What Triggers You Today, May Be The Classroom You Need
Triggers.
We all have them. Big, little, small. A trigger is the event, situation, reaction or influence of another on your emotions. The focus being on your anger for this blog.
Triggers can provide a rich training ground for our own personal growth. Every single thing that triggers you has a potential lesson in the making.
I had a big reaction the other night when I returned home from a few nights away. I had been just kicking back and relaxing, when my daughter came home from work. The second sentence she had in greeting me, “oh, by the way, the garbage didn’t go out, Luke must have parked too close to it.” Bam! I was lit. I raised my voice, said something like, “great! the one fucking thing I needed follow through on and you guys didn’t do it”. Of course, that triggered my daughter and now it was go time between us both. I was angry for 30 minutes, maybe more. Over garbage.
But, here’s the thing. When the anger started coming down, and I was processing, while decompressing, it wasn’t about garbage after all. My thoughts went something like this:
I don’t ask for much, I do a lot for everyone, they had this one thing to do. What are they going to do when I am gone for two weeks, then what? How are they going to take care of the whole house, plants, dog, and more. And, now I have to take the garbage myself because it stinks and it is absolutely overflowing and that is my time, my time is valuable, any time spent on other things is time I won’t have on my businesses or things that need to get done. And, then that leads to worries about money. Will I make enough? I am all alone in this and what if I fail.
And there it is.
Intense Reaction (triggered) = Core themes (alone, failure, unappreciated)
Every trigger circles back to a core theme. Core themes can be a lot of things, generally far reaching into pre-12 years of age memories, trauma or experiences that created a lasting impression on us.
Abandonment
Oppression
Trauma
Alone
Rejection
Failure
Abuse
Poverty
Unmet Needs
Unloved
Unappreciated or unimportant
Are just a few common ones.
Triggers can lead us on the trail to a theme and generally speaking, the more intense the reaction to something is, the more core that theme is to your narrative of your life. And, the more it indicates it needs unpacking and looking into.
How do we unpack these themes and stop having such intense and often destructive reactions to them?
Slowing Down
Reactions are split second, automatic things. If we can slow down, create time and space in between trigger and reaction, we can decrease the intensity of it. How can you take a moment? Check in with yourself, what am I feeling right now?
A Feeling is ONE WORD
That’s it. I am feeling _____(one word) and when we recognize that, we can name it and ask ourselves why. Often women confuse feelings with thoughts. It sounds like this, “I am feeling that you are irresponsible and that I can’t even trust you to take the garbage out.” Yup…not a feeling. A feeling sounds like, “I am angry”, “I am frustrated” “I am confused”. Any more than one word is a judgment, an attack on the other person or a label or a thought about something. And a thought is based on your perceptions and beliefs. This kind of communication leads to defensiveness.
Communication is Key
Yes, we have emotions. Big emotions. And at the end of the day, how we communicate them is key to whether we are resolving our themes, whether we are creating safe spaces for our loved ones to be and the overall health of our relationships with self and others.
“I feel so angry that the garbage was not taken care of, I really need to know that I am not alone in taking care of the house and things, I am asking for some support this week in a run to the garbage dump because I don’t think I will have enough time.”
In Non-Violent Communication we learn: Observation>>>Feeling>>>Need>>>Request
Where Is the Evidence?
Unpacking the themes that arose to the surface for me: Alone, Failure, Unappreciated. These are themes created pre-12 years of age for me. There are core memories I have that contributed to this belief. But, here is the thing. Beliefs we have are often based on very little evidence and they create contracts with ourselves and the world that need to be broken. I am not alone…I have a lot of friends and family that support me, then and now. I am not a failure, and finances and money can no longer be tied to success and failure for me. And there are just as many pieces of evidence that support that I am appreciated, I just need to look for them.
Look at your own evidence, for and against the beliefs that contribute to theme-making. Challenge it.
Stay tuned for my soon to be released course on Emotional Literacy. If you want access to the release, subscribe to my email and you will be the first to know. Emotional Literacy is so needed right now for the voice of women to be heard!
Hop on a 30 minute phone consultation and get the support you need and deserve.
Christie Bemis, Emotionally Intelligent and Unique Woman
You deserve a deeper dive in life. Join me for 6 months and really Ignite Your Life with Mastery
Christie is a psychotherapist in private practice in Madison, Wisconsin. She is a mama, a wife, a writer, and an artist. Visit www.hotpinkyou.com for more information. Email at hotpinkyou@gmail.com
She is also a writer, co-authoring Ignite Your Life and a speaker. You can find her 6 week course, Ignite Your Life: a self-guided program, to reignite your self-love. Co-Founder and CEO of Hot Pink YOUniversity