuck issue. An issue meaning the shower gel, wasn't it within reach? And funny enough, my toiletry bag where my shower gel was in there, because I digress here, but it's important to mention you know, all these bottles of condition shampoo and shower gel and body lotion in a hotel, no matter how good the hotel is, is full of bacteria because obviously they don't change the bottles, they don't wash the bottles, they just refill, and they're like what happens every time they refill the bottles excuse me, a lot of bacteria kind of sneak in. I have learned that, and since then I'm just like, okay, thank you. And anyway, the quality is never really good. So I'm an avid shower gel bringing to the hotel kind of girl. And obviously with my shampoo and body lotions, and my toiletry bag was literally outside the shower, so it was not even I don't know, an inch, but like maybe 20-25 centimeters away from the shower. So easily reachable. But obviously, he didn't know that my shower gel was in the toilet bag. He didn't always he didn't also ask me. So I was I mean, he had his door closed in the bathroom. But I was literally outside. So if he would have called my name, I would have easily heard him. I wouldn't even have to step in, you know, because sometimes people just don't want anyone to come in when they shower. He just would have to call my name and ask where the shower gel is, and I would just have said, Hey, either I give it to you, or if you don't want me to come in, it's literally my toiletry bag 20-25 centimeters away from the shower. So, really not a biggie. So, on a logic level, this made no sense. And you know, in the past, if that happened, if my husband had a huge reaction towards something really tiny, I really flipped. I started to defend myself, I got really angry back at him. Like, are you really crazy? Do you really want to have a conversation or a fight around something so tiny? I would explain with logic. And you know what? If someone is triggered and triggered about something tiny, let me tell you, if you come with logic, it's not it's not working. It's actually disconnecting you from the other person because it's not about the shower gel. It's not about me forgetting to put the shower gel back into the shower. And also, what I want to say is usually I have a shower before I hop into bed, but was so tired the night before that I just simply skipped it because I was just like, I I just I just didn't feel like it. I just wanted to sleep. It was a five hour fucking kind of airplane flight ride, and I just wanted to sleep. So in the past, I always went with logic. I was always like, okay, your reaction is exaggerated. Why didn't you just call me for the shower jail? And I have learned so much, especially in my marriage, to make my marriage a safe space for healing, for trauma healing, for everything that happened in the childhood. Because let's be honest, our parents do mess up, and they did mess up. And we as parents also do the same, not the same, like literally, but we also mess up our kids because come on, shit happens. And tiny trauma can happen through something that we might as adults might not even be aware. So, okay, he comes out annoyed, he vents at me, and I was just like, um, and I was fortunately regulated enough to catch before my amygdala started to fire. Because if my amygdala, the reptilian brain, the brain that's the threat detector, before this tiny little thing there in my back of my brain starts to fire and I lose my shit and my control and I go into defense. I am such a defensive person, and you know what? You hardly lose you hardly win a fight with me, not because I'm so great, but I can be a really nasty bitch when it comes to fighting. Not because I'm calling you bad names, but I have really, you know, I can just argue and argue and argue with because I have arguments, you know, and I I grew up with three brothers and a sister, so mind you, I have I have a lot to defend when I was younger, and I have a lot, you know, obviously defending a lot of things that I made. Like I was a mischievous girl, I was definitely not nice, so yeah, I defended myself knowing I did something wrong. But obviously, as an adult, even if I forgot to bring back the shower jail to the shower, that is not that is not a crime, that is not, you know, that little thing it does not deserve that reaction. And that was always my thing where I flipped. I was so like, I had this belief this is unfair, and I do not let anyone talk to me like this. And I put boundaries, and you know what, that has its place, but in a marriage, it can actually backfire and you lose the connection with your husband. It could be adding to the grievances and resentments each party will pile up. And is that worth it? No, not for me. Because obviously, I want this marriage to last forever until one of us leaves the earth. I want this to be a forever marriage. I don't wanna marry, I don't wanna marry again. I mean, I don't wanna get divorced, I just wanna be with my husband and just deal with each other's shit. And I'm a freaking coach, and I really have high expectations towards myself to not appease anyone or heal my husband or make his life easier by swallowing things and be a punching bug or a doormat by also but by just giving a space for me doing the best I can as a wife and also containing my own childhood triggers because obviously my trigger is my childhood trigger, my childhood wound is getting vented at, getting yelled at, getting accused of things, or you know, kind of complained that for tiny things I did as a child. I mean I wasn't that bad of a child, obviously. I was just a child as everyone else, and you know, sometimes you do things that you just don't know, or you might have been a little bit tricky, but you know, sometimes the reaction I got from my mom especially was so disproportional to the crime I committed, let's put it this way. Anyway, so I kept my cool. So I getting back to my amygdala where I digressed. So my amygdala, I I caught it. I stood in my prefrontal cortex where I could