If you’re human like me, you likely get “triggered” from time to time (perhaps a lot of the time?).
Getting triggered has two obvious parts to it:
The circumstance outside us that triggers us
The uncomfortable emotional reaction we experience inside when we get triggered
The outside circumstance that triggers us could be that someone speaks to us with a particular tone, or someone brings up that particular topic, or perhaps a particular song comes on the radio, etc.
The uncomfortable emotional reaction might be embarrassment, shock, fear, insecurity, frustration, or anger. Most of us don't like feeling this way! So we react from the emotion, we resist it, or we avoid it. (See The 4 Ways We Deal with Emotions.)
In our society, we mostly focus on these two parts of our triggering: the outside circumstance that triggers us and the emotional reaction within us.
First we try to change our circumstances. We tell our spouse not to talk about that one thing. We avoid the coworker who “makes” us feel uncomfortable.
If that doesn’t work, we deal with our uncomfortable emotions like they’re the problem. We drink alcohol, we smoke, we over-caffeinate, we numb ourselves with Netflix, we medicate ourselves.
But neither of these two parts is the actual issue! In fact, the triggering circumstance and the emotional reaction are arrows pointing to where the real issue lies.
The real issue is that there’s an unhealed, incomplete, or unresolved part of ourselves that sits raw inside and ready to be triggered.
These circumstances and emotions are part of our spiritual curriculum! They’re literally pointing to the parts of ourselves that want healing, resolution, completion, and freedom.
But we don’t like feeling uncomfortable. We resist those feelings, pushing them away. Or we react from those feelings, lashing out or trying to do something to change them or make them stop. Or we avoid them with a glass or two of wine, a marijuana edible, ice cream, pornography, sex, or Netflix.
Last week, a client of mine said that “this work, learning to be with what comes up, it’s revolutionary.”
Yes, it is revolutionary! This is not the way we were taught to deal with triggering circumstances or uncomfortable emotions.
And we were taught to deal with them this way - we were taught in how our older siblings and our parents reacted to us and their own lives. We were taught through the hours of sitcoms and news and movies we watched on TV. We were taught through how our teachers dealt with their own adolescent impatience, judgments, punitive discipline, and righteousness.
It’s revolutionary to take 100% responsibility for getting triggered.
It’s revolutionary to simply sit and be with uncomfortable emotions.
It’s revolutionary to speak to those scared, insecure, and young parts of our inner selves.
It’s revolutionary to cultivate compassion, love, and understanding for ALL parts of ourselves AND others.
This message and this work is revolutionary, and if we want the world to heal, we’ve got to start with ourselves.
“You hypocrite, first cast the beam out of your own eye; and then shall you see clearly to cast the dust out of your brother's eye.” - Matthew 7:5.
"We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change." - Mahatma Gandhi
When we (and our young ones) learn the way of Mind Mastery, getting triggered becomes a useful and powerful access to our own healing and growth, our own leveling up, our own freedom and well-being.
Don’t let society continue to have you believe that there’s something wrong with getting triggered. It’s one of the most important teachers in your spiritual curriculum.
If you're ready to take your own freedom, healing, and growth to the next level, contact me and let's get you on the path to mastery.
Much Love. ❤️
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