What are your triggers telling you?

It happens to everyone. At some point over the course of a day, you may find yourself in an internal (or external!) drama based on something that was said or done that sends you into an emotional tailspin.

While these things may result in unpleasant interactions or stir up some old, familiar feelings that you’re not particularly fond of, they are also incredibly important learning opportunities if personal growth or ‘self-improvement’ is on your radar.

Because, ultimately, the only kind of ‘improvement’ you need comes from self-awareness.

If you find yourself triggered by the ways people are treating you, I have found that these tend to fall into two main categories: unhealed wounds and unmet needs.

Unhealed wounds are those things from the past that remain unresolved. While I can’t tell you specifically what your ‘things’ are, there can often be a common theme of some way that you may feel that you are ‘not enough’…

Usually, there is an old story that comes up. Some way that you feel your present situation ‘validates’ that you are not smart enough, not attractive enough, or in some other way not ‘good’ enough. Not x, y, or z enough to have what you want or to please other people. The thing that ‘always happens’ or the thing that ‘never happens’ for you. ‘Not-enough-ness’ has many faces, but it is a theme that can play itself out in any number of ways.

It is important to ask yourself: How is this familiar? What is the underlying belief that I have about myself?

We all have things that have happened in our lives — be they ways that we were repeatedly treated, major life events, or those random incidences or comments — that in some way planted the seed of doubt that we are worthy. Of acceptance. Of affection. Of love. Many of our unhealed wounds come from either tangible events or perceptions we have of how we ‘failed’ in a relationship because we didn’t get the response we wanted.

In the case where the unmet need comes into play, there are some recurring patterns I find within myself — these may not be yours, but they are some examples. Situations where I don’t feel heard or seen. Where I don’t feel respected or valued. Where I don’t feel believed or where I feel like I am being lied to…

When looking at an unmet need, I think it becomes important to look at if it is a pattern in a particular relationship that your needs are not being met and, perhaps, take some action if that is the case. Vocalizing what our needs are is an important step — both in acknowledging and speaking for ourselves, and also because other people aren’t mind readers! But if that has been done and the problem remains, it can be time to re-evaluate the relationship.

But there is a curious thing that I have found about the unmet need…

When I find the same need being unmet in multiple situations with different people, upon closer examination, I sometimes find the worst offender in treating me that way is me.

So at this point it is important to ask yourself: Am I meeting this need for myself? What am I telling myself or what do I believe about myself that has me expecting other people to fill this void?

How am I not listening to myself? Not believing or trusting myself? Not valuing or respecting myself?

We show people how to treat us by how we treat ourselves. By how much we value and love ourselves. By the boundaries we set and the things we tolerate.

The good news is, we are in control of how we treat ourselves! What other people do is a total crap shoot, but how you treat yourself is up to no one but you…!

And the more that we compassionately witness and love our unhealed wounds, and recognize and meet our unmet needs for ourselves, the more resilient we are when other people don’t treat us the way we think they should.

Our triggers are our friends. They are trying to show us where we need to heal and learn, what we truly feel we deserve, and who we are allowing to cross the line.

It is our job to discover why we are allowing it (what is the belief), and how we can make different choices to respond instead of react when the triggers come up.

Sometimes we can become quite adept at recognizing our triggers and learning to pause and respond, yet we may still find it can be challenging to escape the rumination and irritation that tends to follow, and we may become frustrated that this continues to be an issue.

If you are at this point, congratulate yourself! It is a great step forward to get to the point where you can pause and reflect and not simply proceed on autopilot…

But another part of the reaction of a trigger is the emotion that it stirs up — pay attention to what that is. For some, you may be in the habit of suppressing that emotion, and exploring it so that you can feel it, express it, and let it go in a healthy way, may be part of your healing.

Many of our unhealed wounds are old. They have been there since we were children, and that is the space that they occupy within us. They need patience and love.

Because many of our unmet needs came about because of the wounds. They remain unmet because we abandoned those parts of ourselves long ago, putting them in a box out of sight out of fear of the pain that was there.

You may not be able to pinpoint the root of every single trigger you have, but as you become more aware, you will notice the patterns and themes that recur. And if you treat each one like it is telling you that you need more self-compassion and more self-love, eventually you will get there.

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