just, you know, where I usually started to reason, but I held this space. I was just like apologizing. I said, hey, I I'm sorry that I didn't put back. I really that was on me. And at the same time, you could have called me, I would have, you know, given it to you. It was not far from you. Yet I totally understand your frustration. I get that, and I know you need to go to work and you know you have to deal with this. And I just listened to him and were like kind of holding his reaction in a way. And you know, in this moment, it's not good to react. It's not good to think that you can solve this unless you can see someone else's nervous system is getting back to regulation and they start to apologize. So I know from like from the past I wanted to fix everything right away, I wanted to be friends again, I wanted to have this out of the way, but all it does is you put pressure on something that just needs time. So I gave him the time, I just got out of his face because he was rushing to get out of the house, and obviously we both didn't sleep enough. So I was like, okay, we will sort that out either once he comes home or during his workday. And yeah. And now I want to bridge this back into what we talked about today about. So I'm obviously well shared this story with you. And also, like, now I want to talk about this when a reaction feels bigger than it needs to be. And that's the moment I want to talk to you about. Because when an adult reacts very strongly to something very small, something important is happening under the surface, okay? And it's not what we sometimes think it is, and what I thought it would have been. I sometimes thought he's not mature enough in some regards, and that's actually not true at all. So it's not about someone's immaturity, it's not that someone is being traumatic, because that's all the labels that we put on people, or maybe also on ourselves, and I think that's not very helpful. It's also not that someone is trying to be difficult. What's happening is again neural neurological. It's psychological and it's also very deeply human. Because here's what trauma research and psychology both agree strongly on. So, and remember that, okay? When the reaction doesn't match the situation, obviously, shower gel missing in the shower, and then getting irritated at me, you know, so reaction doesn't match the situation, the nervous system is not obviously reacting to the present moment. Maybe you already know that, you have learned about that. But it's so important to know that. Your nervous system or your partner's nervous system, because maybe you have a relatable story and a similar story to mine. This nervous system, whether it's yours, because also we have you know sometimes disproportional reaction towards tiny shits. Okay. So then know that the nervous system is reacting to the past. And the smaller the wound, oh no, sorry, the smaller the trigger the older the older the wound. So, and in today's episode, I want to unpack why small things create such big emotional reactions and why and what's actually happening in the brain and the nervous system. And why also this dynamic, especially in romantic relationships, in close relationships, can make you doubt yourself even when you did nothing wrong at all. So if you've ever felt blamed, confused, or emotionally shaken by something that shouldn't have been a big deal, I promise you this episode is the one for you today. Okay, so that was a big mouthful, a huge intro, but I thought I'll give you the context, I'll share with you. And obviously, you might just wonder now, you know, how we resolve that, but I will you know keep that towards the end because I want us to now talk about what's actually happening in the brain and in a nervous system when someone explodes over something small. Okay, so in psychology, we know that and I it also it kind of mentioned that in other episodes as well, that the brain was never designed to make you happy, it was designed to keep you you guessed it, alive. So the brain is constantly scanning for danger in your environment. And here's the important part that danger does not mean physical danger, as we know, especially now where we have food, where we have a roof over our head, where we have money, or at least everything is kind of available, we have emotional threat. And an emotional threat is counting just as much as physical danger. So whether you are, you know, hopefully not, but attacked by someone or by a grist bear, as I use as my example usually, or someone is actually, you know, passive aggressive or irritated you by doing something or doing nothing, but you maybe have done something small, like me for getting a drawer gel to put back into the shower, that is counting just as much as getting attacked. So an emotional threat can be that you feel unsupported, you feel alone, you feel overwhelmed, you feel like you cannot rely on someone, feeling loss of control. And to an adult mind, these are hugely uncomfortable. All those feelings, like especially loss of control. I see this in my coaching all the time. Let me take a sip of my coffee. Women especially want to be in control over situations, outcomes, results, and the behavior and how people view them. So that is already very uncomfortable for an adult mind. And to a child's nervous system, they are very existential. And now let's go into the amygdala, why it actually fires before logic. So, amyta, as I said before, is the brain's threat detector. It's also called the reptilian brain, and it's very, very tiny. And this one reacts in milliseconds before your thinking brain, your prefrontal cortex, has the time to actually activate. Which means you feel before you think. So when something tiny happens, the amygdala doesn't ask, oh, does that make sense to have that reaction? Can I react like this? It asks, does this feel familiar? If it feels familiar to early stress, somehow it connected back to childhood, it fires. And once it fires, your heart rate increases, your cortisol and adrenaline will be released, and the body prepares