Getting Triggered Is the Gold: A Somatic Therapist on Nervous System Healing

One Conscious Breath: Issue 08

When we are triggered, something inside us breaks open. Not breaks down. Breaks open. The question is not how to avoid this from happening. It's whether we are courageously willing to turn toward it. And enter the opening.

Close-up view of a tranquil meditation space with soft lighting

One Conscious Breath ~ Before We Begin

I invite you to take one conscious breath. Feel the cool air as it enters your nostrils. Follow it as deeply as it goes. Now pause. And then exhale ~ out through your mouth. Slowly. Fully. Elongate the release as far as you can. And as you exhale, feel your shoulders drop. Feel your cheeks soften. Wiggle your fingers. Wiggle your toes. Feel your feet firmly on the ground. In this exact moment, for this one conscious breath, feel that you are safe. In your body. Right here. Right now.

Taking one conscious breath and orienting ourselves back into safety within, in the present moment, allows us to feel, really feel, what present moment safety feels like in our bodies. One conscious breath at a time. And from this place of safety, one breath at a time, allows us to engage with whatever comes next from a more resourced place within. The more grounded you are as you read this, the more your nervous system will be anchored in the present now rather than the historic then. And the more open you will be to receive what your body is signaling to you.

So, one more conscious breath.

And when you're ready ~ let's begin.

In Issues 06 and 07, we explored triggers as signals and emotions as energy in motion. We learned that triggers are what activates an emotion within us. And emotions are energy in motion ~ purely physiological sensations that tell us something is happening in us and then move through us to release.

With more clarity around triggers and emotions, let’s explore what happens inside us the moment a trigger pierces our defenses, awakening an emotional response.

Because this piercing and emotional activation is where the deepest healing and reclamation work begins.

When a trigger pierces us, it makes us feel. Perhaps fear. Or anger. Even excitement. And love. And if feeling was once a threat to us, an internal rupture will inherently follow. A chasm within, so grand, we lose access to the reasoning part of our brain and our capacity to be in the present moment. And not only does it keep us from feeling what we don’t want to feel, it also keeps us from feeling what we do want to feel.

Remember, a trigger doesn’t pierce us randomly. It pierces us precisely. It touches an emotion within a younger part of us. An emotion that was once too big to feel, with the limited resources we had then, when it originally occurred. And so, in service of our survival, this emotion was repressed, never fully felt. Yet this repression comes at a cost when we grow up and have more resources. An emotion that doesn’t get adaptively released, will continue to get triggered, over and over again, until we are willing to feel it.

Getting triggered doesn’t mean something is wrong with us. We get triggered because emotions are not meant to be repressed or stuck in our bodies. They are meant to be witnessed. And the trigger is telling us something within is finally ready to be felt and released. And when we feel emotions and release them in the moment they happen, they don’t get stuck in our bodies to be constantly triggered.

And here is why I love triggers: they are an accelerated way to gain access to this younger version of ourselves.

Only what we feel, can we heal. And what was too unbearable to feel when we were younger, is absolutely bearable in our fully resourced, present-day self. So, however painful triggers may appear to be on the surface, they are what leads us all the way back to the opening where a stored memory and its feeling can finally be felt and released.

This emotional activation and its release allows us to reclaim access to our wholly intact core self and our hearts.

”The wound is the place where the light enters you.” — Rumi

Remember: the light that enters doesn't simply illuminate the wound. It activates it ~ to access what has always been underneath, wholly intact, waiting patiently for our return: our core self, our heart.

When we’re disconnected from our core self, we may be performing, sometimes even excelling in our lives, while not inhabiting our present-day, adult self. Not fully connected to our bodies nor our hearts. We tend to burn out more frequently, have fractured relationships and feel a disconnection.

This is what an internal rupture looks like from the inside. Sometimes it may feel dramatic. Other times it may be more quiet. A semblance of disconnection we’ve normalized so completely we’ve stopped even noticing it.

A trigger reminds us where we still need healing. It offers us access to the wound that lies dormant within us. Re-activated so we can feel it. So we can heal it. Finally release it. And once the wound is released, we ultimately get triggered less often. We have fuller access to our wholly resourced, intact core self. And our hearts.

And here is what I need you to feel into, not just read:

Every external rupture ~ every fight, every shutdown, every misunderstanding that calcifies into distance ~ begins here. With a disconnection from our own core self first. A disconnection from our hearts. This isn’t a conscious choice. The nervous system senses a threat and disconnects us from our core self. It disconnects us from our capacity to stay present, curious, accountable, in love. And a younger, less-resourced version steps in to do the only thing it knew how to do:

Protect. Defend. Disappear. Grasp. Control.

These protections are not fatal flaws. They are survival strategies. Brilliant when we were little. Absolutely outdated, and potentially destructive, in our present-day selves.

And these strategies will keep repeating, below our level of awareness, until we open to the trigger. Until we turn toward the activation and begin to repair it.

This is the work.

It’s the trigger that offers the opening that creates the space for the deepest repair and reclamation to happen. This is the brilliant gift offered by a trigger. And it is gold.

A Practice for This Week

Take one conscious breath. And then another. Take as many as you need to access your fully resourced, present-day self. The self this younger part always needed to help it feel safe. You can offer it now. It deserves your fully resourced attention and compassion. The younger part that re-experiences the wound that still lives within and needs repair.

Waiting for the remembrance. The release. And ultimately, the reclamation.

The next time you feel triggered, notice if a survival strategy follows: the impulse to defend or disappear or grasp or control.

Take one conscious breath. Elongate your exhale. Drop your shoulders. Feel your feet on the ground.

And ask, turning to your body for the answer:

Is this response necessary and helpful in this present moment?

If you’re feeling guarded or constricted, fired up or shut down, the answer is most definitely, no. This is not something to feel shame around. This is a necessary signal. A reminder to pause. Turn inward. Take one conscious breath, open and meet the emotion and wound within from your fully resourced, present-day self. To repair the rupture that happened within you before looking outward.

To return to who you are now. Capable of being with emotions as they arise in your body. And releasing what was never safe to release.

That was then.

And living, less triggered, more wholly in your present-day self.

This is now.

Return to the relationship that makes all other relationships possible ~ the longest relationship of your life, the one with your own core self. With your own heart.

It is always, always just one conscious breath away.

With love,

Jody

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