The Shift: Let's Talk about Triggers

Art Direction and Photograph by: Catie Menke. Model: Heidi Zielinski.

Copy by: Tasha Marie
Model: Heidi Zielinski
Creative Direction: Catie Menke

Let’s talk triggers. Now before we dive in I would like to mention I am not a mental health professional and would like to clarify the term trigger as it pertains to this article. A trigger in the psychological sense is a stimulus that brings you back to a time of emotional or physical trauma. I will be using the term trigger as something that unexpectedly makes you angry, annoyed, and feel sort of like you could slap someone. The times when you feel like you have no control over your emotions even if your rational brain knows that whatever is pissing you off isn’t something to get all hot and bothered over.

I’ve been here before. Somewhere in between flipping tables, crying on the bathroom floor and “normal.” Some would call it moody. Others would say waking up on the wrong side of the bed. Or like Monica said, maybe “it’s just one of those days.”

Just recently I spent and entire week feeling IT. I had fallen into old patterns. I was angry at everything and everyone. The smallest things would trigger me and I could feel myself ready to explode but had no idea why. I did forgiveness meditations, anger meditations, and took a lot of deep breaths.

I thought maybe I was purging left over emotions from the inner child healing work I’d been doing. Lost and confused, I did what anyone else would do. I text my hypnotherapist. I spent the first three messages explaining the situation and then diagnosing myself. She asked clarifying questions. Was extremely gracious. Ahhh my calming safe space. This is why I text you. This is what I needed. Then out of nowhere… she asked me a question I was not expecting.

“Which part of yourself are you angry with?”

Wait… what? I’m not angry with myself. Didn’t you just read my messages? I’m angry at everyone else. You’re supposed to be on on my side.

I was so caught off guard I didn’t know what to say back. I had no choice but to think about it.

I was mad at myself because… I was letting triggers I thought I healed from affect me. I was mad at myself for giving my power away. I was offering myself up willingly to energy vampires. I decided to start off simple. Where do triggers come from?

Triggers can be either internal or external. Let’s start with internal. You will notice sometimes that your behavior and emotional reactions change when you are feeling overwhelmed, stressed, pressured, or tired. Our fuse is shorter, we have less patience and what feels like less control over how we respond to people and situations. We can also be triggered by sadness, loneliness, fear or pain. In these situations not only do we not have emotional clarity but we have an imbalance which can lead us down energy depleting rabbit holes.

External triggers on the other hand are cause by things in the environment such as a specific time of day, certain locations like your pre COVID cubicle, or COVID, or other people, or other people who do dumb shit, and so on. These are harder to regulate because they are out of our control. This is why it all comes back to regulating our reactions, which we will get into soon.

Sometimes we know what triggers us or ‘presses our buttons’ and we can identify the trigger immediately. Often times though, triggers can cause an emotional reaction before you even know what’s upset us. For example: If you always have road rage and you get cut off by some idiot who isn’t paying attention, we know that the trigger was the person who cut you off. If you don’t normally have road rage but this morning you are laying on your horn spewing curse words at the person at everyone on the road, then it’s time to take a deeper look.

Deepak Chopra says “Awareness is the birthplace of possibility. Everything you want to do, everything you want to be, starts here.” I couldn’t agree more. When our awareness shifts our energy shifts.

This starts with how we feel. What are your emotions telling you? How is your overall energy or more specifically, your energy when it comes to certain tasks or people. A good way to check in with yourself is to ask more questions. What is different about today, or the way I feel that caused an emotional response? What caused my behavior to change? When do I feel out of control? Is there a pattern?

I like to call this taking a ‘curious’ approach to identifying your triggers by simply asking yourself questions until something resonates. Kind of like being your own therapist.

First, it’s important to understand that our patterns, behaviors, reactions and habits are learned responses to the aforementioned internal and external triggers. That being said the first thing we need to do is cut the guilt loose. Or as Buddha teaches, don’t loose the second arrow. What is meant by that is in life there are shitty things that happen, aka the first arrow which hurts. The second arrow is often times more painful than the first but second arrow comes as a result of our reaction to the first. There is no need to punish yourself twice.

A majority of the things we have learned came from our earliest teachers like our parents, grandparents, and teachers. So when you respond to something the same way your mother does and it annoys the shit out of you, that’s why. The good news is that we can unlearn these responses and reprogram our minds to respond and behave differently.

The second part of this is actually kind of our fault but, we can give guilt the slip in this instance as well. Most of us are unaware that we subconsciously assign meaning to things, events, and other peoples actions based on past experiences. We do this without ever questioning whether it is true or not. This is what causes us to feel low energy, negative energy or sad energy. For example: Allison from work says “You looked different today.” My brain says “She thinks you look bad. What a B.” Or Jonathan says “I think we are better off as friends.” My brain says “I am never going to find anyone. I’m always going to be the friend. If thats what Jonathan thinks thats what everyone thinks.” The list could go on but you get the point. We are in control of the meaning we give things and just like we can reprogram our previously learned responses, we can also assign different meaning to things so that they are not destructive to us and our energy.

Awareness

What is triggering you and what is your current programmed response, reaction, and behaviors.

Observer

Being an observer requires to look at something for what it is first. Question the meaning. Where is it coming from? Is it true? What meaning are you giving it? And let’s not forget the question my therapist asked me, “which part of yourself are you angry with?”

Reframe

How can you reframe the trigger so that it serves you? What new meaning can you give it?

Rubber and Glue

If you are finding that nothing seems to be working at times, go back to the “I am rubber you’re glue whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you” vibe you had as a 3rd grader. Protect your energy and ignore/brush off/forget the things that take away from it.

Create intentional triggers to transform energy and keep you in a high vibe state instead of falling victim to reactive triggers. The more we can put into our day with intention to keep our energy in tact, the better. This is our habits, mantras, affirmations, and routines.

Morning Routine

These are a must. Morning routines help with consistency, creating high vibe energy from the moment you wake up, and help you start the day with mindfulness and intention. The best part is that you get to decide what goes into your morning routine. There is no secret recipe it literally is up to you and what makes you feel good.

Deep Breathing

Deep breathing helps decrease stress and increase calm. By taking deep breaths you are bringing more oxygen into the blood stream which sends a message to your brain saying “RELAX GIRL.”

A few other positive triggers include writing, walking, reading, meditation, exercise and anything that makes you feel relaxed and like your best self.

If all else fails, grab some chocolate or a pint of ice cream and just be in it. Sometimes our emotions need to set free so we can cleanse any stale energy and start fresh!

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