You’ve probably heard the term ‘trigger’ get thrown around a lot recently since the world is waking up to what it means to be aware of mental health and its impacts on the population.
A trigger may be considered anything that activates an old wound or trauma that has not yet been processed, worked through, or healed. This means that our nervous system can be reactivated by events, people, places, or things that have nothing to do with the original trauma, making us feel as if we’re back in the place where we first felt unsafe.
The interesting thing about triggers is that in the moment, it probably doesn’t feel that you’re not in real danger. It can be quite confusing for us to process what’s happening since our logical brain knows there’s no threat, and yet our emotions and nervous system become so activated we feel like we need to take immediate action to keep ourselves safe.
Unaddressed triggers can have profound negative effects on your well-being and relationships, causing anxiety, intense worry, and in some extreme cases can manifest into greater issues like OCD and so on.
Now that triggers have entered the chat, it’s a good idea to get familiar with them, what they are, where they come from, and how best you can move through them to claim your power back and heal what is keeping you stuck.
Where Do Triggers Originate?
As briefly mentioned above, a trigger comes from an old wound or trauma within you that has yet to be brought to your awareness for you to begin healing it. It typically leads to anxious, ruminating thoughts that can greatly affect your daily life and actions. The process itself happens unconsciously, oftentimes, unbeknownst to the person experiencing it.
Because this process is unconscious, it can often take you by complete surprise, much like walking in a minefield, it can feel like you’re never safe from your triggers. Even more common is not knowing what could potentially trigger you, since no awareness or clarity exists.
A trigger can be manifested when you go through something deeply painful or traumatizing that you don’t let process completely. Common examples might be a fight with a parent or partner, witnessing your parents get divorced, or a life-threatening accident.
At the point that the trauma or pain is inflicted, there is an emotional process that must happen to not formulate a trigger. This includes feeling the emotions as they’re moving through you without suppressing them and then further how you process the experience afterward. This is a very high-level overview of what this may look like, and everyone processes their pain differently. However, if you can’t move through the process then you won’t be able to move forward from what happened; you’ll likely develop a trigger surrounding what has taken place.
When a trigger is lying dormant it can be activated at any given point. For those people who have an awareness of their triggers, they may develop avoidance strategies to not be triggered. This is merely a workaround for what the real work entails, not giving them the opportunity to feeling back into the feelings that first presented themself in present time and working through them as a way to bring them to the light and integrate what has happened for healing.
Why Is Knowing Your Triggers So Important?
Knowing what triggers you is a valuable tool for your integration and healing. Though you can’t change what has happened to you or how long you have suppressed the experience that is causing you pain, you can get to the root of it and bring it to the surface so it can stop causing you more unanticipated and unnecessary pain.
When you have awareness around your triggers it can be a bridge to help you work through them and process what has happened from a safer, more regulated state. This means using mindfulness practices to calm your nervous system down from this activated state and observe what’s happening internally from an objective point of view.
The point of doing this is not only to deactivate them so that you can live a more peaceful and calm life but also so that you know yourself better. The more you connect with your past, accept what has happened to you, and integrate the experience and/or lessons into who and where you are now, the less energy you’ll spend in the anxious, heightened state of fight or flight. This means more energy can be spent connecting with your authentic self and living the life you truly desire.
It’s been taught that we need to shove our emotions down to remain productive and valuable in society, which has led a lot of us to feel incredibly overwhelmed by our daily lives. The suppression of emotions adds compound interest, cumulating more and more potency as time progresses. The sooner you can address what triggers you, the sooner you can connect back to yourself in a more meaningful and less fearful way.
How Can You Work Through Your Triggers?
The practice of bringing awareness to and working through your triggers takes time, patience, and self-compassion. When approaching this work, be patient with yourself and remind yourself that the only way out is through. It’s also important to keep in mind the importance of safety when it comes to doing this work, feeling safe is imperative so that we can fully process and take in the learnings.
I recommend keeping a journal or a note of all the triggers you have to start this process. Anytime you notice a trigger or an emotional activation pay attention to what’s happening and write it down. Don’t try to make sense of what’s happening, just be detailed in the experience itself.
If it feels safe, here are some questions to ask yourself as you’re feeling triggered:
- Where are you? What are you doing?
- What’s going on around you?
- How do you feel in your physical body?
- What thoughts are you having?
The most important thing when you’re first beginning this work is to bring your conscious mind to the situation that’s happening while simultaneously practicing re-regulating your nervous system. It’s paramount that you find a way to calm yourself down when you’re triggered or else you won’t be able to process any of what’s happening from an unsafe place. Our nervous system is smart and won’t allow your body to dedicate resources to your logical brain during this process if it’s in a heightened state.
It may not always be possible or safe to do this work in real-time, so be graceful. It may look like having a breathing exercise that you use to recenter yourself, a grounding practice to bring you into the present moment, finding movement like taking a walk, or anything that can bring you back to the present and regulate your nervous system.
When you get more comfortable with noticing what’s happening and calming yourself down in the process, you’ll naturally progress into a self-inquiry process.
Start asking yourself some more curiosity-driven questions about your triggers:
- Where is this coming from?
- When have I felt this way before?
- What is causing me to feel unsafe?
- Am I really unsafe?
- What do I need right now to feel more at ease?
As you adopt the observer mindset and get curious, use this as an opportunity to take it further and think about how you can remove your feelings from the equation and look at the situation objectively. From an outsider’s perspective, you deactivate the emotions and get specific about what’s happening so that you can understand it more. It may not always be clear, this process really takes practice, and the more you lean in and trust yourself, the more you’ll uncover throughout.
This work can be incredibly effective when done with plant medicines under the careful guidance of a trained facilitator. It can help catalyze the ability to see yourself more objectively as well as help you connect the dots on experiences that you may not have connected in a normal, unaltered state.
As you develop your practice and uncover what’s happening internally, I invite you to practice gratitude. A simple gratitude practice may sound silly, but is highly effective to help you focus on what you’re truly grateful for in light of the darkness that triggers may bring in. The more you focus on what you’re grateful for vs what’s bothering you, the more you can train your brain to look for more of these ‘good’ things.
Reveal What The Trigger Is Trying To Tell You
As the insights from your triggers are revealed, you must have a process of tracking it all. You’ll be surprised how quickly you can forget things without writing them down or keeping them top of mind.
Oftentimes the answers you receive from above require more time to sit with to allow more to reveal. This process can go as deep as you’re comfortable and willing to go.
Here’s the process I use when it comes to uncovering and understanding my triggers:
- Self-inquiry for the surface level ‘whys’ I take the answers to the questions I’ve listed above and if something feels like it’s hitting harder I highlight it to do more digging.
- Taking these ‘whys’ or revelations into my meditation practice by sitting with them and going deeper
- Immediately journaling what I uncover in the meditation practice to continue processing with my conscious mind
- Re-reading these journal entries for a couple of days to weeks after as I continue to integrate these insights into my daily life
If you’ve never done this work, it can feel intimidating and daunting, but remember, it has the power to set you free. As you connect deeper to yourself and clear what’s causing you unnecessary pain, you’ll have more energy to give to the life you truly desire to live.
Trust the process and know that if you’re new to this, it’s okay to ask for help whether through a licensed therapist or a transformation coach. Book a free 30-minute session with me to get started.
