Have you ever gone from blank to furious in a matter of seconds because of anything someone else said or did? Then you probably have a good idea of what makes you angry.
What Are Your Emotional Triggers?
Automatic responses to a certain stimulus are known as triggers. People, places, and things, as well as smells, words, and colors can all serve as triggers. Emotional triggers are reflexive reactions to other people’s emotional expressions, such as anger or grief.
You might not have a problem communicating with someone who is angry, but you could struggle with someone who is crying.
Others, on the other hand, may experience the opposite.
Emotional triggers always elicit an emotional response from us. When someone else cries, for example, we almost always react with intense discomfort, hence crying is an emotional trigger. Anger isn’t a trigger if we don’t always respond to it with our own emotions unless we’re in danger. Emotional triggers are linked to our memories, experiences, and thoughts. We associate the current situation with a former engagement that elicited a comparable emotional response.
Identify your Emotional Triggers
If you were scared of clowns as a child, seeing one now may bring back those feelings of terror. It has nothing to do with the individual dressed as a clown. Instead, the clown evokes memories and feelings from a previous encounter. If we don’t understand why we behave the way we do, we’re more prone to blame the event or the person. We may describe the clown as disturbing, but the person dressed in the clown suit is not creepy.
We always have thought before we feel anything. Our thoughts are influenced by our memories and past experiences. When we have similar emotional triggers to particular behaviors, such as crying or being angry, those behaviors may serve as triggers for our thinking. We can improve our emotional reactions by identifying which thoughts cause them and choosing a more helpful response.
Recognize your Emotional Triggers
As you read through the list of possible emotional triggers, mark the ones that are most likely to elicit an emotional triggers.
Although the circumstances and how you’re feeling can amplify your reaction, simply reading about one of your emotional triggers is generally enough to make you feel something.
When faced with an emotional trigger, you might react as follows:
- When you feel manipulated, insulted, or played, you get angry.
- When you believe the other person is weak or defeated, you may feel pity or despair.
- When you believe their emotion is your fault, you may feel ashamed or guilty.
- When you believe they are blaming you, you may get defensive or hostile.
- When you’re under pressure to deal with other people’s emotions, you may feel frustrated or overwhelmed.
- Fear — when you believe the situation is going to get worse.
- Any strong emotion
Emotional Triggers Origins
Being Unaccepted
If you’ve never felt accepted by the people who matter most in your life, or if you can’t accept yourself, those who criticize or reject you will trigger you more severely.
Being Disrespected
You’ll feel it more when people mistreat you or don’t offer you the respect (or deference) you deserve if you don’t treat yourself and others with respect.
Being disliked
When we despise ourselves (secretly or otherwise) or believe we are unlikable, not being liked by others is more likely to upset us.
Being Misunderstood is a common occurrence.
If someone close to you made you feel misunderstood or unworthy of understanding as a child, it irritates you much more when people draw uncharitable assumptions about you.
Feeling unneeded
If this is a emotional triggers for you, the word “useless” is especially hurtful since you want to feel wanted and valued for the good you can do.
Feeling unappreciated
If the individuals who were supposed to perceive and respect your worth made you feel worthless or insignificant, you’ll be triggered when someone else does.
Feeling Uncontrollable
Controlling your life and environment is a delicate feeling that is easily interrupted, and you experience it much more when it makes you feel protected, wanted, or respected.
Being treated unfairly
If you were forced to battle for justice as a child or have suffered in the name of justice, you are likely to be triggered if you or someone else is treated unfairly.
Not Getting Noticed
Feeling ignored, overlooked, or discarded was definitely a trigger for you as a youngster if you felt invisible and needed more attention.
Personal Freedom Restricted
If you had to fight to free yourself from an authority figure’s strict or controlling behavior, you might be triggered whenever someone threatens to limit your independence.
It’s Assumed That You’re Wrong
If you’ve been duped into believing you’re wrong all the time, you’re going to be irritated if someone else tries the same tactic on you.
You’re Made to Feel Self-Confident in Who or What You Are
If you were embarrassed and made to feel undeserving of love because you felt flawed or damaged, you may be triggered when others name you a sinner, as if your crimes render you unworthy of love or kindness in their eyes.
Uncomfortable Feelings
You can be triggered by anything that threatens your current level of comfort if you’ve had to suffer protracted and extreme discomfort and felt powerless to do anything about it.
There’s Too Much Disorganization
You may feel congested on the inside if you see clutter around you, which can be overwhelming and stressful — especially if order helps you feel safer or more in control.
Money is in short supply.
If you have a vivid memory of poverty as a nightmare from which you can never completely escape, you are likely to be triggered whenever something tries to drag you back into it.
Feeling insecure
You may feel as though you’re never truly safe after a horrific encounter as a child.
