Control your emotional triggers

Content: What is an emotional trigger | How do they influence you | 7-step plan to control your emotional triggers?

The best moments in your life are when you decide that your problems are your own. You don't blame your parents, your partner, or the laws of the country you live in. You realize that you decide your own destiny. An important element in this is your own responsibility to recognize emotional triggers in yourself and to deal with them constructively so that they no longer sabotage you.

Do you ever react with sudden irritation, anger, guilt or fear? Do you say or do things you wish afterwards you hadn't said or done? Chances are that this has to do with emotional triggers.

The good news is that there are ways to recognize triggers and reduce your negative reaction to them. So that gradually you don't step into those pitfalls anymore, don't automatically go into them and wait until you have assessed the situation before taking further action.

The first step in dealing with emotional triggers is to recognize them. This is to become aware that they work in you, determine your behavior and choices and also that they have consequences for yourself.

Emotional triggers are created by negative experiences from the past. When you find yourself in a situation that resembles that negative experience, strong emotions emerge. The first impulse can then lead to emotional outbursts (such as fear, envy, scarcity, anger, frustration, self-doubt, self-pity, etc.) that you may later regret. If nothing is done about it, it will continue to haunt and dominate your life.

Most emotional triggers are formed early in our developmental years, from childhood to adolescence. When certain basic needs are not met, we create an internal dialogue and sabotage beliefs. Here are a few examples. "I'm never good enough." "It's always my fault." "I don't care." "Nobody likes me." "I can't rely on others." "I have to be perfect. "" I'm always the scapegoat."

These sabotaging beliefs are attached to certain emotions we feel. During childhood, these emotions are often suppressed. In adulthood, we feel them with greater intensity because there's more chance to express them.

The change of some emotional patterns sometimes requires lifelong attention. You may have been traumatized by something or someone so deeply that even after proper treatment you have to stay alert for life, in case you are confronted with a certain type of personality or similar event.

Let me share with you an emotional trigger that has played a role in my life.

In spite of my extensive practical experience with the most diverse personality types, I must always be careful not to be triggered when working with people who avoid any kind of connection and remain strictly formal, without any kind of rapport or genuine communication.

Then I have to be alert not to fall into the trap of feeling rejected. Because rejection is usually just an interpretation of myself and something that only happens in my own head. Because of experiences in my childhood this is an association that rapidly activates itself in me. In the meantime I am able to recognise it quickly and deal with it constructively without it having a negative influence on the situation.

Emotional reactions play a part in our relational and professional life. These are present daily in varying degrees of intensity from low to extreme and often result in exaggerated emotional reactions.

Emotional triggers are not your master unless you allow them. On the contrary, you can master your emotional triggers by making 6 important decisions.

Do you know what triggers your emotions? Good. Have you got your emotional reactions under control?

Let's assume your trigger is anger. When your sense of control is threatened, you react with anger. If you blame others for your anger, you take no responsibility for your trigger.

So, to control an emotional trigger, you start by taking responsibility for it. No one controls your emotions, even though it may feel that way. You decide how your emotions come out. When it is activated in your subconscious, it may seem as if it is activated externally. But the fact is that triggers are activated internally!

If you want to master your emotional triggers, think about how they enter your personal, professional life and relationships. If it really bothers you, you're more likely to do something to change it.

Triggers tell a story about your life's journey. Experiences in your past (positive and negative) influence how you think and act. Connecting the emotional trigger with past experiences can explain why you react in a certain way. Sometimes you need help from an expert or therapist.

The experience and emotional reactions are registered within the implicit memory system in the unconscious and that can be activated by a certain trigger. For example, the survivors of 9/11 may feel panic when an airplane flies over their heads or even when someone with an Arabic appearance is sitting next to them in the plane.

Wrong beliefs are formed over time in response to an unfulfilled need.

I give the example of a little girl. This girl's basic need to fit in is not adequately met by the parents. Over time, the child develops a wrong belief: "I don't matter". Later, as an adult, she can attribute this wrong belief to the behaviour of others, especially her partner or husband.

Some of the most common needs that trigger emotional triggers when they are not met are:

To be accepted      Respect         To be understood

To be needed         Control           Security

New challenges     Autonomy     Being correctly dealt with

Freedom                  Love                Independence

The moment you are triggered by something, it is important to assess the correctness of the situation. Have you really lost this need in that situation or not? Does the other person actively deny your need or do you take the situation too personally? If that is the case that someone ignores or blocks your need in order to achieve this, you can still ask what you need. Or, if it doesn't really matter, you can let it go.

Without consciously acknowledging the need that the emotional reaction provokes, we become slaves to that need. On the other hand, if we honestly express our needs - that we expect people to treat us in a certain way - then we can begin to see life more objectively. From this perspective, we are then much freer to choose our responses.

The strengths that once helped you to succeed are also your greatest emotional triggers when you feel someone doesn't respect them.

As mentioned earlier, it is important to call yourself to order the moment these emotions are activated. Then you can determine whether the perceived threat is real or not. Recognize that you are emotionally disturbed and that you still have a choice to respond immediately or leave room to respond.

The purpose of an inner dialogue with yourself is twofold:

• to calm the triggered emotion.
• correcting the false conviction in yourself.

When a trigger occurs, you may feel somewhat powerless in the face of the emotion. Then remember that you are not powerless to the emotion. You can calm it down by entering into an inner dialogue with yourself. It is as if the adult is talking to the child inside you who feels overwhelmed, which has a calming effect.

One of the most effective ways to develop an ongoing inner dialogue with yourself is to write your triggers and wrong beliefs in a journal. Here you can recognize the feelings, process them, and reformulate the sabotaging belief into a statement that describe you more accurately as an adult.

Next, it is important to correct the false belief. When a trigger causes you to fantasize about all the bad things that are going to happen, you can say the following out loud: "My trigger is X because my preference for Y is not granted, so I expect Z to happen". Just saying this out loud is often enough to see the nonsense of what feeling your trigger is causing.

Let's look again at the example of the girl with the unfulfilled need to belong. Her wrong conviction was, "I don't matter." She could say to herself, "I matter to me and to my husband. I will not draw conclusions on the basis of a single event. There's enough evidence to support the truth that I do matter."

Sometimes we attract people into our lives who behave in ways that reflect our childhood experiences. The basic need that was lacking in childhood is also absent in the adult relationship. The wrong conviction then becomes a current reality.

Let's go back to the growing up girl with the conviction that she didn't matter. She runs the risk of falling in love with a man who treats her badly. Her drive to please him in order to be loved is in vain. He's a taker, not a giver. His lack of care will make her feel lonely and think, "I don't matter." Her answer may be that she's trying harder. Or she can get angry and emotional to protect her heart.

I am at your disposal to encourage and guide you to your deepest essence and from this solid foundation to even higher levels of leadership, service and freedom. 

Lots of love,

Peter

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