Your emotional triggers might be the clues you need.

An emotional trigger is typically an uncomfortable and stressful reaction to a situation or person that can be felt physically or emotionally.

The severity and type of emotional trigger can feel and present as very different; from the war veteran with PTSD who might be triggered by a loud noise, to the grieving daughter who misses her Mum every time she smells her favorite flowers.

A trigger can ignite all the senses at once and have the power to make us relive memories and experiences very intensely.

The more we understand our emotional triggers, the more opportunity we have to take care of our emotional well-being.

I will use an example from my last blog post to demonstrate how triggering works.  You have a friend that continually ignores your messages and does not prioritize you. You also have an emotionally unavailable father who left when you were very young and felt a sense of abandonment.

If those feeling are still stored within the mind and body, and have not been processed or properly grieved for, they will be ignited again when anything happens that feels similar. This is when the ‘trigger’ occurs.

Often as children, we are not capable of coping with traumatic events, so a part of us shuts down so we can carry on our everyday activities. The trouble is there will still be a part of us that remembers the trauma or the loss unconsciously, and that is the part that can easily be ignited and triggered.

This shut-down response served us well as children, but is not working so well for us now! Feeling unwanted and overwhelming emotions can get in the way of our everyday life.

So now what?

You now have a chance to work on the original feelings that cause the triggers. You are now more in control, even if once upon a time you were not.

These are 3 common examples.

Triggered in your Relationship.

Do you often feel very sensitive to your partner’s moods and find it very difficult not to argue? Perhaps you feel on edge and there is a sense that something is going to happen all the time.

if you grew up in a volatile disruptive environment, then of course you will feel this way, and it’s completely normal. Your mind and body are prepared and ready and waiting for danger!

Make sure your partner understands this, make your home a safe peaceful haven, create firm boundaries and work on trying to resolve conflict. If it all feels too much, start to explore with a professional how those early experiences are being brought into the present.

Triggered in the workplace.

This can be tricky as it’s not so easy to escape or communicate how you’re feeling. The same rules apply to creating boundaries and communicating your feelings. However, the most important factor here is to be able to check-in with yourself and monitor where the emotional reactions are coming from.

The girls in the office arranged a lunch and left you out, what did that bring up for you? Perhaps you struggled with friendships at school. The trigger feels like anxiety and not wanting to be at work, but the actual emotion is loneliness and feeling not good enough.

I wonder if you allowed yourself to accept and feel some of those emotions, you could look at the situation with more self-compassion?

Sometimes it’s also knowing when to walk away. Can you reason with your abusive boss? Have you complained to HR and nothing has been done, is this affecting your mental health? Maybe now is the time to walk away.

Triggered by your family.

Again another common one, but also very challenging to navigate. I often see clients that will dutifully visit family members who have made them feel bad as children and do the same as adults. There is compliance, a sense of duty, and a denial of their own feelings.

For example, a young woman visits her sister for dinner every week on a Monday and finds for the next few days she feels anxious and depressed. In therapy, the client discloses that the sister was bullying and controlling towards her in childhood. Despite the relationship being slightly better now, it is still strained and the client does not particularly enjoy the weekly dinners.

The client realizes that the conversations the two of them have over dinner every week often trigger feelings from her childhood.

The client continues to show up for the sake of the family, to keep their Mum happy, and comply with their sister. However, not once is the client taking care of their own feelings.

I hope that gives you a little bit of insight into emotional triggers and beginning to look at them. Of Course, this blog just scratches the surface.

All you need initially is a curiosity, to ask yourself some more questions.

Why does that person feel so uncomfortable to be around?

How can I visit that difficult relative on my terms?

Why am I feeling so anxious every morning before work?

What am I avoiding?

Why am I drinking so much every night? What am I scared of feeling?

Who does that person remind me of?

Create your own questions if you feel it might help, start your own journey.

The more we understand our emotional triggers, the more opportunity we have to take care of our emotional well-being.