Do you have emotional triggers?
I believe we all have emotional triggers, being able to handle them and engage our mental body at the same time that the emotional body is reacting and responding is one of the steps to conscious awareness and personal growth.
It’s all very well knowing about this, but how can we best handle it when we have been triggered emotionally?
If you are an Empath or a Highly Sensitive Person, then this can be even more tricky, since you may literally have been triggered by another’s’ emotional field and not your own.
So what to do?
Step 1 – learn what it feels like in the body when you have been triggered
Learning to manage your own emotional triggers isn’t always a one-off lesson, it can be a process which takes time, like many of our steps on the spiritual path to self-awareness.
The first key for me is being able to notice my own body responses to the energy swirling around me and within me. So, in my case, when my face muscles go tight a certain way – I know I’ve been triggered, either by external events or something I have been repetitively thinking about or feeling.
This isn’t simple since it requires work on self-awareness in the body, but in my opinion is one of the keys to managing our own emotions. Once we know our personal trigger, move on to step 2.
Step 2 – Breathe, pause, regroup, find patience
So 4 actions in Step 2, but they need to work together. So when you are triggered, taking a pause is essential, taking in more oxygen even more so.
You can then access your emotional and mental bodies for information without going straight to the limbic part of your brain and reacting (usually to someone else). If you find you can’t do it in that moment, have patience, the answer may come later. Do what you can to regroup and manage yourself in the interim.
Step 3 – what is really going here?
The third step to intuiting your emotional triggers, and the reasons for them, is to be able to look at the situation or circumstance from the higher perspective. For me, this is where my work in the Akashic Records comes in so handy.
What is going on here? You may initially only be able to figure this out after an event, rather than in present time, but as you work this process more and more, you will get there! (Like I manage it all the time yet – not!).
Some energetic reasons for emotional triggers
In my opinion, most triggers are created because of damage in our emotional history, either in this life or during a Past Life.
- A misunderstanding in communication.
- Teen breakaway speak. Teens do it and in my opinion, many people have got stuck in their teen years emotionally and still express themselves that way. The wounded child will make itself known. I have a teen at home and sometimes the way I breathe or move my eyes is wrong!
- We accidentally triggered someone else’s emotional history with their actions, words or emotions (unintentionally)
- Somebody accidentally triggered our emotional history with their actions, words or emotions.
- The other person (or people) is/are a polarity responder. This is somebody who is naturally wired to view or review the opposite opinion to anyone else’s thoughts, actions or emotions.
- The other person is intentionally trying to trigger us, either because of a bad day or through narcissistic or borderline personality issues.
When it’s any or all of these, take a breath, go higher, and observe the dynamics
The lesson is in there somewhere, even if we don’t learn it until later. The real reminders are to grow ourselves as a result and realize that none of what occurred is all about us, just partly about us.
If the other party keeps repeating this behavior with intention, create some some distance between you, whether that distance is physical, emotional or spiritual.