From 5 Steps to Start Healing Your Emotional Triggers:
5. Commit to Shifting Your Beliefs.
Ask yourself today… Am I finally willing to do what needs to be done to truly heal?
You can only experience God’s healing when you surrender and let go of old beliefs and renew your mind. Only you know if you’re truly ready to commit to the deep process.
Judith Orloff, M.D., the author of The Empath’s Survival Guide says, “To heal emotional triggers, begin to compassionately examine and shift any beliefs that you’ve carried around from your family or society, such as, “I am not smart enough” or “I’m too sensitive.” You need to gently address the parts of yourself that feel flawed or have self doubts about your body image or your worthiness to find a partner. When you heal the initial trauma or false belief, you set yourself emotionally free. Then you won’t become as easily triggered or drained.”
There is an amazing self-coaching principle called ‘Circumstances → Thoughts → Feelings → Actions → Results.’
To sum this up in a few sentences, you have a life circumstance and the thought you automatically have when that circumstance happens. Then the thought affects your feeling about it (which is when you experience sadness, anger or happiness). The feeling affects your action (because it is coming out of your emotional response) and then you get your result.
If you want to change your feeling, and the action that comes from the feeling, it is not about the circumstance itself, but about the thought you have about the circumstance. When you ‘hold the thought captive’ and allow your mind to be transformed, you can change your feelings. It takes some practice, but it helps you uncover the real pain inside, release it and align with God’s vision of you in a powerful and healing way. I use this technique every day and its amazing the effect it’s had on my life.
When you commit to healing these areas within you and see the world (and yourself) from a new perspective, anything is possible! Your emotional triggers don’t have to run you — by noticing and shifting your thoughts you can get through your triggers much faster. At some point, they may even fade altogether (that’s what has happened for me and many of the women I work with).
From How to Spot and Heal Your Emotional Triggers:
How To Identify Them
Emotional triggers are not easy to identify, because our brain has a tendency to quickly rationalize our reactions, in order for them to make sense.
If you want to spot your emotional triggers, the first step is to to catch yourself reacting when your emotions are triggered, so that you can take responsibility for your reactions.
Pay attention to your bodily reactions. Can you notice any tensing of muscles, any tingling? Is your heart rate increasing? Is your breath accelerating?
Then, stop for a few minutes and ask yourself: why am I triggered? Why am I feeling this way? What emotion is this, and what has activated it?
“Identifying your emotional triggers is so vital because without bringing to consciousness what provokes extreme responses from you, you’ll be a puppet constantly manipulated by your emotions. Your friendships will be strained or ruined, your relationships will be turbulent or sabotaged, and your life, in general, will be much more painful.”
Mateo Sol, in How to Identify Your Emotional Triggers (Before it’s Too Late)
It all comes down to developing self-awareness.
The more aware you are, the more you commit to understanding your reactions, and the more you take your power back.
From Unexpected triggers:
Here are a few tips that I have found helpful:
- always have an emergency script or emergency meds with you; something that you know chill you out.
- Stay away from alcohol and other drugs. Yes, normally it will chill you out, but it can also flip you. And you lose the little self-control you have and do something stupid.
- This one is very important: STAY AWAY from your phone and especially social media and email for at least an hour. As long as you have to.
- If you don’t have a wedding every weekend like I do at the moment, take a day or two to chill out and unwind. Order your favourite food and beverage, and spend the day on a hobby in front of the TV or with a book. I normally prefer to be alone, but if you know you need someone to just hang with you, phone a friend or family.
- SLEEP. Whatever you do, make sure you get your necessary hours of sleep; it give our brains time to process and keeps you from doing something stupid.
- Write it out, on a blog or in a diary. There was a time that what went on in my head was SO dark that I avoided any writing in any form. Do what works for you.
Emotional Sobriety Means Healing Mind, Body, and Soul 