for fight, flight, or just going after that person with blame. And at that point, your logic, your reasoning, your good heart, your compassion, your empathy, all this good me-me-me's is just done. It's not there. You are offline. And that is why you cannot reason someone out of a triggered state. So if I tell my husband, hey, the shower jail was there, it was just within your reach, it just does not help. You cannot reason with someone. It's it's also not again about the shower gel, it is about something so much deeper. And there is something called implicit memory. And I'll go into what that means. And I want you to know that implicit memory is the hidden river or hidden driver, not hidden driver, your hidden driver in your system. And this is also a huge piece of trauma research. And I obviously not an expert here, I'm not trying to be. I just wanna kind of break it down in an easy digestible way because I think the more we know about our biology and about trauma, the easier it is also to have more empathy and compassion understanding towards ourselves. Our reactions are false, and especially also for others. So early experiences are stored as implicit memory, not a narrative memory. That means implicit memories are not remembered as stories, they are remembered as sensations. So you might not be conscious of the story or when something happened or how it happened. You are remembering it as sensation, as bodily sensation. Your body stores it all. It stores and remembers it as tensions, as an urgency, as frustration, as panic. Or also aloneness. So later when you're grown up, a tiny situation can activate the same body state that you had as a child. And it's not because the situation is big, but because the body recognizes that feeling that gets triggered. And the nervous system goes again, oh not again. My god. So yeah, even though consciously you have no idea why someone reacts strongly, it's happening. So and why small triggers are often stronger than big ones. So this part I found super fascinating and wanted to bring this into today's episode because I thought you would geek out on that as much as I would. So small. So big adult stressors often activate the thinking brain. Isn't it interesting? So a you know, I don't know, a catastrophe or something, you know, big in your life. Think about it. Something big in your life happened. Maybe not something positive, something more like stressful. Activates your thinking brain, but small, mundane moments bypass the logic and go straight to the emotional brain. Like, would you have thought that? I wouldn't. I would be like, I was like when I read that, I was like, but it makes so much sense. And I tell you why. Because childhood trauma happened often, not for everyone, obviously, because there is small and big T trauma, right? But let's say you have smaller tea trauma, smaller traumas. Not the big ones. I'm talking about the smaller ones. Those happen in ordinary moments. They happen in in mornings, in certain routines, in transitions, in needing something, in being rushed, or in situations where you were not supported or helped. So ordinary moments now have the emotional charge. That's why a missing item like a show gel or something not done, a slight inconvenience can trigger something massive. And it's not symbolic, it's stored in the nervous system. And also, I want you to understand why anger appears instead of vulnerability. Why is it that instead, you know, often I notice that people react irritated, frustrated, or angry instead of like crying? My husband wasn't crying because he didn't have the shower gel in the shower. He was irritated at me. So anger or irritation are like call this a secondary emotion. So primary emotions are fear, sadness, helplessness, and vulnerability. But if those were unsafe to express when you were a child, the system learned, also your system learned to just bypass them. So what happens is anger comes comes with shows up with that. So an anger comes with energy, direction, and a sense of power, right? Sometimes it feels good to dump emotionally or vent on someone. It feels good in the moment, but afterwards you feel really bad. So it's obviously just a very short-term relief. But it comes with a sense of you you gain some energy, you are like in power, right? But so instead of feeling I'm overwhelmed, I'm stressed, the your system flips it to why didn't you do this? Why is there no shower gel? Why didn't you put it there? So, and this is also not a conscious process, it's a protective one. And anger keeps obviously you, the person who is kind of obviously feeling the anger, from feeling small again, from feeling like you were a child, where adults were just, you know, ruling over you kind of, or where you were just not seen and heard enough. So, and then also before we close off, I want to just go into attachment because it's so important. So the attachment theory explains the target, and that's why it also becomes super important. Attachment research shows that you regress emotionally in close relationships because if you have noticed with your bestie, she wouldn't have vented on you, she wouldn't have been irritated at you. Let's say if my bestie, Simona, would be here and it was her instead of my husband, she would have called me. She would have said, hey, where's the shower jail? So it doesn't happen in those relationships. It happens in closer relationships and usually in romantic ones. And that's not because obviously the people involved are immature, it's because attachment activates this early riaring. And your partner unconsciously becomes, you know, also like in my case, I unconsciously become the caregiver, the safe safe base and the emotional regulator. Obviously, I mean, come on, I'm also a human. I also have my triggers where I'm venting on my husband. So then it's the other way around. So when in our case, because that's now the recent story, I became the caregiver. I became the safe base. I became the emotional regulator for him and for me. And when stress hits, the nervous system looks