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I’ve been thinking lately about the tools I use for self-development, the main one being “the triggers are the guides.” I attribute many aspects of the success I have to delayed gratification (holding BTC while others sold, etc) and working relentlessly to notice when I’m upset about something, either because I’m afraid it might be true or because part of me knows it’s true, and I’d rather avoid it. The inverse of delayed gratification is immediate pain. Pull the bandaid off. Get to the root of it. Dive right in to the hard stuff as soon as possible to get it dealt with so it’s not a background noise dragging everything else down.

Taking this route to work through my “buttons” that others can push to get a rise out of me, I’ve noticed some things that I wanted to put out there in this public journal of mine.

When you’re triggered, don’t put too much meaning making into the other person’s meaning making. By that I mean, you being triggered doesn’t necessarily mean what was said about you is “correct.” It doesn’t mean it’s not correct either. It’s actually kind of irrelevant either way because the trigger itself, the feeling within your body, is the actual guide, not the surface level intellectualizing.

Why is that important? Because our intellect wants us to keep the Shadow buried and focus on the other person instead of ourselves, our bodies, and what’s taking place within us right now. If we can invalidate the content of what is being said, we can create stories where we’ve been wronged or victimized or misinterpreted, etc. All of those things may be “true”, but in that moment your rational brain isn’t firing on all cylinders. If you don’t let the energy rising up within you guide you to your own fear and avoidance, then you are missing an opportunity to develop and improve the quality of your consciousness.

Later, after you are well regulated, you can connect with aspects of the truth or lack of truth from a logic perspective and take proper steps to create, communicate, and enforce healthy boundaries, but that doesn’t happen when you are triggered. When you are triggered, you may hear words and interpret intentions and experience things that aren’t actually happening in that moment. They are actually the body reminding you of the score. Things which have been left unprocessed that are seething right beneath the surface, desperate to be known, seen, and released. It could be stuff from childhood, making the content of the current circumstances mostly irrelevant, in spite of what your intellect is screaming at you. 

Sometimes what is being said to cause your trigger is not as important as the fear and avoidance within you. Sometimes it’s way off or doesn’t really have much to do with you. What matters is what comes up in your body that you can, like a miner in the gold rush, sift through carefully and methodically to get at the root of the story creating the emotion. Instead of engaging your intellect with “Is that true? Is that not true? Does that apply to me?” Instead be present in the moment of now with “I am triggered.” That’s it. Start there. Acknowledge you are in fight, flight, or freeze. Your system is overloaded and you will not be thinking clearly in that moment.

Breathe.

Give yourself a count to ten.

It may take 90 seconds or more of deep breathing just to be present with your body. You may want to step out of the room for a bit. The more you resist the urge to label the experience as someone giving you offense, and the more you adopt the frame that your body has chosen to receive offense, the more you can uncover what’s really going on within you.

It’s not about the content of the interaction that matters as much as the story, often Shadowed and deeply unconsciousness, that is playing out within your body.

What are you afraid is true? What are you avoiding? What trauma hasn’t been healed such that a simple, often benign thing can set you off?

I have some confidence in the idea that success comes to those who do the hard work of increasing their capacity for love. They face the pain, engage the struggle, and delay gratification that comes with peace. They reap the rewards of their discipline and determination, taking the hard way that leads to true healing, not just the temporary appearance of it. They humble themselves and let the ego freak out as its vulnerability is exposed. They press through and let the body’s reactions lead them to freedom, not getting distracted by the intellect.

They eventually get to live a life full of love and success.