There’s a feeling in the air of synthesis, merging, interaction, unity, connectedness, newness. All of this together is love.
We are moving from a world of separation, categorical thinking, judgment and condemnation, evaluation, to a world of holistic unity, acceptance, and love. But we are learning, and so we are still afraid of this newness within ourselves.
We are not used to dwelling in such uncertainty, lack of guarantees, and incompetence. After all, there is no stability, clarity, precision, or complete control in this — things our logical and rational friend, the brain, loves and extols so much.
We are truly learning to react, feel, and love in a new way. Patterns are fading away, and truth is coming in their place.
This idea came suddenly, as all ideas do. In a sense, it worked as a trigger. Is this good or bad? Should we rejoice or be afraid when triggers are activated?
In this article, I want to look at this phenomenon from the sidelines together with you. Let’s interact. Say the word “trigger” out loud right now and notice what first thought, emotion, feeling, or reaction comes to you first.
What color do you sense — negative or positive?
I’ll assume it’s more likely negative. I have the same reaction, believe me. Patterns, stereotypes, and fears are still sitting inside us, quietly running the show.
And so I decided to invite the trigger to the negotiating table and become friends with it.
The Meaning of Trigger
«A trigger is an event that causes a person to suddenly re-experience a psychological trauma.
Most often, a trigger is part of the traumatic experience: a child’s cry, the noise of a car, being at a height, an image, text, TV show, etc.»
Wikipedia
Every person accumulates quite a few stressful situations and the strong emotions associated with them over the course of their life. Some of them, often the most painful ones, we want to forget and erase from memory.
In reality, our psyche protects us this way and uses our ability to forget things, embellish them, and skillfully hide some things.
If we forgot such situations forever, triggers simply wouldn’t work. But as a rule, it is precisely those strong emotional and stressful situations that we want to forget that are remembered most vividly. So what can we do?
Then the moment of truth arrives, and we get caught on the hook called a trigger. A certain word, sound, glance, smell, color, temperature, touch… It can be anything at all — anything that can remind us of some unpleasant event or feeling.
Read: Why Some People Annoy You for No Reason
How to Befriend a Trigger
I invite you to befriend the trigger too. Let’s think together about how.
If you want to befriend someone, you simply need to go meet them. Offer a treat, say kind and sincere words, offer genuine thanks, and so, gradually, over an aromatic tea with a tasty snack, get to know them better.
A trigger is like a neighbor who has lived next to you for a long time, but he’s a bit strange, a gloomy quiet type on the surface, always in black, never smiles, kind of a dry stick (as you’ve gotten used to thinking of him).
But this day is different. You bring him a treat and invite him over to your place for tea, just being neighborly. And then a smile appears on his face, and he’s no longer as gloomy or as dangerous as he seemed from the outside.
You learn more and more about him as a person, about his character, his profession. And you realize he’s an interesting conversationalist, a reliable person, and simply your wonderful neighbor, someone you can trust not only with everyday matters, like watering your flowers while you’re away, but even with some of your secrets.
He will guard them like no one else, and he will be the one to support you in a difficult moment. Well? Now when you hear the word trigger, has your attitude toward it changed? A drop of warmth and heartfulness has appeared. Yes, it has become much calmer, there’s relaxation in the body, the threat is leaving, dissolving.
Triggers are none other than your kind and faithful neighbors. They live not just nearby, but within you yourself; they are a part of you. They protect you in every way, stepping out of the shadows so that you can understand something, gain new qualities within yourself, learn to feel and experience yourself in a new way, to see the picture of the unified world, of which we are all a part, more broadly and vividly.
Go through the Meditation “Letting Go of What Is NOT Your Baggage,” in which you will send back to their source all energies, thoughts, programs, and beliefs that do NOT belong to you.
Trigger and Balance – Allies
Many people dream of maintaining constant balance in life and get very upset when they lose it. But tell me, can you preserve the morning, the sunset, the dawn, the flow of a river, a landscape, a scent, the clouds, your own face… a multitude of things surrounding you?
No, we cannot preserve anything; even vivid images gradually fade, blur, leaving only key moments or elements, but you won’t be able to reproduce the picture exactly.
We change every day, and everything around us changes too. Why try to hold onto what cannot be held? Life is a Divine river, and its course is known only to itself and to God.
You can use its current and navigate the river, discovering new, unexplored horizons, or you can unsuccessfully try to swim against it, exhausting your last strength, and remain in the same place.
And what helps you move forward? Triggers! They knock you out of your boat, throwing you into the churning water of emotions. You resist, you’re afraid, you scream, you fight the current. But as soon as you quiet down and grow tired of fighting, the river itself catches you and carries you easily and gracefully through life. You just have to allow it to carry you. You are part of the river, you are part of life.
A trigger is like a surgeon who opens up hidden abscesses and allows the pus to drain and the wound to heal. It frees you from the frozen, lived-out forms of your experiences that keep you tied up like a dog on a leash.
It cannot tolerate deception, stagnation, inertia, or lack of freedom. Its nature is purity, clarity, lightness, healing. It’s like an operation after which the patient doesn’t just live, but lives long and happily, and most importantly, is inwardly free.
It helps bring to the surface all your fears, insecurities, and complexes—everything that weighs you down like ballast. It makes you light and airy, open and sincere.
So where are the enemies? Where are they? They are gone, dissolved, and carried away by the current of life. We wave them goodbye with gratitude and secretly wipe away a tear, remembering the past.
P.S. Would you like to get to know your triggers up close, to free yourself from outdated programs and accept the gifts you “sacrificed” in your early years?
Sign up for the intensive transformation workshop “Dance with the Shadow 3.0.” Details here >>