Everything that puts your level of safety in jeopardy will most likely set you off.
Feelings of Being Unloved
If you were a child who felt unimportant, you undoubtedly tried to require as little as possible from others in the hopes that they would love you more if you require less.
Feeling a little unattractive?
If you were raised believing that people’s love for you was contingent on how attractive you were, you probably put more effort into looking nice.
Discriminatory comments regarding your appearance hurt even more since they make you feel unlovable.
Stupid Feelings
If you believe that other people’s love for you or their opinion of your worth is based on your intelligence (or their impression of it), it’s likely that others’ perceptions of you are significant to you.
A threat is somebody who makes you feel stupid.
Feeling like a Failed Entrepreneur
If you were taught as a child that mistakes and failures are mortal sins that separate you from love and happiness, you will be triggered whenever you fail at something.
Feeling abandoned or betrayed
If you’ve ever relied on someone to protect you or have your back only to feel betrayed and mistreated when they let you down, you’re likely to be triggered when someone else does the same.
Feeling defamed or hated
If you have a strong need for other people’s approval and acceptance, it hurts far more when they turn on you and condemn you, and you’re more likely to get triggered as a result.
Brushed Off Feeling
It hurts even more when you feel a need for this person’s acceptance or approval and they blow you off or dismiss you as unworthy of their time or attention – as if you and your issues don’t matter.
Determine which of the following behaviors are most likely to cause you to react on emotional triggers:
- Passive-aggression
- Whining
- Blaming Crying
- critiquing or passing judgment
- Irritation or frustration
- Nervousness or worry
- Victim attitude fueled by rage
- Entitlement
- Hostility or aggression
- Always wanting to impress others
- Treatment in the dark
- Manipulation by being ignored or not being listened to
- Lie or deception
- Moping or sadness
- Sadness or unhappiness
- Sarcasm
- An arrogance that is high-strung or extreme
- Other conceit
Solution for Emotional Triggers
These are some of the psychological and spiritual skills that can help us respond to our own emotional triggers rather than reacting to them.
Give it a name.
Being aware of our triggers helps us prepare for them. Then, rather than acting on instinct, we respond consciously.
- Look for the source.
To be free of a emotional triggers, we must first identify the source of the reaction – a specific experience or trauma. Past trauma triggers show us where the past is invading the present.
- Recognize the effects of projection.
It’s all about projection when it comes to triggering reactions. If one of your parents was angry and aggressive toward you as a child, you may be triggered by other people’s anger now. This is because your body is afraid of repeating the initial pattern, despite the fact that anger and violence aren’t always linked.
- Keep an eye out for indicators of hyperarousal.
Cortisol and adrenaline rush through our bodies when we’re triggered, making us feel frail, disorganized, and disoriented.
Because we are unable to self-regulate at such time, the first item of business is to quiet ourselves down.
- Listen to your inner voice rather than fighting it.
If you’re being prompted by an inner critic, don’t respond with an opposing viewpoint – it will simply lead to an argument with a force whose main purpose is to bring you down.
- Get in the habit of recognising and expressing your emotional triggers.
Emotions, like muscles, grow in a healthy way when they are used properly. Likewise, if we’ve hidden an emotion like anger or sadness for most of our lives, our ability to cope with the feeling becomes stunted. When we’re triggered, this is one reason why our reactions can feel awkward or overdone.
- Take a deep breath.
We lose our objectivity when we are triggered. We may feel as if the wind has been taken out of our sails. This makes saying what has to be stated much more difficult. Take a step back for a while to let your ego relax. This makes it easy to communicate about how someone’s behavior or experience affects us without being judgmental.
- Try with an echo response.
If someone is demeaning or disparaging us, we can simply repeat the exact words that are triggering aloud – slowly. This creates a pause, which can help us avoid being thrown off balance or feeling victimized. We are guiding the energy back to its source in an aikido technique.
- Be prepared for visits from relatives.
It’s no surprise that family members know exactly how and when to push all of our buttons; it’s no surprise that we’re often at our most reactive around them. Be on the watch if you know a certain family member is a problem for you. Be as present as possible, and if the situation becomes unbearable, leave the area.
- Try to laugh at yourself.
Find the comedy in a triggering circumstance if at all possible. This is one of the quickest methods for reducing stress.
- Recognize that you are not alone.
When we feel that everyone else can control their triggers, we become easy prey for them. When we discover that people we trust and admire are impacted in the same way we are, triggers lose a lot of their potency.
- Get in the habit of accepting things.
Triggers can be distressing and difficult, but it’s important to remember that they’re one of the body’s ways of guiding us toward our own healing and wholeness. Every single one of us has them. Similar triggers occur in everyone; they are an unavoidable part of life.
Reference:
- https://www.workplacestrategiesformentalhealth.com
- https://experiencelife.lifetime.life
