Do You Know Your Triggers?
Knowing your triggers can be hugely positive.
I have made it no secret that I’ve been battling with depression for most of my life. I’ve worked hard over the years on my own, with therapists, and take an antidepressant to maintain my overall sense of balance.
For the most part, I maintain an even keel. And I practice at that regularly. I meditate daily, express gratitude for numerous things every day, and focus on mindfulness practices. All these keep me centered, balanced, and best able to function well overall.
But like everyone, there are triggers that get me upset, angry, hurt, and put me into a negative headspace. Things occur that pull me out of my normal centered, calm, well-adjusted place and impact me negatively.
This takes different forms in different situations. Idiots driving in the left lane blocking traffic trigger me to get annoyed and shout sometimes. Reading about atrocities against women, minorities, LGBTQA+ rights, and other social injustices makes me sad and angry. When I look at certain aspects of my life and expect too much of myself, I can get annoyed, frustrated, and displeased overall.
Whether it’s an outside influence or an inside one, you have triggers. What they are and how they impact you is variable. But knowing them and recognizing them is the first step in working with them.
Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt
While I write frequently about positivity, it is never in denial of negativity, bad things, and its other various opposites. You cannot avoid, deny, or shun the negative in favor of – or in denial of – the positive. It doesn’t work that way.
Truth is, we need the negative to see the positive. Life is yin and yang, you need to have both elements within it. Otherwise, you miss a whole lot of the overall experience of living.
While there are certainly people who tend to be sunnier than not, nobody is happy all the time. Majority of the time? Sure. All the time? No. And that applies to everyone.
Lots of things go down way outside of our control that impacts us. And because of that, we can’t deny that bad things can, do, and will happen.
Toxic positivity is positivity at the expense of truly experiencing life. Because the pain you feel is a tool for change, development, and the quest for learning and growing. That’s how we evolve as individuals, which in turn is how we evolve as a species.
When it comes to triggers, doing the backstroke in the river of de Nile is ludicrous. We ALL have them – and we should not just avoid, ignore, neglect, or deny them. Why? Because they won’t miraculously go away.
What’s more – the only way to overcome a trigger is to recognize it. When you deny it, avoid it, ignore it – you can’t recognize it. It’s like the wind – in that it has no form – it’s a current of air that may be gentle and warm or harsh and freezing. And it’s seldom the same twice.
Knowing your triggers is not so that you can avoid them. It’s a tool for working with and overcoming them.
You’re only a victim if you choose to be
Before you read that statement and get angry about it, please take this into account. At the time a thing happens to you outside of your control – a mugging, a rape, abuse, and so on – you are the victim of what happened. I am in no way whatsoever denying that.
But a lot of people take that incident and let it define their overall being. They’re always a victim of this, that, or the other thing. Life’s never fair, shit always happens to them, and they’re constantly behind the eight-ball or such. THAT, specifically, is what I am talking about when I state that you’re only a victim if you choose to be.
One of my triggers was recently pointed out to me by my wife. I didn’t see it because I’m dead center in the middle of it. Hard to see the whole forest when you’re but one tree in the middle of it. But she saw it and brought it to my attention.
Every time I am put in a certain situation – I come away from it broken, upset, angry, hurt, and negative. It’s a victim mentality that undoes all the good work I do to be calm, centered, and Zen overall.
This has been an ongoing state for the entirety of the decade my wife and I have been together. But I never saw it for what it is, and thus this trigger – which triggers me far more frequently than I ever imagined – is there. Apparent to her, utterly missed by me.
Now that I am aware of this trigger – I am empowered to not be victimized by it. Sure, I could ignore what she shared and go on being oblivious – until it occurs again. Or I can make choices and decisions to work with it.
Knowing your triggers empowers your choices
A lot of people strive to avoid their triggers. But that’s not helpful. Sure, it avoids pain and suffering – or, I think more often FEAR of pain and suffering – in the moment. But frankly, avoiding your triggers means they will ALWAYS be there. But you have a choice.
This trigger has been recurrent in my life since long before my wife came into the picture. It’s probably at least two decades old or more. I never saw it for what it is until she pointed it out to me. And now I know it. And I know what it does to me. So – I have a choice.
Be triggered again when the next situation arises – or work now to deal with and potentially deactivate the trigger.
That is what I mean by writing that you’re only a victim if you choose to be. Because you are the only one inside your mind, body, and soul. Thus, you are empowered to deactivate your triggers and cease being a victim.
No, there’s nothing you can do in the moment of an outside attack – whether it’s physical, mental, emotional, or what-have-you. Yes, you may remain the victim of this for a time while you recover. But once that time has passed – and that time is different for everyone because time is an illusion in the first place – you are choosing to remain a victim.
Hence, when you know a trigger – you gain the power to choose what to do with it and about it. Steps can be taken to disarm it, handle it better when it occurs, and even in some cases walk away from it completely.
It’s different for everyone
For example, some people are your triggers. Sometimes you can easily cut them out of your life.
But sometimes, because they might be people you love, you can’t. Not because you will hurt them by doing so – but because you will hurt your wellbeing.
Other triggers may be places, things, environments, or what-have-you. But when you are faced with something that triggers you – you have a choice. Avoiding, denying, and pretending it’s not there is an option – but not one that empowers you.
When you recognize your triggers, you are empowered to work with them. Knowing your triggers can be hugely positive because you can alter, fix, cope, destroy, deactivate, or otherwise deal with them. You get to decide to disempower THEM rather than let them disempower YOU.
Knowing this trigger that I have I’m getting to work disarming it. It will take time, and effort, and mindfulness – but the positivity is that in removing the trigger I will be better balanced, centered, calmer, and happier. Thus, I can better walk my chosen paths with my head held high, find and/or create positivity, and consciously create my reality.
You have the same power when you recognize and confront your triggers. How you do this depends on the choices and decisions you make. But you are worthy, deserving, and capable of these choices and decisions, and working to overcome your triggers.
It isn’t hard to know your triggers
It begins with mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.
Knowing that you have triggers, when you become aware of them, you have a choice. Ignore and avoid them, let them victimize you, or work to disarm and overtake them. When you choose to employ mindfulness to work on disempowering the triggers and the effect they have on you – that ultimately empowers you.
When you feel empowered, your mindfulness increases, you become more aware overall, and that gets reflected and spreads to people around you. This creates a feedback loop of awareness and positivity.
You build more positive feelings and discover further reasons to feel positivity and gratitude. That can be the impetus to improve numerous aspects of your life for the better, help overcome the overwhelming negativity of any current situation, and generate yet more positivity and gratitude.
You are worthy and deserving of all the good you desire.
An attitude of gratitude is an attitude of pure positivity. That positivity can generate even greater positive energies – and that, like you, is always worthwhile.
This is the three-hundred and seventy-third entry of my Positivity series. It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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