Triggers...the flip side

     After last week’s post, my dad shared a story with me about a powerful experience he had with a trigger. (Yes, my dad reads my blog. I like that.) Dad’s experience was startling and profound but not at all negative. So this week’s post is for Dad, who reminded me that triggers have a flip side. Thanks Dad!

     I do my best to avoid using generic terms like “negative” and “positive”. They’re ambiguous and come with a lot of baggage. We tend to describe something as negative when we don’t like it and as positive when we do. I searched for different words to use and didn’t find anything that fit. So here negative triggers are those that bring up difficult emotions. In the bigger picture the opportunity for healing these triggers provide can be quite positive.

    We all carry wounded places in our psyches that lay foundation for our trigger. Like most people, I tend to associate triggers with difficult emotions like anger, fear or jealousy. But we also have positive triggers. Just as negative triggers set off a flood of challenging emotions, positive triggers give us a little happy buzz. Having those triggers tripped brings up feelings of belonging, joy, contentment, etc. On a deeper level positive triggers can ignite the spark of creativity and inspiration.

     As I mentioned in last week’s post, triggers are not something we can control or eliminate. For negative triggers the lack of control and the inability to make them go away can feel like a pain in the butt. On the flip side this means our positive triggers are fairly reliable and can be used as tools.

     We’ve all had days where we feel out of sorts and things don’t go the way we’d like. Sometimes in the midst of the frustration we have an unexpected experience. It might be something small, but we walk away feeling lighter and as a result the rest of the day doesn’t seem so hard.

      So what’s going on when this happens? In the course of a frustrating day a positive trigger got tripped, engaged our hearts and set off a shift in perspective. When I experience a positive trigger during a challenging day, it doesn’t make the frustrating parts vanish. If my positive trigger is tripped by something big enough, the happy buzz may overshadow my frustration.

   Fortunately as a human being I’m capable of feeling several seemingly opposite emotions at once. So having a positive trigger set off doesn’t have to be an either/or. Even if the happy buzz isn’t big enough to overshadow the frustration, I can hold both emotions. By allowing myself to feel both the happy buzz becomes a balance for the frustration.

     When something happens that I don’t like, it’s easy for me to get caught up in my story about the experience. The more caught up I get, the more I give the experience my attention and spin around in my own head. This perpetuates a cycle where I’m feeding the thing I didn’t want in the first place. Interject a positive trigger and I have something else to focus on. I can turn my attention to the positive trigger and break the head spin cycle.

     This works much better than trying to stop fueling the cycle by forcing myself not to think about it. Actually trying to make myself stop thinking about something doesn’t work period. The more effort I put in to not thinking about X, the more my mind insists on going there. But I can redirect my mind by giving it something else to focus on.

     Just as computers are programmed to behave in a given way in a given situation, our experiences program us to a set way to certain situations. Triggers are essentially a little preset package of situation and emotional reaction. I don’t like to think of myself as being programmed, but I am. I have the choice to work with that programming or fight it. I do fight it sometimes even though I know that is an exercise in futility.

    Knowing what my positive triggers are allows me to work with them. My favorite thing about these triggers is that I can set them off intentionally; use them as tools to shift who I am in relation to what’s going on.

    Instinctively we all use our positive triggers. When we feel stressed or overwhelmed we gravitate toward things that mitigate these emotions and bring us comfort. Some of the things we’re drawn to are positive triggers, like watching a favorite movie or listening to particular music.

   Other things associate with comfort come more from our wounding. Drinking a couple glasses of wine or reaching for the ice cream may bring temporary comfort. However this comfort comes from disconnecting from the discomfort rather than from balancing the emotion.

     At times when I’m when I’m struggling or having a rough day, I need to take a break and step away. Knowing my positive triggers lets me make deliberate choices on how I give myself a break. I can use a positive trigger rather than defaulting to my wounding.

     Catalysts for positive triggers are very individual. They can be almost anything from a situation or a person to sensory stimuli, like hearing, smelling or seeing something. I often use my positive triggers when I feel creatively stuck. I go to a poetry reading, listen to a poetry podcast or visit an art gallery. Being in a creative environment sparks my creativity and opens me to inspiration.

     We live on dualistic planet. By nature, nothing here is one-sided. While it may be more challenging to find the positive side of things we generally think of as negative, it’s there when we’re willing to look.

    

Triggers: react, respond or do nothing

    I’ve had several conversations with a friend recently about getting triggered what choices we have in that moment. Those conversations and last week’s post about disarming triggers inspired me to further examine what happens in me when I’m triggered.

