How to Heal Emotional Triggers: A Guide to Self-Accountability
How to Turn Emotional Triggers into Entry Points for Growth
We all have a "register" we hit when we’re triggered. For some, it’s a raised voice; for others, it’s total shutdown. But what if your triggers aren't limitations? What if they are actually the most direct path to your healing?
Recognizing the Physical Signs of a Nervous System Hijack
I realized mid-paragraph that my voice was at a sustained register it hadn’t been in a while.
Later I reflected how the conversation had quickly taken a turn in a direction that was not helpful. And perhaps that had been the intent - whether conscious or subconscious - that they’d had, by revealing what they’d revealed.
I had to face it.
I’d been triggered.
Why We Feel Shame After Being Triggered
Immediately after the conversation I was met with a whole lot of shame. How’d I let myself get there? How’d I let myself get led down a path of diversion, evasion, and avoidance?
What makes forgiveness possible is feeling the acute pain that gets my protective side to come out, ready for a fight.
Seeing that it’s no different from the pain that causes their protective side to do the same.
The "Armor of Choice": Identifying Your Defense Mechanisms
We all have our armor of choice.
The event revealed my “weak points” - the areas that were still tender perhaps because I hadn’t tended to them as much as I’d thought.
And now I might describe them as “entry points” instead - places with a clear sign saying, “you haven’t hiked this hill yet. Let’s check out the view.”
Maybe it’s that I’ve been down this road before and kept electing to bypass the trail. Cuz it looked hard.
That when it comes to issues where it feels personal, I make it a personal project to “win” the battle.
It’s never personal.
We all carry things from our past we can’t ever fully make sense of. And maybe it was too painful at the time to think we’d ever need to revisit it.
But has there ever been a greater catalyst to change, growth and truth than pain?
It hurts so that we’ll look at it. So that we know to go easy on it, to give it some extra love and care until it heals.
It hurts so that we don’t ignore it.
Why We "Act Our Age" During a Trigger
Our triggers bring us back to the moment where we first encountered the feeling that feels unbearable. I think that’s why we act like the age we were when it happened, when it happens again.
I know when I’ve been here before. And I know I don’t want to be the same person I was back then. That I get to choose a different ending now.
A Mindfulness Approach to Choosing a New Ending
The shame subsided. The nerves calmed. And I am grateful they showed me where I can hold myself a bit more accountable, and a bit more gentler.
Where I used to see limitations in my triggers - places I wasn’t willing to go in the mind - I now see opportunity.
Because the triggers will always be there. That might never change.
This is what can change: how we choose to relate to them. How we choose to hold ourselves through them. How we choose to respond the next time it happens.
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Ready to stop acting from your triggers? If you're looking for support in navigating your "entry points," I offer private mindfulness-based coaching in Vancouver and worldwide.
