What is Your Trigger?
The other day, I posted on social media the last blog I had written called, “Why it is REALLY Never Personal When Others Hate on You,” and lo and behold, under it, someone wrote a sarcastic comment that said, “Duh. NY 101. Who cares?” which I took personal…haha
Granted, I was somewhat aware that things can get lost in translation over text on a screen as opposed to when someone says it to you in person, but what overpowered my reasoning was the sense of disrespect I felt after writing what I saw to be a helpful article for others and having someone come and “devalue” it.
I didn’t want to seem too emotional and yet, I didn’t want to just let it slide, so I sat for a bit and pondered what would be the appropriate response that would be a firm justification of what I wrote, yet not be insulting or a personal attack. At the end, I went with, “What the hell are you talking about? You may get it but there are many others that don’t and need to hear this message.”
“There,” I thought, I saved face and defended my article.
The person then responded shortly after, “Dude, lighten up. LOL”
That’s when the bubble burst and I came back to reality. He was only busting my chops but I couldn’t see it because I was triggered. So much for not taking things personal huh?
When we’re triggered, someone says or does something, or something around us happens that brings the mind back to what it interprets as a similar past event that had a strong emotional charge and we wind up seeing our current situation through the lens of the past situation, though in actuality, they most likely don’t have anything to do with each other. For example, someone innocently jokes around with you on the job, and all of a sudden, your mind is brought back to a memory back in kindergarten where someone joked around with you and you took it the wrong way and got really sad. Now, in the present, you’re resenting the person on your job for “making you sad.”
Everyone on this planet has triggers and if someone says to you otherwise, they’re lying to you. Relating two events that seem similar is a natural way the mind learns to protect you from danger and learn about things.
How many times throughout the day and during the course of your life have you responded disproportionately to the situation at hand because you weren’t aware that you were being triggered and reacting to a past event? How many arguments were started because of that? How many close friendships or family ties were severed? How many jobs lost? How many days were ruined? How much drama has been caused? How much stress have you caused yourself?
I would bet that most people live MOST of their reality not in the present but rather through past events they’re triggered into reliving without being remotely aware of it.
One of the keys to taking control of your life and making changes in it is to become self aware in the sense of learning what people, events, situations and other things trigger you and taking note of WHEN you are being triggered. This will wake you up and get your life out of autopilot. With this new awareness, you can consciously start to change your old patterns of behaviour that may have been giving you the undesirable results you’ve been getting in your life. It’ll also make you think twice about taking actions that could potentially create a lot of regrets for you later.
This is The Viable Alternative.
Oh, and a big thanks to the person that triggered me last week. You gave me the subject for this blog!
Hope this helps,
Ike Love
