Almost everyone gets their buttons pushed on occasion. After all, we live in this world and are a product of cultural conditioning. It’s natural to react when our sense of self gets poked. How I meet that moment is what’s important.
There’s a hierarchy to my emotional triggers. Some I’ve danced with for years and are like an old pair of jeans. They don’t knock me down; I can breathe, take a pause and move forward pretty quickly.
Some are rougher; familiar but dark and deeply embedded in my psyche. Still, after decades of practice I can visit my support toolkit and move past the “fight, flight, freeze” reaction.
But I’m hella ready to go there. After I pick myself up off the pavement.
Making conscious what’s buried in my subconscious is a process. Like the onion analogy, each layer takes me closer to my true self; one memory at time. Sometimes the themes are similar, but with a nuance that tests my mettle. Grit is required.
Carrying old wounds is a heavy burden. When I avoid them, they show up as depression and despair. Use the blindside . . . walk through the Kubler-Ross grief cycle.
When I don’t own my resentment and suffering, I bounce around the grief cycle and never achieve acceptance. Fixating on someone else’s side of the street, denying my part, feeds bitterness. If I want to move on, I must do the work.
These two TikTok’s by Inna Aizenshtein are informative on how to see, own and release what triggers me:
😔 “I want to stop being triggered by others” ☹️ “Why can’t I respond differently? I am better than this!” 😣 “I want to change my compulsive behaviors but willpower isn’t working” 🚫 Here is why willpower doesn’t work when you are responding to a trigger, or even to a deeply engrained habitual behavior: ⛑ So long as your reaction is reflexive, it is a subconscious protective response. It cannot be changed. ✨ If that feels disempowering, there’s a lot you can do! Here’s how: 🌱 Re-process the entire event through the lens of learning and growth. If you can attach a positive association (learning + growth) to your negative experience, and especially if you can begin to take aligned action based on that positive association, you will naturally rewrite the emotional charge that experience has on you. 💛 The less residual negative charge this past experience holds, the less your subconscious mind will try to reflexively protect you (in a way you may not like). Ultimately, this will help you create more space to pause in the moments following a used-to-be trigger, and respond in exactly the way you’d like to! (Part 1 of 2) 📝 In the next video, I share questions you can ask yourself to reframe the challenge in a positive light. You can work through this process alone, with a friend, or your therapist. #willpower#nowillpower#compulsivebehaviors#triggered#triggers#copingstrategies#copingmechanism#CBT#PTSD#pasttrauma#howtoheal#howtocope#healingjourney#subconscious#subconsciousmind#reflex#journaling#journalingquestions#alignedactions
Replying to @luxecakesbyelina 🤬➡️😌 Want to change how you react to triggers? ⛑ A reflex response happens before you become aware of it, so stop relying on your willpower. Here’s what you can do: 🤓 Attach a positive association to your negative experience (by reframing the entire event as an opportunity for learning + growth). The sooner you begin to take aligned action based on that positive association, the faster you will naturally rewrite the emotional charge that experience has on your subconscious mind. 📝 Here are some questions you can ask yourself to reframe the challenging situation in a positive light. You can work through this process alone, with a friend, or your therapist. 💛 The less residual negative charge this past experience holds, the less your subconscious mind will try to reflexively protect you (in a way you may not like). Ultimately, this will help you create more space to pause in the moments following a used-to-be trigger, and respond in exactly the way you’d like to! (Part 2 of 2) #triggered#healingjourney#subconsciousmind#tbm
“It might be possible that ‘triggered’ may not be the most helpful word … For me, there is a felt sense of violence in this word, while ‘touched and awakened’ more accurately describes what happens to these sequestered neural nets.
This gentler wording helps us cultivate a sense of meeting the experience every time we are so ‘touched’ with an appreciation for what it might be offering.” ― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
