How do I stop myself from being triggered? E66
November 1, 2022
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In this episode, we talk about being triggered by other people or situations. I have been asked this question a few times recently about how to stop being emotionally triggered all the time. We will first take a step back and see what being triggered actually means, and why it happens. And you will find out the first and most important step on how to stop being triggered.
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After the 3rd person asked me recently how to stop being triggered by what other people say or do, I decided to turn the answer to this question into a podcast episode. And before we get to the answer let’s first look at what it actually means to be triggered.
What does it mean being triggered?
For you to be able to identify that you are being triggered, means you already have an awareness of yourself and an understanding of that trigger happening. So I want to step back and invite all of you to raise your awareness that you are being triggered, too. You might just not know it yet. So let’s start.
First, let me clarify that we are all being triggered. It is very normal and part of everyday life.
And being triggered by positive emotions and memories is fine, we can live with that very well. For example, the smell of freshly baked cookies reminds us of the wonderful Christmas time. Or a song on our playlist that makes us feel young and energetic as we danced to it a lot when we were teenagers. These are examples of triggers that create emotions that we want more off.
We want to remove triggers of harmful emotions
What we want to let go off are the triggers that create harmful emotions inside of us like anger, guilt, frustration, fear, anxiety and many more. But why are we being triggered?
Being triggered means that you have an emotional reaction inside of you due to something in your environment outside of you. Something or someone in your outer world affects your emotional state, so your inner world.
At that moment when we are triggered, we are not consciously controlling this emotional reaction but rather a software program in our subconscious mind is switched on and runs the program. You suddenly feel a less-than-nice feeling inside of you and here come the accompanying thoughts that support the feeling even more.
For example, something triggered an emotion of anger inside of you, and your mind starts to create thoughts like: “Oh, I am so angry. Why does this just keep happening to me? This makes me so angry.” And because of these thoughts, you begin to feel even angrier.
A trigger connects you with a memory or an experience from your past
You might not even consciously remember that memory that was being activated through the trigger. But because it is stored in your subconscious mind and your body, as soon as something is similar to that memory, it is triggered and begins to bring up the same emotion you felt when the memory was initially created.
Triggers can be anything. It can be something you see, hear, taste, smell or touch. Or it can be something that somebody says or how they say it. It can be a specific sound or music. And sometimes several things come together that come close to the memory of what happened in your past.
And when it comes close to that memory it triggers the same emotions. The body believes it’s in the same past experience, in the same situation when the memory was created and therefore it activates the same emotion.
Example of being triggered by a person
Let me give you an example. The first person to ask me this while ago was a student in the change program that I run. He asked me how he can stop himself from being annoyed by his brother-in-law. Every time he sees his brother-in-law he gets irritated. Every time he even just thinks about his brother-in-law, he gets annoyed.
But with his analytical mind, he knows that his brother-in-law is not that annoying. So his emotional reaction does not make sense to him.
You see, he has already the awareness that there is an emotional trigger and that it is not logical. And because it creates a negative emotion inside of him, he asked me how he can overcome it. He doesn’t want to have these feelings every time he meets his brother-in-law as it creates tension in their relationship and the family dynamic.
A memory is triggered that creates the feeling now
I explained to him that his brother-in-law is just the trigger of something else that irritated him in the past. It could be that he reminds him of someone else. Or the way he speaks, the tone of his voice, the choice of words – anything can come together and remind him of someone else or a past experience where he felt a strong emotion of being annoyed.
The perfect indicator for the brother-in-law just being a trigger is that my student realizes that his emotional reaction is not justified. That shows that a memory is being triggered instead of the brother-in-law truly being the issue.
Now in this case or similar situations, it is not necessary to find out what exactly that memory or incident in the past was. If you can find out what the exact memory is, it helps because it gives you a better perspective and understanding of the current situation. But it is not necessary to find that out for you to be able to stop that trigger from happening.
Why am I being triggered and someone else not?
But let me get back to the concept of triggers so you can identify yours better. One of the most important things to understand is, that what triggers you and creates a strong emotional reaction inside of you, doesn’t trigger the person standing next to you. Why is that?
You might have heard this quote before: We don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
It means that we see the world through a lens of who we are. That includes our past experiences, our beliefs, our behaviours, our attitudes to life and many more. All of that creates our personality and our identity, and we look at the world through the lens of our personality.
