Why am I Feeling Triggered? Am I With The Right Person?

“Having a partner who triggers you is a gift. The greater gift is having that same partner hold you and support you in expressing, healing and resolving that emotion which arose from your interaction with them. That is when evolution feels wonderful. That is when we feel deeply connected to our partners and to ourselves.”  ~ Shaun Blair

All relationships have two purposes:

creation

and

evolution.

Both creation and evolution bond us in deeper connection with ourselves, with one another and with all of existence. When we are winning at these two purposes then we and all of our relationships thrive.

The purpose of co-creation is to generate positive emotions.

There are countless ways of co-creating.

• Two or more people can come together to co-create experiences of laughter and conversation.
• We can create new awareness by co-creating a discussion of engaging topics. This is often referred to as “learning” or “having stimulating conversation”.
• We can co-create intimacy by being present with one another, being aware of our partner and exchanging with one another energetically and physically. This creation yields a release of our own pleasure hormones within our brain and body chemistry.
• We can create an experience of joy around someone else’s creation as in admiring a work of art, eating at a restaurant, or appreciating nature.
• We can also co-create experiences that have a tangible product that we both enjoy, such as making dinner together or conceiving a child.
• With all of our co-creations, we are also co-creating joyful memories of our co-creative experiences!

Anyone who has been single or separated can tell you that the only thing better than enjoying a good experience is having someone to enjoy it with. That collaboration toward an enjoyed experience IS co-creation. Co-creation is the very substance of existence. Another important thing about co-creation is that it strengthens our bond to help support our other purpose: evolution.

When we have co-created with someone and experienced positive emotions with them, we are better able to support one another through the processing of negative emotions. We all inherently know this. It's why companies host team-building events and exercises. It's why couples or groups of friends like to find things to do together. Having similar interests makes it easy to find things to do together that can be enjoyed by all involved.

positive emotions = emotions that make me feel good  (More please!)

negative emotions = emotions that make me feel bad (Make it stop!)

Evolution is the opportunity to e x p a n d beyond what we have been. It can happen spontaneously but more often it happens in response to stimulus. A stimulus is a trigger that makes us aware of an opportunity to shift. For many of us, the process of moving from ‘opportunity to evolve’ into ‘actual evolutionary shift’ is not clear.

Can you think of the last time you were triggered?

Did someone say or do (or not do) something that really ruffled your feathers?

Take a moment to think about what your triggers are.

Which of these phrases creates a pang in your gut or a knot in your throat?

• not good enough
• not attractive enough
• not successful enough
• not smart enough
• not having enough
• being used
• not feeling safe
• being blamed
• being accused
• being alone
• being an outcast
• being mistreated
• not being appreciated
• not being noticed
• being misunderstood
• not feeling loved
• being abandoned

How often have your relationships triggered feelings like these? These feelings, these learned beliefs about ourselves, give rise to emotions like sadness, anger, bitterness, grief, heartache, loneliness, jealousy, and more.

Have you ever utilized your triggered feelings as opportunities to resolve the difficult emotions that came up for you?

Our relationships tend to create the most useful but also the most challenging triggers to resolve. Nature has it work this way so that when the triggers come up, our support system is already in place.

Ideally, we would be able to:

1. recognize the opportunity for emotional healing,
2. offer gratitude to the trigger-puller and, if available,
3. utilize the trigger-puller for support in processing and resolving the emotion.

Having a partner who triggers you is a gift. The greater gift is having them hold you and support you in expressing, healing and resolving that emotion which arose from your interaction with them. That is when evolution feels wonderful. That is when we feel deeply connected to our partners and to ourselves.

Unfortunately, some of us try to neutralize our painful feelings by blaming someone for them rather than doing the challenging work of owning, examining and processing our feelings. Many of us have a tendency to blame the trigger-puller (partner, mom, dad, child, boss) for the arising of our unresolved emotion and to demand that they stop triggering us in this way.

Below is a typical scenario from the perspective of a man and woman in partnership but it can happen in any two-person combination or type of relationship:

He says something harmless and honest from his perspective. It triggers in her a latent, unresolved feeling of being unappreciated. She blames him for not appreciating her because he has unknowingly triggered her feelings of not being good enough. He becomes defensive because he is being blamed when he had no intent to hurt her. Her reaction has now triggered his fear of being perceived as aggressive or insensitive. Neither of them notices this opportunity for growth. Each blames the other for the difficult, unprocessed emotions that are arising in them. Each thinks the other is the cause of these emotions.

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Both feel unsupported and vulnerable and misunderstood. Those feelings give rise to additional difficult unresolved emotions of loneliness, isolation and insufficiency. They argue and separate and the emotions remain unresolved, with another layer of painful scar tissue added to both people. If this process repeats enough times, the people usually leave one another only to find themselves in yet another relationship that provides the same opportunities to resolve the same, more deeply ingrained emotional wounds.

Image courtesy of Vichaya Kiatying-Angsulee/
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If we have a good practice and history of mutually enjoyable co-creation with our partners, then we will be more inclined to trust them as an ally in our emotional healing. If we have not taken enough steps in our daily lives to enjoy co-creative processes with our partner, we can feel alienated from them in these vulnerable moments. Companies have team-building retreats because when people have co-created joyful experiences and memories together then trust builds between them and they work together better through the challenges. Anyone in sales can tell you how important it is to build rapport with a potential client. Rapport involves identifying similarities in order  to co-create a shared joyful experience and the resulting positive emotions.

What kind of team-building do you do with your: partner, parent, child, co-worker?

What have you co-created that bonds you in your relationships? What joyful memories of co-created experiences or things do you share? Can you better utilize opportunities to co-create with the people in your life?

When we are triggered, we can:

1. Become aware that a person or circumstance has triggered in us an unresolved, unprocessed emotion. This emotion could be the result of sustaining a mental or physical trauma or something more subtle like being made to feel alone or inferior.

2. Utilize this triggering as an opportunity for our own growth by taking the time to finally process and resolve the emotion. This is a challenging and very uncomfortable part of the process. It’s the part where we usually bail and opt to blame, yell,  sulk and walk away. But  with the support of our own grounding and strength and possibly also with the assistance of our partner or loved one, we can feel into the difficult emotions, allow ourselves to express them in any way needed and finally heal them. A regular personal meditation practice helps us to gain clarity and strength for the most favorable outcomes from  these opportunities.

3. 

   Image courtesy of imagerymajestic/
   FreeDigitalPhotos.net".

   After processing the negative emotions, we arrive at a place of greater strength and resilience. We become able to maintain a state of joy with less impact from future triggers of the same kind. If the emotional wound was deep, it can take multiple cycles of triggering and processing to arrive at a feeling of full resolution but if we are persistent at following the steps, then we succeed in creating more sustained joy. We get to endure less frustration and more fulfillment in our lives. We all want that but we must work through the discomfort of processing our triggers in order to get there.

Contact me to receive a copy of my detailed Emotional Healing Technique by e-mail.

If we can learn to welcome our triggers as opportunities for healing and learn to appreciate our trigger-pulling relationship partners as supports and guides through the process, we will not only heal emotionally but we will strengthen our relationships and enjoy our lives much more and that is my wish for us all.

With lots of Love,
~Shaun