     In each interaction I have with a trigger, one of three things occurs:

            1. The trigger maintains its charge.

            If I stick to my pattern and react the same way, the next time that trigger is tripped it will have the same charge.

            2. The triggers charge is increased.

            If the situation that set off the trigger is also highly charged and I react the same way, I give the trigger more fuel. The next time it comes up the trigger will carry the momentum of the most recent encounter in addition to its original charge.

            3. The triggers charge is lessened.

            Each time I am able to respond rather than react, I take a bit of the charge away from the trigger.

     When I’m triggered I can either react, respond or do nothing. Whether or not to react is a choice, even though it may not feel like one. If I react, I default to my old pattern. Once I’ve chosen to react, what happens next is largely unconscious because I’ve surrendered my power to the trigger.

    Responding requires a more conscious choice to do whatever I can to stay out of my old pattern and act differently. Reacting and responding to a trigger can look very similar. Moving from reaction to response takes time and some trial and error. Until the new response to becomes solidified as part of me, it usually looks like a variant of my old reaction. I’m not completely repeating the same pattern, but the new response is still coming from the same emotional charge. Even if the response looks similar to my old reaction, I feel different in the moment because I’m more aware of what’s going on.

    Doing nothing when I’m triggered is both challenging and ripe with opportunity. The sheer force of the trigger pushes me to do something right now. When I’m able to let that almost instinctual push to “do something” pass, more choices open up.

     If I’m in the process of moving from reaction to response, doing nothing is very uncomfortable. I often feel frozen between not wanting to repeat my old pattern and not knowing what to do instead. If the trigger got tripped during an interaction with another person, this still space is an opening for me to say “I need a little time. Can I get back to you later?”

     I don’t think there’s ever a convenient time for a trigger to come up, but some situations are better than others. If the catalyst for being triggered is a friend who I trust, I can ask for help exploring what’s happening in the moment.

    But what about the times when I get triggered and, due to the circumstances, am not able to deal with it as it’s happening? This most often comes up for me either in a session with a client or when I’m supporting a friend in processing something.

     Being triggered by clients is inevitable. When a client shares her wounding with me and I have a similar wound, I’ll probably get triggered to some degree. In that situation my primary commitment is to be present for and with the client. It’s not okay for me to take a break and deal with what’s coming up for me.

    Taking a breath and allowing the emotional charge to pass lets me shelve the trigger until I have the space to look at it. Shelving a trigger or any emotionally charged situation is not the same as repressing or ignoring it. Repressing or ignoring is a largely unconscious choice. The decision happens in a millisecond. Before I’m really aware of the trigger it gets pushed away into my shadow.

    Like doing nothing, shelving a trigger requires a conscious choice. What a trigger really wants is my attention. Until I acknowledge it the emotional charge will keep pestering me like a two-year-old trying to get his mother’s attention. Once I’ve acknowledged the trigger I can take a breath, step aside and let it pass.

     Stepping aside means minimizing how engaged my mind gets with the story I’m carrying about the trigger. Giving all my attention to the triggers story is another form of surrendering my power to the trigger. Once the story has my attention it’s much harder to allow it to move through me.

    The motion of stepping aside and allowing the trigger to pass me is akin to something I learned taking tai chi in my twenties. My instruction was a woman of average height and build. One of my fellow students was a muscular, six foot tall man. My instructor was able to reliably put him face down on the mat.

      She did this by not resisting or countering the forces with which he attacked her. Rather than trying to stop him or push back, my instructor turned to the side and used the man’s own momentum to thrown him on the mat.

     When I shelve a trigger, I move into it rather than away from it. I use the triggers momentum to let it move through me. Then it’s up to me to make time to look at what I’ve shelved. If I chose not to that, shelving becomes stuffing.

      I use the same technique when I get triggered listening to a friend process. We’ve all experienced saying something we didn’t entire mean or saying something in a hurtful way when we’re angry or upset. When a friend is venting and says something that triggers me doing nothing is usually the best option.

     My primary commitment in that moment is to be present for and with my friend. If I react or respond to being triggered I derail my friend’s process by shifting the focus on to what’s going on with me. Here again I can shelve the trigger and look at it later.

     Often I find by the end of the conversation whatever tripped the trigger has been resolved. If there is a leftover I need to address with my friend, I can do that after I’ve looked at my trigger.

      My triggers aren’t ever going to go away. There are as much a part of me as my curly hair and my love of drawing. Acceptance is essential. Before I can work lessening the charge of a trigger or chose an option other than reacting, I have to accept that it’s part of me.

