by David Richo
We trust ourselves more and more when we notice that we can activate inner resources. We gain self-esteem when we notice that our inner resources help us handle our experience satisfactorily. As long as we avoid responding to our life events, we do not access our innate resources. We access them only when we fully enter our experience and take the clue it offers us on how to work through it. And there will always be a clue. For instance, loss evokes grief, injustice provokes anger, threat arouses caution.
In addition to innate resources, we have learned resources. These arise through trial and error, experience, and modeling from others. They can be psychological and spiritual: Our psychological—personal—resources are coping skills, abilities to handle life experiences without being destabilized by them. These are adaptive ways of regulating ourselves and managing our feelings, life skills that we continually have to replenish. Some examples are integrity, assertiveness, communication, know-how, forming a healthy ego, resilience, handling our own or others’ feelings, and a variety of relationship skills.
We have inner spiritual resources too—capacities such as universal love, letting go of ego, a sense of service, compassion, and a treasury of core values to live by. As with all our innate resources it is up to us to translate them into practice.
Here is a surprising and encouraging realization: “Psychological” and “spiritual” are distinct but not oppositional. They are correlative aspects of the same reality of wholeness. For instance, integrity and universal love work together for our benefit, though the former is assigned to psychology and the latter to spirituality. Likewise, a psychological insight can lead to a spiritual practice. For instance, what triggers us into suffering can arouse our compassion for others who are triggered in the same way.
HANDY TOOLS
Some specific tools, both psychological and spiritual, help us respond rather than react to triggers:
Naming is a primary way of dealing with any trigger. Making a list of our familiar, often-repeated triggers leads us to be on the lookout for them, to have a plan to deal with them: “This is one of my triggers so let me be careful not to overreact but instead to handle it this way…” We are catching the trigger red-handed and are ready to deal with it without being devastated by it. We can now immediately distinguish between what happened factually from what impacts us personally. In addition, the practice we have planned to handle a particular trigger can then come between stimulus and reaction. We make a conscious response rather than act on reflex. This escape from compulsion is our getaway to freedom. To find out Rumpelstiltskin’s name is to be free of his threats. Keeping a journal of triggers and our (hopefully, changing) reactions is useful as we stay on this path toward freedom.
We note our triggers in our journal along with our usual reactions to each of them. We dub each trigger entry a given of life, something that can happen to anyone: “I can expect that this might happen…” After each reaction entry we write, “I have many options in how I can respond.” Now we see that we don’t have to fall into a habitual reaction. That is a transition from compulsion to freedom. It is, by the way, the same transition we make to free ourselves from fear.
We can become aware of the two reactions we might have to a trigger. The first is running away; the other is moving toward in a grasping or controlling way. We recall that these are also the very reactions that in Buddhism are said to lead to suffering: We run because we are possessed by fear or we cling because we are caught in craving. Yet both can light the way into dark and ancient caves that await us as we become ever-more-skillful spelunkers.
Finding the source of a trigger—for example, a specific event, trauma, or transference—is central to freeing ourselves from it. In my own experience I notice that when I accurately locate where my trigger came from I reduce its wallop sometimes by as much at 70 percent! In fact, now I occasionally find what used to trigger me amusing.
Working on the original trigger goes a long way to end its power over us. We take ownership of our triggers by engaging in the work, often lifelong, to resolve them. What remains alien, “all about them,” keeps us stuck in separateness; what we acknowledge as our own we are able to heal and let go of.
Triggers create hyper-arousal. Cortisol and adrenaline are coursing through us and affecting our brain negatively. In that stressed and destabilized state we feel safe only with the familiar; we are afraid to try new things. So we lose both ways. As we saw earlier, it is normal to feel fragile, disorganized, and disoriented when we are strongly triggered. It is true that we then seem to have no access to our inner resources—we can’t self-regulate, we believe we are defective, we are left without a go-to. We can find inner resources nonetheless. We can use relaxation techniques—for instance, a series of deep breaths.
When we are triggered by the inner critic we do not reply with an opposing opinion. That reaction will tie us into a web of back-and-forth with a voice trained much better than we in how to put us down. Instead, we use the inner critic’s commentary about us as a call, a bell that reminds us to perform a spiritual practice, such as loving-kindness. For instance, the voice tells us we will “fail as we always have.” We neither argue nor agree. We go directly to our affirmation: “I trust myself to do the best I can and to handle what happens.” Now the voice of the inner critic is a skillful means to help us evolve.
We can trust an inner healthy voice that advocates for us and is not critical of us. We are accessing not only the voice of sanity and reason but also the voice of encouragement that builds self-esteem. We can talk to ourselves like a kindly aunt or uncle. We distinguish what is happening from how we are feeling or believing things to be. We comfort ourselves and show understanding rather than rebuke ourselves for feeling so weakened by the reactions a trigger evinces.
