Ugh.  Ouch.  Poke. Poke.  You feel it? Yep it’s that prickly feeling you get when you know you’ve been triggered.  You know the one you get when your partner makes that same comment.  Or when you host your family for the holidays.  Or your coworker does that same thing again.  Or your child ignores you for the 50^th time (that’s not just me huh?)  It can lead to upset, crying, anger, frustration; a range of emotions are available.  What’s even worse is dealing with repeatedly feeling triggered by the same person or the same thing.  Something is up here, but what is it?  

What if I told you what was up was you? As human beings we are closed systems; what that means is when our nervous system receives a message from something in the environment, our nervous system informs us how to respond.  What triggers us won’t trigger the next person, and what triggers the next person, won’t trigger the next.  It’s because we each have our own closed system with our own unique experiences and history.  These experiences come to live in us as part of the biology of who we are. The implication of this is important… It is not the other person who triggers us; what triggers us lives within us.  

There are a few other things at work here.  We as human beings are “walking interpretations” and we carry with us a whole host of historical and cultural experiences and beliefs.  These experiences have us make meaning of the things we see and hear…constantly.  We are “meaning making machines.”  These are the thoughts running through our head about the trigger.  

Further, we listen and act through our own moods and emotions.  So what we hear will be interpreted through a good or bad mood and how we respond behaviorally will be influenced by these moods and emotions.  

This is good news and bad news.  The bad news is this realization has you understand that you cannot blame anyone for doing this to you; it’s not like cause and effect.  No one triggered you; you triggered yourself.  On the other hand, this realization gives you great personal power as you know you have control over yourself and the versatility and ability to change yourself.  I will add, this does not absolve us from being sensitive to others; we can’t go around provoking people and then be absolved from responsibility by saying they triggered themselves.