What Are Emotional Triggers?

An emotional trigger is any event that causes you to overreact emotionally in situations and to the people involved. When this happens you feel overcome and overwhelmed by emotions that are buried pain from your past. When these emotions come up, you will often react and speak unconsciously as if you are in your past experiences and not necessarily to what is happening in the present moment.

When you are unconscious, you are not aware to who you are right in this moment. You are literally taken back in time to when you were originally hurt, abused, traumatized, etc. You are not responding to the actual situation. You are reacting to it regardless of the consequences of your behavior because your decision about how to act is coming from this deep pain place that has been so buried within you. These emotional triggers come up because there is something within you that is calling you to heal. The call is coming from your spirit. Spirit uses the language of feelings to communicate with you and lets you know you have consciously or unconsciously held onto hurt from your past.  Thus, the hurt is surfacing in order for you to see it, feel it and release it.

For example, I had been emotionally triggered by a situation with an ex-boyfriend. I had learned he started dating someone after we broke up and I believed in the moment that she was more than a “friend” of his while we were dating. This immediately took me back in time to when I found out my first love cheated on me with another woman.  I was triggered and felt the overwhelming feelings of anger, rejection, jealousy, possessiveness, and betrayal. To be more specific, I had been emotionally triggered when I believed a man I loved and trusted has lied to me and cheated. It didn’t matter to my ego mind that our relationship was over or that I was the one who chose to end the relationship or that I didn’t know the facts and I was assuming all of the details. I was emotionally triggered which means that the emotions I was feeling in the moment were from old wounds and they were overwhelming.  The emotional trigger presented itself so I could go within to further dig up/out the wounds from my past and feel the feelings I had buried including the grief of an ended relationship.

I share my experience with you in order to help you understand how emotional triggers work. Because I am a trained healer I am able to peel some of my layers and assist clients to do the same. Is it necessary for you to understand the history behind your triggers? No but it is helpful for you to understand you and your journey. It is also advantageous for you to be able to make the distinctions between then (what happened to you) and now (what is really happening around you). What is necessary is that you feel the feelings you have tucked deep inside of you so you may heal. And the more you feel your feelings and heal the less intense those emotional triggers are until they diminish.

You are so loved so love yourself just as much!!!