Getting Triggered- How to Control Your Reactions

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Today we're talking about times we get triggered. What a trigger is, what it can feel like and most importantly, how we can manage a trigger and how to prevent it.

You could be going along your merry way, when BAM you're triggered. You react and have a major reaction to a seemingly insignificant thing. So what is a trigger? According to google

"an emotional trigger is anything, including memory, experiences, or events that sparks and intense emotional reaction regardless of your current mood."

I like the part about your current mood, because it can really be like you're having the best day ever, everything is going well and then somebody looks at you a certain way or says something or doesn't say something and wham bam, you are completely immersed in this emotional reaction.

One thing I learned from my teacher, Gabor Mate, is that

a trigger is just a very small part of a very large weapon.

The weapon is loaded and ready to be fired. It has explosives and ammunition in it so if you got triggered it's because your gun was already ready to be fired. The trigger is just what eventually fires it.

Let's say I call my partner and he doesn't pick up the phone. I expect him to call me back. Let's say he doesn't call me back and I have an emotional reaction. That triggers me. Or I'm at the grocery store at the check-out line and I'm attempting to make eye contact with the grocery clerk and they don't make eye contact with me. Or running into an old classmate and I'll greet him "Hey Bob." and he'll be like "Who are you?" And I'll be like "Whaaaat!" My initial reaction is to blame the people. With the grocery clerk, they were rude, with my partner, he doesn't care about me otherwise he'd call me back, with the classmate, what a douche.

Eckhart Tolle says:

"be at least as interested in your own reaction as the people and situations that evoke those reactions".

When we get triggered the trigger is always about our past. Again, there's a loaded gun here and that gun didn't get loaded yesterday. That emotional reaction that's stored in you happened a long time ago in childhood. It's actually our emotional subconscious saying "Hello? There's something here that you haven't yet realized."

I challenge you every time you get triggered, instead of blaming or judging the other person, use that trigger as a mirror and ask yourself "What is it about myself that I'm not aware of yet, that I haven't yet realized, that I'm not seeing? What is this reaction trying to teach me or make me aware of?"

A really nice bonus of doing this inner work, is you're actually taking yourself out of the victim role.

Anytime we blame others for how we feel, for our reactions, we're in victim mode. Life is harder in the victim role. There's no movement.

You're blaming others that it's their fault and you're staying stuck. It's much easier when you can empower yourself because then you can find your own solutions. That's where growth lies.

So how do you prevent getting triggered? You might not like this answer, but you can't prevent it. That's OK. What you can do is change your response. Instead of attacking the other person, withdrawing from them, making up a story, whatever it is you normally do, just check-in with yourself.

Most of the time when we get triggered the emotion that comes up is anger. One thing about anger is anger is there to protect us.

Anger always covers a more vulnerable emotion, like sadness or fear. It's easier for us to feel angry than it is for us to feel sad, to feel afraid.

When you have a quiet moment, ask yourself what emotion is anger covering up? When the classmate didn't remember my name I felt angry about that. What was that anger covering? As you relive that moment, and you don't know what emotion anger was covering, just throw some emotions out and try them on. Ask yourself, was it fear, was it sadness? Something will resonate. With the classmate that didn't remember my name, it wasn't fear, it was sadness. What was the sadness about? I felt sad that he didn’t remember who I was. You peel back the layers of the onion, in this case anger. All of a sudden the rude, douchy person becomes irrelevant. I just felt sad that he didn't remember me. Strip it down and diffuse your emotional reaction.

The more you unpack and scrape away the layers of the trigger, the more you'll get to the source. Where did this start? I realized the sadness I felt with my classmate not remembering my name went back to my childhood. The belief I have about not being seen came from the relationship I had with my Dad. My Dad was an independent person, I don't recall my Dad playing with me. I remember as a little girl wanting his attention but not getting it. I made that mean that if my Dad isn't interested in me that must mean there's something wrong with me, because if there's something wrong with you people don't love you.

For me I can see the relationship between the classmate not remembering my name and the big trigger that occurred. It's just my daddy issues.

I still get triggered, especially with family. All of my examples were not my family. My family triggers me all the time. Familiar triggers are the hardest to manage and the hardest to deal with and interpret. It's very vulnerable so give yourself extra time. Those triggers are not gonna go away.

One thing I noticed when I get triggered, it happens when I'm already stressed out. So if there's a lot going on in my life, when I have my period, I experience more triggers. There are so many times your life and your cycle and your energetic cycle has a lot to do with the amount of times you experience triggers.

So here again I got to talk about the importance of a daily self-care ritual. A daily ritual where you can stay calm and balanced. I encourage you to take at least 5 minutes every day where it's just you with no external influence. You're just by yourself spending time with yourself. Meditation is ideal.

It's a little bit scary sometimes to get into it especially if you don't know where to start. It can seem weird, maybe pretentious, and overrated. Its benefits outweigh whatever your preconceptions are of it.

Meditation is an amazing asset to the self-care ritual. If you don't want to meditate I encourage you to sit outside in the sunshine or sit in a nice spot with a view of nature and just observe. That's also a type of meditation, so I"m tricking you into meditation. Observe for 5 minutes or do a quick body scan and check-in with yourself. Is there anything going on inside your body or anything I need to be aware of? The other thing you can do is dance or movement of some sort. If you go running, go running without earphones. Tap into your senses, what do you see, hear, feel, smell. 5 minutes a day without external influence to get out of your head and into your body. It's going to lay the foundation for a balanced and calm day.

Those 5 minutes are going to make you more capable to deal with the triggers when they come and manage your reaction.

I would love to hear from you. What's triggered you this week? If you want to dive further into the convo, send me a DM and I'll be happy to chat.

If you want to join the deeper conversation with like-minded women, come on over to my fb group: Insane Calm Posse.