This means that someone else with a different past, upbringing and life experience will look at the same world that you are looking at with a different pair of glasses. We just don’t see things for what they truly are, we see them for what we want them to be. Good or bad. Whatever suits us at that moment.
Raising your emotional intelligence, resilience and empathy
And why is that important to understand? It explains to you that when you are triggered by something, you begin to feel outraged, upset, angry, frustrated, hopeless, anxious or fearful. But the person standing next to you, having the same experience, is not being triggered and does not feel any of these emotions. Or they might feel similar but not to the level of intensity as you.
Does this make sense? Someone could be triggered by something that is happening to you, too, and you are not triggered. Or that you are being triggered and someone else in the same situation is not.
Understanding this can make our life so much easier. It can help us understand ourselves better. It can help us manage our triggers and emotional outbursts. And it can help us see the same in other people when they are triggered. This means we can act differently when we see someone being triggered and reacting emotionally out of proportion.
Removing yourself from the situation does not stop you from being triggered
Another important aspect of being triggered is that you can have different scenarios, people, and situations triggering the same emotion. You might think removing yourself from a person that keeps triggering you will help you feel less angry or frustrated. Or not going to a certain place will stop you from feeling a certain way. But it doesn’t work like that.
The memory with its emotion remains inside of you. And you will be triggered again – just by another person, another situation or another place. Changing your outside environment might stop the triggering from happening for a little while but it will return at some point.
When we make these changes in our life or relationships, we don’t realize what we are doing. We are not yet in awareness that we are being triggered due to a past memory or emotion inside of us.
Our environment is not the reason for the feeling inside of us
We think the reason for our emotions is the incompetent colleague, the unfair boss, the misbehaving child, or the stubborn parent. We believe they are the reasons we feel that way. And by either changing them or removing them from our life, we have dealt with them and this feeling will disappear.
That’s what I thought for the longest time. For the longest time in my life, I was changing jobs. I was trying to fix a feeling inside of me by changing jobs, changing employers, changing teams – always looking for something to make these feelings inside of me stop. For a while, it worked but they always came back. And every time they came back quicker. Do you know what I mean?
The same happens with triggers. But if we understand that we are being triggered and that this is happening due to something inside of us instead of outside of us, we can change it. You can change your triggers and stop being triggered all the time.
The first step and most important to stop being triggered is awareness
The most important act is realizing that you are being triggered and that your emotional reaction is not comparable to the situation.
When you realize that this feeling is coming up again and again and you begin to ask yourself why. When you ask yourself why you keep reacting so emotionally to something or someone.
And when you start to question if this is a normal reaction or something that you want to keep occurring in your life. Or rather stop being triggered.
That is truly the most important point for you to begin to liberate yourself from being triggered in your life.
Are you ready to look closer when you’re being triggered?
Now that you know how you can be triggered, I offer you to give your life a good assessment. Where are you being triggered and feeling emotions that you rather want to have less off in your life?
While listening to me speaking for the last 10 minutes what kind of examples came up in your mind? What did I remind you of?
Be honest and open with yourself. The closer you look, the more you will see. If you are truly interested in being less triggered by other people or situations, then you want to look closer.
How to learn to stop being triggered in your life
And if you are ready to go even deeper, come and join us in the ENERGY ACADEMY(follow-up program to the CYM…CNR I mentioned in the episode). You will learn the step-by-step process to be able to let go of these emotions and therefore the triggers in your life.
I can tell you from my own experience and from former students how much our life can change once we have the right tools to liberate ourselves from these triggers in our life.
On the one side, you will have so much more peace in your life, so much more harmony because you are much more in control of your inner world and your emotional state.
And removing these triggers from your life gives you so much more energy back. So much more capacity for more important and fun things in your life.
It has truly been one of the most magical tools for me to learn. And you can learn it, too!
Two easy ways to show your appreciation!
If you found value in today’s episode, here’s what you can do to show your support:
First, consider making a donation to the podcast. Every little bit helps to cover the costs of producing and hosting the show. And ensures that I can continue to bring you the latest insights and opinions on the topic of energy and improving your life.
Second, leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. This helps boost the podcast’s visibility and attract new listeners, which helps me create more tailored content for you to enjoy.
So whether you choose to donate, leave a rating and review, or both, know that you’re an integral part of my vision. You are helping everyone who struggles with burnout or high-stress levels to experience how awesome their life can be. So, thank you for your support!
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