outward for regulation. It wants a regulated nervous system. And when it finds a dysregulated nervous system, it becomes even more regul dysregulated and even more unsafe, and the reaction becomes bigger. That's why sometimes fights can really be blown out of proportion. And that's also why the reaction lands on you or on your partner. And that's because you're emotionally close with someone or me with my husband. And then obviously, insight comes later down the line. So after the nervous system settles and your cortisol drops, the breathing rate kind of gets reduced and slows down. Yeah, your prefrontal cortex, your thinking brain comes back online. And then obviously you start to regret, you feel like, oh, that was too much, I wasn't fair, I overreacted. And that's when the adult is speaking again. That is why apologies can be genuine and are not manipulative, and where insight after the fact doesn't like, yeah, and then obviously, so that's when apologies are happening. And yeah, in our case, my husband obviously, you know, called me, I think an hour or two later, and I gave him the space. I you know what mistake I made like a few years back, maybe a year or one and a half, because it's not that long ago. But it's been such a such a journey, and I've wanted to do the best I can in our marriage. I gave him the space because in previous times I would have texted him. I would have emotionally dumped on him via text saying this was unfair, this is so illogical, do you know how childish this is? I would actually be not a good person in that sense. I mean, obviously I couldn't do much better because it's hard to be regulated and stay regulated when you get, you know, someone's frustration for something minor. But it is so important to give the other person space. And obviously, my husband called me and we had a conversation around this. When he came home, we had another conversation, and hey, it was done. It was done. You of course understood that was a like an overreaction. He framed it even that way. And I mean, I understand what's happening, and then I was like, this would be such a great episode to bring to you because sometimes he's on the receiving end of my irritation. And it is important for us to be aware of what's happening, not because we can't stop it right away and like it's vanished and we have no reaction ever again, but because it helps us, you know, to kind of repair conflict and maybe not going too hard on the other person when we feel irritated, frustrated, angry for small things. And also, I'll leave you with this when you see someone explode over something small, what you're witnessing is not a character flaw. You're witnessing a nervous system that learns so early on that when I'm stressed, I'm alone. And then obviously it learned to react accordingly. And that is with that I want to close today. Why compassion matters and why and also why boundaries matter, of course, because you should not be someone's dumping ground. That is not good. We you know, every conflict of this, like let's say incident I have with my husband, we grow a tiny bit. So that means the next time some situation happens, either I can't hold it even better, or he stops in his tracks and stops venting. So I always see those micro moments where either he or I have a success, or whether we do something differently, so we can actually reduce those frictions or these blowouts that sometimes happen in the past for sure. And it's it's so important to understand this behavior. But obviously, it does not mean you have to absorb it. You know, sometimes it's also enough to say I get where this comes from, and I still want to be spoken to with respect because what I don't allow in my relationships is no one is allowed to use and label someone with a bad name. That's where I draw a line. I can hold emotions, but I don't want to hold anyone's insults because that is where I draw a boundary. Um then I'm like, okay, I'm I'm still regulated, but I say very calmly, I'm not spoken to in this way, or don't come with insults, because that is something where I draw the line for everybody, and I don't do that either. I mean, huh, okay, maybe I do it when I'm driving in Miami and someone cuts me off. I can label someone asshole, but I try to do better here, yet I have to say, in relationships, in close relationships, I don't use any names anymore. In my 20s, I was quite someone who labeled people bad names, but that's over, that's in my past. Okay, so I hope this podcast was useful. I hope you found it relatable. You could learn something, you could take something away. And yeah, let me know what you think about it. And if you have a story you want to share with me, or if you're interested in learning how to stay regulated, because that was such a journey for me. And I promise you, it doesn't need two people to change, it needs one person to change. And in that case, it was me, not because I'm the better person, but because I had all the knowledge and wanted to be better in holding each other's childhood wounds when they get triggered. So I can totally make a podcast episode about it, but I just need to know if that is interesting to you, if you want to know more about that. Without further ado, let's close here. Thank you so much for tuning in and make sure your shower gel is always with always within reach. May it always be within your reach and your partner's reach. I will certainly make sure the shower gel every time we because now we have a lot of travels coming up. We're going to New Orleans, we're going to New York, we're going to Canada, we're going back to Europe. So we have so many travels arranged, and it's not even it's and it's just the beginning of the year. And I have learned one big thing: shower gel. No matter how tired I am and how late it is, even 4 or 5 a.m. in the morning before we go to sleep after long travel, the shower gel will be fucking back in the shower. I guarantee that. So without further ado, now I love you. Thanks for tuning in and speak to you next time. Okay? Next week. Bye, mom!