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