We apply our self-advocating voice as an override to obsessive thoughts, especially fear-triggering ones. When we hear ourselves saying, “The worst will happen,” we interrupt—pave over it—with “I have it in me to handle whatever happens.”
Our self-advocacy includes giving ourselves the five As: We are attentive to what we are feeling. We accept it fully and fearlessly. We appreciate its life-lesson quality. We feel loving compassion for ourselves no matter how we are triggered or how we are reacting. We allow ourselves to take the next step on our journey rather than be stopped by the trigger.
In mindfulness we attend to what happens or what we think or feel rather than become overwhelmed by it. In mindful moments, we don’t identify with our reaction. We are witnesses of others, events, and ourselves. Our mindfulness extends both to triggers and to our reactions. We are mindful when we pay attention to and focus on the here and now without censorship, judgment, fear, reactiveness, attachment, or repulsion. Mindfulness helps us locate the pause between a trigger and a reaction. With this mindful style we are also less likely to react so excessively.
Triggers evoke exaggerated or inappropriate emotional reactions. Our emotions are like muscles. They develop in healthy ways by being used appropriately. When we have hidden our anger most of our lives, for example, it becomes stunted. This is one reason why a reaction may come out as awkward and exaggerated when we are triggered. As we practice knowing and showing our emotions we will be less likely to react inappropriately to what triggers them.
When we are triggered, we lose our objectivity and the wind may be knocked out of us. Thus, we can’t easily be assertive and say “the right thing.” We can reduce our reaction considerably when we take a breather. We let our ego calm down. Only when our ego is on hold can we respond to others with a nonjudgmental reporting of the impact of their behavior on us. Our assertion will then be much more rational. We access our inner resource of self-calming patience and we are not so strongly triggered next time. Hamlet’s mother made this recommendation to him:
O gentle son,
&nb
sp; Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience.
When someone triggers us by shaming, insulting, or hurting us, we can use the following technique (although it is difficult to remember to do this!): We simply repeat aloud to him very slowly the exact words that triggered us. We do this with a musing tone and with our eyes closed. Then we establish eye contact and keep looking directly at the person in silence as if awaiting his response. This is an example of how we create the pause that can prevent us from being bowled over so easily or feeling so victimized. In an aikido style, we are directing the energy back to its origin. This technique also gently confronts the other with his own words so he can feel how they landed on us.
Family members are experts at triggering us. They know every one of our buttons and exactly how and when to push them. They keep their fingers on the nuclear reactors and it is no wonder that we are affected so strongly when we are with family members. Being on the lookout, fending off while remaining loving at all times, is our practice. Being present but only until the firing begins and then vacating the premises is how we protect our boundaries. We are, in effect, raising our hand with a signal of “No!” as a traffic cop does. The officer’s purpose and ours are the same: not judgment or scolding but safety for all.
Triggers thrive on our belief that we are alone in having them. They lose a major amount of their power when we realize that people we trust and admire are triggered in the same ways we are. Even enlightened people and saints can be triggered. Sharing with a trusted friend what our triggers are can lead to our being mirrored by him or her. That goes a long way to reducing the wallop of a trigger. All of us feel alone at times but we can trust that no one is alone in a world so interlaced as ours.
As we saw above, to say that similar triggers happen to all of us is to acknowledge that they are givens of life. Therefore, our practice of accepting the things we cannot change—for instance, that people will say or do things that can arouse us—is a way of working with triggers. We don’t allow abuse but do take it in stride that triggering experiences will happen. Our attitude of yes to that fact goes a long way toward reducing the power of triggers over us.
We look for something humorous in our reaction to a trigger.
It is human to take things personally when they are aimed at us that way. Our healthy practice is to feel our grief about how someone has hurt or offended us—and to say “Ouch!” Steeling ourselves against vulnerability does not help us since it is a way of avoiding appropriate grief.
Therapy with someone who is trained in techniques to work with trauma, including somatic therapy and EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing), is also effective and often necessary.
It may be difficult to remember that we have these resources. This is because they reside in the part of our brain that is offline when a trigger assails us. We will need a daily visible reminder—for example, a note on the fridge saying, “When you are triggered, you have resources.” We can then name a resource we have learned from this book. This suggestion works especially well when we are aware of our main triggers. Then, when they click in, we are more likely to go to the practices that help us deal with our triggers. As we saw above, triggers can change from being on-ramps into reactions to becoming trusty bridges into healing.
SHADOW, EGO, EARLY LIFE: WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON?
Some triggers target one or more of three specific areas inside us: our shadow side, our inflated ego, and our unfinished past. These areas can be the sources for trigger reactions. For each of them there are specific practices, in addition to the practices described above, that help us handle the associated trigger-reactions. In this section we will look at these three sources and find the resources to handle them.