    

    

 

Accepting and disarming triggers

     Over the past few months I’ve been practicing some new ways of thinking and being. This has

placed me on the receiving end of friends being triggered when I don’t respond the way they’re used to me responding. Not surprising. Being different is bound to elicit a reaction from people who are used to the way I was.

    At times I’ve found myself being triggered by a friends trigger. Not my favorite place to be but we all go through spurts where that happens. Having triggers is part of being human. It’s just the way we’re wired Triggers are frustrating, painful and confusing. Being triggered often pushes us to react in ways we regret later. We’d all like to either have less triggers or get triggered less.

     Getting there can be a bit of catch-22. Lessening the emotional charge of a trigger comes from disarming the trigger mechanism, not from focusing on the trigger itself.

     In doing some research on what others have written about emotional triggers I was surprised to find that many articles written on this subject have the word “control” in the title or advocate control as a way to deal with triggers.

    A trigger is a current situation that sets off an internal flashback to a past experience or experiences. The past experience is so highly charged that once the connection is made between now and then, present and past become intertwined.   

    We are not in control of how our brains link a past experience with the emotions we felt at the time. Neither are we in control of how our brain and emotional landscape link the past to what is happening now. Triggers, by nature, are not something we can control.

     Whether we are triggered by something we hear, see or feel triggers are emotionally based. The beauty and power of our emotions lies in our inability to control them. We can chose to react or respond and how we respond, but we can’t control what we feel. That makes emotion the most authentic and direct source of information we give ourselves.

     I can create the illusion of control by avoiding my feelings, pushing them into my shadow and cutting off access to them. However this has no effect on what I actually feel. It simply prevents me from being aware of my emotions.

     Each of us carries a capacity for joy equal to our ability to feel pain. When we disconnect from feeling a “negative” emotion, we cut ourselves off equally from feeling the corresponding “positive” emotion. Additionally when we chose to control a trigger by suppressing the feelings it brings up, we cut off our best resource for disarming the trigger.

     Triggers come from internal wounding. Wounds are places in the psyche and emotional landscape that remain bruised, sensitive and open. Wounds and triggers become the filters through which we see, hear and experience. The more unconscious you are of your wounding and triggers, the more filters you have.

     Before my triggers can be disarmed, I need to know what the triggers are and when they get tripped. Triggers are essentially landmines in my emotional landscape. When my response is disproportionate to the situation, I’ve been triggered. (Small event, big emotional reaction = triggered)

     Regardless of what tripped the trigger:

            1. Triggers are about the past not the present.

     Once a trigger is set off, I’m flooded with highly charged emotions. Only a small percentage of what I feel actually comes from the current situation. Most of the emotional flood comes from unhealed parts of the original experience(s) where the trigger was created.

            2. Triggers are not about the person or the situation that set them off.

   When I react to being triggered, I’m reacting to old emotional memories. Those memories and the corresponding wounds are part of my emotional landscape. This is a completely internal process. Another person or situation may have acted as the catalyst, but they didn’t create the landmine. I did.

     Blame is often the immediate response to being triggered. While blaming someone or something else may provide temporary relief from the emotions by pushing them away, that choice only reinforces the trigger. The next time the trigger comes up it will have a new ferocity from the charge of the original experience(s) and the new associations formed from blaming those feelings on someone or something.

    The emotional tsunami that crashes in when I’m triggered is the trail that leads back the source. If I react, I get too caught up in being triggered to see what’s happening. By allowing the emotional surge to move through me, I can track it back to its origin.

    That’s not always possible in the moment when the trigger comes up, but I can make space later to ask myself some questions:

            -What did I feel when I got triggered?

            -What do I associate with those emotions?

            -What story is my mind telling me about the situation and my feelings?

            -What past situation or experience did this remind me of?

            -What wounding came up in that old experience?

    Emotional literacy is a valuable tool in this process. The better able I am to own and name my feelings, the easier it is to track the trigger back to its source.

    Knowing where a trigger comes from and how it gets tripped doesn’t magically make it go away. It gives me the opportunity to work on healing what’s left from the original experience(s). That begins to disarm the trigger by lessening the emotional charge it carries. Being conscious of the trigger also allows me to be more aware of when I am experiencing the world through that filter.

     Eventually when that trigger is set off it feels like a small wave rather than a tsunami because the emotions are not as potent. Understanding the triggers lets me create some space between what happened then and what’s going on now. That space keeps the past and present from becoming so intertwined that I can’t tell one from the other.

    Like so many other inside jobs, working on my triggers is a process. Like with so many other processes it’s not linear. No matter how much charge I’ve taken out of any given trigger, I’ll still have days when I’m feeling more vulnerable and that trigger gets louder. On those days I’m grateful for being able to practice acceptance and apologize.