How to work through an Emotional TRIGGER?

Have you ever said something you regret and felt the physical and emotional aftermath? Your heart races, tears threaten to spill, and you're overwhelmed with the urge to throw something. It's a painful experience, but it's one that we can work through.

When we experience triggers, it opens a core wound that's different for each of us based on our past experiences. Everyone experiences triggers, but how we react to them depends on our nervous system and autonomic responses. It's common to react in child-like ways because younger parts of ourselves come out when we're triggered. This is called regression, and it's when we respond with survival tactics from our developmental years.

The 5 most common triggers are being criticized, being singled out, anger/rage, high distress, and being pressured. How we react to these triggers will depend on our fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response. When we're triggered, we're emotionally flooded, and it's hard to think or speak clearly. However, part of maturing and healing is learning how to manage our own triggers.

Here are five steps to work through your triggers:

1. Start getting curious: when you feel triggered, pause and get curious. Notice your habit responses instead of reacting to them.
2. Pause: before sending that text or writing that email, pause. Say out loud that you're triggered and need to breathe. This will allow you to deal with the trigger rather than react to it.
3. Self soothe: take a walk, journal, shake your body, cry, or do anything that calms and regulates your nervous system.
4. Notice when you're "back": triggers take us out of our body because we dissociate. Notice when the trigger is over and how you're more able to form thoughts and communicate.
5. Respond from your wise adult self: when you're back in your body, respond from your wise adult self, rather than your triggered inner child.

With practice, you'll have more control over how you respond to your triggers, and you'll also be more self-aware. You'll notice the patterns or common situations where you're most triggered, and this is how triggers can be teachers. This work takes patience and commitment, but it's worth it. Are you ready to work through your triggers and change your life?

From the work of Dr LePera