The concept of “being triggered” is widely known. People use the word trigger often.

But it is misunderstood and rarely used for its potential.

Many people rely on the concept of “being triggered” as a crutch. They use it in a way that supports their ongoing victim mentality.

It’s commonly used as a blaming mechanism. It points the finger at someone or something else, all while giving themselves permission to feel hurt, discomfort, anger, hatred, sadness, resentment, and/or self-pity. And it is always justified in their mind.

When someone or something triggers us, we label it as “bad”. For most people, there is no other way.

Because we label it as “bad”, we either avoid it, fight with it, or let it get us down.

But we rarely point that finger back at ourselves. Because of this, we never learn nor grow from it. As a result, our triggers never go away. And these triggers end up controlling us more than we can control ourselves.

Unfortunately, human beings have a tendency to be overly self-critical in areas that are completely unwarranted. But these same people have a tendency to either deny or remain unaware of qualities about themselves that require some level of criticism. Furthermore, they are quick to react when someone else mirrors those specific qualities back at them. However, instead of being humble enough to admit it (or aware enough to realize it), they choose to blame this other person for a negative emotional experience that they – in actuality – ongoingly create for themselves. In doing so, they take any power and control that they have and they give it to an external source.

If someone were to tell them this, they would react defensively. They might even begin to argue why XYZ is a particular trigger for them. Their explanation will mostly likely tie into some experience from their past. Their explanation will mostly likely have a victimization theme to it; thus reinforcing the cycle that they are still playing out years later.

So we can apparently be mean to ourselves, so as long as we do so in a way that is not fair to ourselves. And we silently give ourselves permission to maintain qualities that hurt both ourselves and others. However, we hold intense anger toward those who do exactly the same; especially if their shortcomings reflect our own.

And somehow, in the mist of all of this, everyone thinks they are right.

The ultimate superpower is the ability to maintain a sense of inner peace; despite what is happening around you. This is the only way to truly have power and control.

And even though it continuously proves to be unsuccessful, we tend to only see the opposite phenomenon occurring; in which people relentlessly try to control their external world, but they have little to no control over their internal world.

This only leads to frustration and dissatisfaction.

We waste our energy trying to control the things around us, and we create drama in our lives solely due to this unrealistic expectation that we have. But we fail to control our own emotions. We let other people do that for us. We just say we “can’t help it”.

As a result, we never raise our vibrational frequency. As a result, we see no desired change.

How can we possibly maintain a sense of inner peace if we are too busy “being triggered” all of the time?

Many people talk a good game but they are, in actuality, unwilling to give up all that is familiar to them (complaining, gossiping, anger, resentment, blaming, self-pity, etc.). They have been doing it their entire life – they grew up watching the adults around them do it – therefore it has become natural for them. It feels familiar. To them, the other way around is too boring, uncomfortable, or just plain “unrealistic”.

But nothing will change how we want it to until we perceive our natural tendencies as unnatural; purely on the basis of negative habit formation. Monkey see monkey do.

And why is a trigger even labeled as “bad” anyway? When did that start and why did everyone mindlessly decide to follow suit? All this does is perpetuate the hatred we have toward ourselves and others all while blocking our ability to raise our level of consciousness; thus preventing positive change from entering our lives. All this does is reinforce the misconception that we are all separate from one another. Which, in turn, creates a competitive atmosphere as if we are all against each other.

This is not how it works.

We were taught wrong.

Shadow work in itself is not easy because it’s not always so obvious to us what it is that we need to work on. A trigger is helpful to us because it sheds light onto something within us that requires our attention; something that we might not have been previously aware of.

The moment we feel triggered – instead of reacting automatically – we should pause and take a step back from the external situation before us. And instead of allowing it to ignite those all too natural and familiar feelings (hurt, discomfort, anger, hatred, sadness, resentment, and self-pity), we should instead utilize this time to engage in introspection.

This is when we start to question things. This is when we learn more about ourselves. This is when we begin to heal. This is when we decide who or what has control over our own emotional state of being. And, eventually, this is when our so-called “triggers” become nothing but a distant memory when you look back one day on how much you and your life have changed for the better.

There is just so much to say. I will continue later. Thank you for reading.