How to deal with your triggers in 7 steps and heal yourself

You probably experience a range of emotions on a daily basis at work — joy, excitement, frustration, anger, peace, sadness, disappointment.

These usually relate to certain events, such as feeling nervous about delivering a presentation, feeling frustrated after a meeting with your boss didn’t go well, or feeling relieved that you've completed a project before the deadline.

Your response to these events can vary based on your thoughts at that moment and perhaps also circumstances surrounding the situation.

Whether it’s triggering a bad memory, experience or event, you can react badly instead of respond.

It can escalate to become an emotional rollercoaster.

This usually forms a pattern.
Your triggers might remind you of feeling rejected, abandoned, unwanted, unloved, not good enough.

However you might not always be aware of this.
So you brush it under the carpet and avoid difficult situations.

Triggers are love but have a funny way of showing it.
They will keep coming back in different forms, circumstances and situations.
Having awareness and understanding about what your triggers are is the first step to begin dealing with and healing from them.

You can do this by:

- Stepping back so you can have space to breathe and calm down
- Paying attention to what’s happening in your body - check your breathing and your heart rates, notice any tension in your body - maybe your jaw or shoulders, check if there’s a knot in your belly.
- Being curious instead of judging - can you see your reaction objectively rather than subjectively, can you see the situation from an outsider’s perspective - this way you can see more clearly about what happened. It may well be it’s about the other person’s reaction to themselves that has been projected to you.
- Tracing to the source - what memory triggered you? Acknowledge that you did your best then.
- Accepting the past cannot be changed and you’re no longer there. That is the beauty of it and this is now and you have a choice and power to behave differently.
- Changing your narratives - create a new story that’s more positive and life-enhancing. This helps create a new neural pathway in your brain.
- Committing to your healing work - keep practising this, and you’ll get less triggered and when you do, you will work through it quicker. Find a trauma-informed and somatic based practitioner whom you can feel safe with to open up and who can guide you to feel your emotions and connect with your body.

I will share more and deeper in the live Masterclass that I’m holding on 29th March 2023 at 6pm UK, it’s free to join.

Just click on the button below.

Let me know if this is helpful.

Claryn Nicholas is a Certified Women’s Coach, Registered Nurse, Health Visitor, Nurse Teacher and Yoga Teacher and trained in Compassionate Inquiry, a psychotherapeutic approach in trauma healing — with Dr Gabor Maté.

She currently works with clients on 1:1 basis online for healing and coaching. She also teaches Yin and Restorative Yoga classes in local studios as well as works part-time as a health visitor.

Her passion includes travel, photography, personal development, healing, self-leadership and embodiment practice.