Let’s begin with a look at what is meant by each of the three:
Shadow: The negative “shadow” is a Jungian term referring to the unacceptable traits, desires, impulses, attitudes in our personality that have been repressed, disavowed, or denied. We do not want to admit we have what is called a “dark side.” It remains unconscious. But when we see it in someone else, we react with criticism or anger. Actually, we are looking at another person as a mirror that forces us to see what we don’t want to see in ourselves. Unfortunately, this projection is the equivalent of not being able to integrate our shadow side because then it seems alien, entirely outside us. When our reaction to how someone triggered us is such a projection we are looking at a shadow issue in ourselves. For instance, we do not see that we are controlling in our relationships. When someone else is openly controlling we are triggered and react. We fail to see that we are looking at a picture of our own controlling style. Both the trigger by someone and the reaction from us point to something that we have not yet admitted and integrated in ourselves.
Ego: Our ego can be healthy or at times dysfunctional. It is referred to as inflated when we become arrogant or think of ourselves as above others. We might strut and swagger, thinking we are too big to fail. When someone pulls us down a peg or two, therefore, it triggers a reaction of indignation in us. Behind that is fear that we are being found out to be less than we say we are, or less than we want to believe we are. We are panicked because we seem to be losing our entitlement to honor and recognition, losing our status as a big shot. Our reaction of indignation shows us we have work to do on ourselves. The work is building a healthy ego and letting go of ego inflation. As we escape the bondage of self-importance, we feel the arising in us of a bond to all beings—a spiritual victory.
Early life: Our childhood home was not supposed to be a hard-hat area. Distressing or abusive events that happened in early life can trigger us, as we saw earlier. We will feel especially wounded by any trigger that taps into what is most unresolved from our interactions with our original caregivers. Someone says or does something that mimics what one of our parents said or did. We are reacting not only to what is happening in the present moment but also to the original transactions with our parent. We are transferring onto people now the feelings, needs, attitudes, and expectations that apply to people in our past. Thus, we see a parental face in the person in front of us. We are reacting as if the parent who triggered us long ago is triggering us again now.
To summarize how we are using the three terms in this section we can say the following: The negative shadow will refer to characteristics and proclivities that we have hidden even from ourselves although they come to the surface from time to time. The inflated ego will refer mainly to an arrogant, self-important, demanding, and entitled manner in our dealings with others. Early life issues are composed of memories and experiences, recalled or unconscious, from childhood. We transfer onto others the expectations, needs, and attitudes that pertain to our parents.
In all three instances, we keep in mind that triggers gain momentum from a belief in our minds. When the shadow lurks, we feed it with the belief that only she is like this, not I. When our ego is aroused to a combative, bantam reaction we might be believing, “He thinks I’m stupid and can put one over on me but I’ll show him!” A reminder of what happened to us in childhood might be supported by the belief that this parental look-alike will punish us just as Dad did if we don’t knuckle under.
Regarding the magnitude of each of the three let’s use a simple analogy. We know the look and layout of the town we live in. We don’t know the vast unvisited territories of the rest of planet Earth. In the same way, we know our basic personality characteristics and quirks but we don’t know the vast uncharted terrain of our unconscious. Freud said that our conscious mind is like the tip of an iceberg whereas the unconscious mind is the massive submerged part of the iceberg, the part that’s underwater. Within the unconscious are repressed memories and what Carl Jung called our shadow: repressed traits, inclinations, and attitudes.
Likewise, we know our ego can function as the strong center of our choice-making an
d interpersonal relating. But sometimes we act in ways that puff our ego up. For instance, with a healthy ego we can strongly assert our rights. Yet, sometimes we become stuck in a dogged sense of entitlement that comes across as arrogance. That style of ego interferes with healthy relating. So on occasion, or often, we find out that our ego can become dysfunctional and unappealing.
Regarding our childhood experiences and how they impact our attitudes and relationships in the present, there is no doubt that we know only a small amount of it. We keep discovering new memories and realizations that show how subtly and pervasively our early life continues to affect us.
Thus, in all three areas there is, relatively speaking, a town-sized region of what is known and a planet-sized region of what is unknown, though our work on ourselves can certainly help adjust the sizes somewhat. Yet, keeping the basic limitation in mind, we can now look, as intently as we can, at how our shadow, ego, and early life figure into our trigger points. Since no-knowing is actually spacious, we will be eager to open to it.
Our first practice is simple. Whenever we are triggered, upset, we can ask ourselves if one or more of the three mind-sets—our shadow, our ego, our early life issues—are being activated. This will take some spelunking since each of them is so perplexing. Using an acronym helps us remember how to do this check-in: We “S.E.E.” what is going on with us. When we check in to which of these has been stirred, we often find it is two or all three. When we are triggered or upset, when something sticks in our craw, we tick down the list and ask ourselves the following questions: