Is it a memory?
Sometimes we tend to remember something and we start to laugh, irrespective of where we are sitting at the moment. If someone asks what happened, we find it normal to say, "Oh! I just remembered something (funny)."
Many times though, the memories that come up are not funny. They seem scary or harsh or petrifying. And instead of saying, “Oh! I just remembered something (terrifying)”, we start believing that we are back there.
In that case, the thing that’s hurting us is not something outside us, it’s a memory, a story that our mind is reliving. And since it’s a story our mind is telling, we might have some agency in not continuing the story, in picking up the remote and changing the channel.
Or we can practice saying, “Oh! I just remembered something”, and see if what seems like a threat is there in the present (here and now) or not. Not somewhere else. Not sometime else. But, here and now.
It’s not easy, for sure. But it’s worth practicing.