You may think that the people who trigger you are mean or have something against you. You’re going about your day, and then someone dismisses you, criticizes you, or just talks in a way that makes you cringe. Suddenly, you’re not yourself anymore. You become reactive, defensive, maybe even angry or a bit unhinged. And then, you feel embarrassed. You wonder what’s wrong with you. Why do you let other people control you emotionally?
Next, the protective mechanisms of the ego-mind kick in, and you start judging the other person—unconsciously projecting your own fears and insecurities—to make you feel in control again. It’s all a play of the ego. There’s nothing wrong with you, and others aren’t trying to control or attack you. In fact, the situation isn’t about others; it is your own life-movie bringing up (fragmented) aspects of yourself to the light. The others are also navigating their own life-movie through their patterns of perception. Your life-movie is about you, and theirs is about them.
The People Who Trigger You Are Your Mirrors
Once you have space for self-reflection, you realize that your reaction may not match what actually happened or you may have interpreted things in the worst way, taking them so personally that you disconnected somehow, putting on some energy blinders that prevented you from remaining objective and centered. If someone uses a dismissive sentence, you feel hurt and disrespected, and replay it in your head for hours (or days), but what that is really telling you is that this moment touched an old childhood wounding you’ve let fester without resolution.
The person in front of you didn’t create that reaction; they simply activated it. They pressed a button to a tender spot. Unfortunately, every time you react, believing the same, old victim story, you’re investing energy in past wounds, thus perpetuating them. The other person’s behavior may have been diminishing or disrespectful, and you shouldn’t excuse it, but since you cannot control other people’s behavior, fixating on them is a waste of energy. Instead, what you can do is explore the interaction for your own growth. You must remember that this is your personal mental movie (see Your Life-Movie Is a Dream Within a Dream), and you’re constantly projecting out your sense of otherness as the world, which means that it’s being reflected through your interactions.
The intensity of your reaction belongs to you. It is your spiritual responsibility to understand what your experience is really about. Turning inward to understand its source, that is, Divine Consciousness, rather than pushing it outward by fixating on others, is how you reclaim the power to transform your reality.
Turn Inward To Find Clarity and Peace
Whoever triggers you is pointing at mental patterns that you may not have looked at yet or that you need to revisit, along with the subconscious, distorted beliefs you hold that keep them in place. The friend or coworker who makes you feel invisible shows you how little you listen to yourself or how insignificant you think you are. The family member who teases or makes fun of you shows you how stuck you are in the wounded child archetype—when you had no choice but to obey the adults—or how little you believe in yourself. However, any of these situations can become a door into your subconscious, which is basically what your life-movie is a projection of.
The door may not be comfortable, but it gives you access to greater self-knowledge, and self-knowledge is the path to your emotional and spiritual freedom. Most of us try to arrange our world so we never have to walk through these doors. We avoid people and situations, skirting around the discomfort to avoid conflicts and keep the “safety” of familiar dysfunctional dynamics. It may work for a while, but then the same feelings show up again, triggered by a different person in a new scenario.
These hidden, self-defeating patterns will keep revolving until you address what they’re pointing at, which you are here to resolve. If you get triggered, you usually just react without even thinking—on auto-pilot. You defend yourself. You explain yourself. You try to fix the other person’s perception of you. Either that, or you lash out and get into a conflict you later regret. But the perception you are here to change is your own, except that you’re trapped in the ego-mind that produces the duality or otherness, with its conflicts, judgments, and fears. That is, of course, until you turn inward to dissolve it and break free.
Emotional Triggers Are Tools for Self-knowledge
You can deal with your triggers in a more loving way (see Do You Know Your Emotional Triggers?). It takes restraint and self-awareness, but it gets easier as you practice, and the reward is an empowering transformation that nobody can take away from you. Your feelings are your compass leading you inward. Here are some guidelines:
1. Pause and inquire: “How do I feel about this?” Then allow yourself to feel what you’re feeling in your body. Do not fixate on the story about who did what or why. Do not rationalize or justify anything. Stay with the raw sensation and notice what else comes with it: thoughts, memories, associations, desires… These can be subtle, so you have to pay attention.
2. Now ask yourself, “What does this remind me of?” Not “Why did they do that?” or “Why is this happening to me?” but “What other situations and emotions can I relate to this one?” You will find a familiar feeling underneath: not being seen, not being appreciated, not being safe to speak up, and so on. You’ve met this feeling before, many times, long before the person triggering you was in your life.
3. Be curious rather than righteous. Righteousness feels good in the moment because it makes you the victim and them the villain. Then you can feel in control by blaming someone else for your negative emotions. Curiosity is less satisfying to your ego, but it is much more useful. It turns your life into a journey of self-discovery instead of a collection of hurts and disappointments reinforcing the ego (the “poor me, me, me…”).
4. Imagine that the other person is holding a mirror and focus on the reflection, not the holder of the mirror. Let them be the messenger, not the meaning. Remember that this is not about them, but about you and your mental movie, which is how you experience yourself in life. Expanding Awareness gradually dissolves the ego that causes you suffering with illusions, attachments, and unresolved emotions.
Remain Open and Curious to Heal
Life is challenging no matter what; there would be no growth or evolution if we didn’t get polished though trials and tribulations. But there is a big difference between navigating life on autopilot, simply reacting to what others say or do, and being more conscious, present, and intentional about how we respond to it.
Instead of a trigger meaning that something has gone wrong, perceiving yourself through others, it can mean that something is coming up to the surface for a chance to heal. Once you recognize what it is that you are projecting through your egoic sense of others, your patterns and dynamics shaped by negative beliefs begin to unravel, and you are free to simply be in the moment. Not your familiar roles. Not what is convenient. Not what you think others expect. Only what is true in you.
Of course, this is a gradual process that requires discipline and commitment, because the ego-mind is dense, stubborn, and very deceitful. It knows you better than you know yourself. So, I am here to help you see what you cannot see; to guide and support you every step of the way toward greater emotional and spiritual freedom. If you’re ready to master your ego-mind, contact me today to explore new possibilities and find the best way to work together!
P.S. If you’re not ready to work with me as your spiritual mentor to delve deeply within, you can learn about the workings of the ego-mind to transform your perception and experience by implementing the Swan Method I share in You Are Your Healer: The Ultimate Guide to Heal Your Past, Transform Your Life & Awaken to Your True Self!
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