Presence-based responses vs. Pain triggered reactions

“I don’t know what got into me”, “I couldn’t help myself”, “It just got out of control”

There’s a reason why e-mails have an un-send option and messaging apps have a delete option. As adults you learn to manage these urges, you know you should “sleep-over” that angry e-mail, and not text when irritable or not leave that voice note when drunk. Your friends will tell you and your gut will warn you. And yet things have a way of “getting out of hand”.

And then you’re left with regret and damage control. And the question “Why does this happen?”

What you have experienced is a pain-triggered reaction, or as some would say your “shadow” self. Debbie Ford explains this using the analogy of a beach ball in a swimming pool; try as you might to push the beach ball down, it will find a way back to the surface, and even embarrass you in the process.

What are pain-triggers

As we grow up, our caregivers normalise some emotions and by default repress others. All the times when you’ve been told

• not to cry, or
• that anger is not a good look on you,
• or were shamed for expressing emotions by being called naughty,
• likewise rewarded for expressing some emotion by being told you were good, and interpreting the opposite of that to be bad.

These are all moments where an emotion was repressed and its shadow created. You may have been in a very loving and kind home and have the best memories of your childhood, yet shadows will form based on emotions that were not “normalised”. Take jealousy for example, even if your parents didn’t teach you jealousy is bad, you learn it from other children or teachers. And even if you don’t learn how to hide emotions as a child, you pick it up in your teenage years or early adulthood.

Society has rules around which emotions are accepted and which are not. The messaging in many workplaces used to be about “leaving your emotions at home”. Within society there are sub-groups where certain “bad” emotions are allowed like “anger”, but then others are taboo like “sadness”. “Be a man” means not shedding tears and “Be more feminine” means not expressing anger. The problem with all of this messaging is that it interferes with a natural process creating unnatural venting mechanisms.

Emotions are a natural response that the body has to external stimuli, they are the body’s way of signalling that you feel safe in your environment or you feel threatened and need to do something to feel safe again. Emotions are energy in motion, so they are action-oriented. Emotions affect hormones, triggering further emotions and creating a cocktail you have little or no control over.

When these emotions come up as a reaction to a situation that feels painful and uncomfortable, your system reacts in a way that aims to make you feel better - this is a “pain-triggered reaction”. These reactions are often knee-jerk, impulsive and “push away” the problem. Pushing away something usually leads to a pushback of some form and hence a communication breakdown between people.

What is presence?

Presence is about being present to your emotions. Awareness that something inside you is either feeling bad or good. When you can be present with your emotions, you

• allow yourself the space to use a rational thinking process to decide what you want to do.
• You take time to understand what the emotion is saying to you and
• can judge the trajectory of any action you take and its impact.

You may still decide to express the emotion but your decision is from a space of having weighed the pros and cons. You end up saying the right thing at the right time to the right person and have the impact you choose to have on the situation. This feels liberating as opposed to reactions where you feel caught out.

An important note here is that the emotions being discussed here are not only anger, sadness, and jealousy but also love, happiness, and kindness. There are times when you are taught that love, kindness, peace, and joy are a weakness and these too can become shadows or lead to pain-triggered reactions. Think of all the times saying “I love you”, has led to distance in a relationship. This is because for one partner, “love” is not normalised - it makes them vulnerable and therefore expressing love is painful and creates a need to push-away.

How do you get from pain to presence?

Similar to building muscles at the gym, your emotional body needs to be trained regularly to move from pain to presence. This requires developing habits that ensure you choose presence and awareness when an emotion makes itself known. Not easy, when you are adept at distracting yourself from the uncomfortable. This distraction is part of the training we receive as infants where our caregivers distract our attention in the hope that we will stop crying, fussing, or whatever else we do to express our needs. While this is an important strategy for an adult caregiver, it can train the child to distract itself from its own needs or expect another to distract it from its needs - habits that do not support healthy adult relationships.

Some of the ways to train yourself into more awareness are:

1. Naming the emotion - when you feel an emotion, name it. As you keep doing that, fewer emotions catch you by surprise.
2. Practising awareness - take time out during the day at regular intervals to feel what is happening to you.
3. Learning the language - practice communicating using “I feel—— and I want ——” statements.
4. Journalling
5. Breathwork or meditation

How does an intuitive coach help the process?

An intuitive coach helps with

1. Enhance Communication: by being able to develop healthy relationships through changing self-sabotaging patterns in communication.
2. Solution-oriented decision making: through developing healthy habits around emotions rather than being controlled by them.
3. Build resilience: by getting closure on emotions that tend to get away with you so you can go ahead and rule your life.
4. Develop Impact: by developing more trust and belief in yourself, because you are now aware and in charge of your emotions.

Working with an intuitive coach makes the movement from pain to presence effortless and ensures the changes are lasting and long-term. You can reclaim your power and impact in your communications at work and in your personal life.

Next Steps

Ready to transform your pain-based reactions into presence-based responses? Connect with me for a personalised intuitive coaching session. Discover how you can enhance your emotional resilience and decision-making. Let’s work together to unlock your brain’s potential and set you on a path to greater growth and fulfilment.