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Today’s topic “what triggers you” means what pisses you off?
What hurts your feelings? What frustrates you? Hurts you?
What are the things that cause you to become the not-so-best version of you? What things cause you to bring out the animal side of you?
What causes you to enter the fight or flight mode? What things cause you to be mad or irritated by people?
Knowing what ticks you off is just the first part of this topic. The second is, what do you do when people push your buttons?
How do you handle it; do you just avoid it or pretend it never happened? Do you confront the person and give them a piece of your mind? Do you start a fight? Do you challenge them?
What do you do to handle the emotional stuff that you don’t like?
Most of us have a certain set of things that hook us, trigger us or get to us. In most cases, we also have a set of responses that we use each time we are frustrated or hurt by someone or something.
Download today’s worksheet to work through emotional triggers.
When they trigger you, what is your go-to response? Pause and think about it. What is the emotional home you run back to as a way of handling the things that push your buttons? Some people get angry, others get sad, and some get even.
There are a number of things you can do to cope with the things that trigger you. One device you can use is called “Spire.” It is a tracking device that tracks your breathing patterns all day long and it tells you when you are calm, when you are tense and when you are focused.
Most of us are unaware when we are tense and when we are stressed. The “Spire” helps you to know when you are stressed or tensed up. The first thing that you therefore need to deal with what triggers you is awareness that you have been triggered.
Most men will say they are fine when they are tense, but most women will sense that something isn’t right with their emotions. Women tend to be more in tune with their feelings than men are. It is important to be able to tell, to identify when certain things are causing you to be tense.
Once you have that awareness, the second thing that you need to know is where you are choosing to go when you are tense. Are you choosing to be frustrated? Are you choosing to get angry? Are you choosing to get upset? What is your “emotional home base”?
The third thing that you have to do is divided into three steps;
- Acknowledge the fact that you are upset.
- Appreciate the fact that you are in this emotion. Establish why you are feeling this emotion and know how your body is reacting in response to that emotion.
- Adjust to the emotion that you actually want. What would be a more useful way to respond to the situation? What would be a more effective way to handle this right now? What can I do to enjoy adjusting to this right now? If I did it with humor, creativity, love, laughter or joy, it would really be fun to do it right now!
Following the three steps above brings you back in charge of deciding how everything that upsets you can be handled. You are no longer on autopilot, reverting to the same preprogrammed script of responding to situations.
The three steps above can only work when you are triggered but retain some control of your senses. If you are so pissed that you can’t think straight, then you need to do one of two things:
- All emotions felt fully lead back to joy. When very angry, go into your room and set a timer to five minutes and feel every ounce of that anger. After about 5-10 minutes, you will be engulfed by this high level of peace within. What happens is that your body hits an internal circuit breaker to get you out of that anger or other negative emotion and bring you back to joy. You will have tears in your eyes, you will laugh or respond in any other way that shows you are now free.
- If the option above doesn’t work, do something else to break free from the grip of that emotion. For example, go straight to your bathroom and take an ice-cold shower for 3 minutes. Don’t touch the hot water, just stay in there with the cold water and just breathe. Do heavy, deep breathing while taking this shower. The experience of having the ice-cold shower will change your state and bring you out of the negative emotion. The experience of that shower will pump adrenaline through your system and you will emerge when you are a stronger, more resilient version of you. In this way, the experience that ticked you off will now seem insignificant and it will no longer bother you.
RELATED: All Emotions Felt Fully Lead Back To Joy!
I hope this training on how to deal with your emotional triggers helps. Go out and practice the methods offered on how to deal with those triggers and put them to use each time you experience an unpleasant emotion.
Download the worksheet below to support you on your journey!
To Your Success,
Jairek Robbins