How To Recognize And Heal Your Triggers?

What are our triggers?

Our triggers are certain moments or actions someone else does that can make us react in a way that we normally wouldn’t have.

We can get triggered in really simple situations throughout the day and especially when we are in encounters with people close to us.

Triggers can be very simple from a smell to having to deal with a type of conversation that you have had before. The triggers bring activate memories that you have of the past that negatively impacted you.

These memories trigger sensations that make you feel as if you were experiencing that moment again.

Obviously, this can be very painful for many people and have a negative impact on your daily life.

Triggers mainly impact the relationships with those closest to us as we spend the most time with them and it is most likely that they will touch one of our wounds. 

How to identify triggers? 

In order to identify our triggers, we need to take a step back from the moment and look at the way we are reacting. This can be a really good indicator of if the thing that’s happening is a trigger or not.

Often when we have conversations we respond to what people are saying but when we get triggered we react, which means it’s an impulse reaction that we don’t really control.

These reactions can become really out of place and harmful to those around us. Identifying them is important to start healing them.

Since these triggers often come from interactions with our parents in our childhood they are most likely to show up in our romantic relationships as well as close friendships. 

How can we often get triggered?

To better identify our triggers lets look at some examples:

Words/phrases

Imagine that when you were a little child your mother would always call you dirty. She would always say that you couldn’t stay clean and that you need to shower.

As a child, this made you feel unloved by your mother and like you were not enough to her.

Now in your current relationship, your partner notices that your hair is getting very greasy. You feel an irrational amount of anger rise up and you respond by insulting them. Your partner gets scared and tries to assure you that their comment didn’t mean any harm.

In this example, the trigger was “you need to shower” and referring to your hair as dirty. Sometimes a trigger that is of words or phrases can be very specific and down to the exact word. 

Situations

For example, for a lot of women, it can be very triggering to be surrounded by men in a certain way.

Or the way the presence of police officers activates the fight-flight or freeze mode in a lot of people. Maybe things like getting flowers trigger you.

Senses

Triggers that involve the senses are the ones that I believe are the most common.

For example, police sirens, the smell of a certain food, the smell of cigarettes, the perfume a certain person wore, etc. Sometimes it doesn’t have to be specific, it could be something like loud noises in general. 

It is important to remember that these tend to be connected and sometimes a phrase that triggers you won’t get activated unless a certain sensation is there for example. 

Moving on from one

In order to heal a trigger, it is important to approach it form a kind way and not be mad at yourself for how certain things make you feel. 

1. Observing it

Probably the first times that you realize you are being triggered you won’t realize until afterward. And that is okay, it will take time until you recognize before. 

2. Exploring the trigger

Noticing it doesn’t mean you are going to be able to stop the reaction. That is why we need to start exploring your trigger first.

Try to journal about the emotions that come up when that event happens. For example,  Today I got triggered by a dork barking while I was walking down the park with my mom and I started acting very rude toward my mom out of nowhere. I don’t know why I reacted that way. 

It is okay to not know at first why we reacted badly. That is why we are exploring it. Every time you will get closer to pinpointing why that event makes you feel a certain way. 

3. Not reacting but responding to triggers-exploring the trigger

This is the step that takes the most courage and strength because stopping patterns is very difficult. You have to have a lot of willpower to decide to not react a certain way to a situation.

That is why exploring the trigger is important. You can do this step while you work on step 2 as well.

When you choose to respond and not to react it means that you are taking your time to act logically and with the consciousness of why you are feeling the way you are feeling.

This allows you to approach life with less conflict and less pain as well as understand yourself better. 

Healing the trigger

When we talk about healing a trigger we are not talking about removing those feelings from ourselves. It is not about forgetting the triggering event but making it not get that reaction out of you anymore.

You can integrate those emotions and use them to guide you through future pain and interactions similar to the original event that caused the trigger.

Please know that every trauma and trigger is important and your health should be put in the first place.

Some reactions to triggers do need to be discussed with professionals as they can put you and other people at risk.

You are not alone, and I send you a lot of love and light.