Last week, three things triggered me really bad, so this newsletter will be about triggers.

Why? Triggers affect our mood and it can take days to restore it.

So, what’s a trigger?

A trigger is a tiny device that activates the gun's firing mechanism, allowing the release of ammunition.

For a trigger to work - there should be ammunition in the gun. Otherwise, nothing happens.

It’s the same with emotional triggers

Yes, we are emotionally triggered only if we hold some sort of ammunition.

This ammunition can be dysfunctional thinking patterns or limiting beliefs about ourselves.

Knowing this, I decided to take some time to analyze what’s the ammunition I hold.

My story:

The trigger: At work, I didn’t pay enough attention to an email, so I failed to prepare well for a filming session and I had to reschedule for the next day - this changed a lot of my plans and got me exhausted.

Something about this situation really triggered me. I felt irritated and disappointed.

The emotional ammunition I hold: I identified a few dysfunctional thinking patterns behind these emotions: I felt disappointed because deep inside I thought I was not professional enough, careless, and I overestimated my skills.

The next step was to understand what I wanted instead: I want to be the type of person who pays attention to details because I deeply care to be highly professional and manage my time well.

The last step is to take action: For the mind to remember this, it’s important to take an action aligned with what you want so the learning from this situation gets imprinted in the mind for longer.

So, I sent a thank you email to my colleagues involved, appreciating their professionalism and patience.

The result:

After this exercise, I felt at peace.

It calmed me down. I got my mojo back.

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Framework to deal with triggers:

So, I want to leave you with the framework I used.

When you are triggered next time - take some time to reflect based on these steps:

Step 1:

Draw an image of a gun, whatever shape or form, just make sure you have 3 parts: the main container that holds 2. the ammunition and 3. the trigger.

For me, it’s important to see it visually in front of my eyes, so I can detach from the triggering situation.

Step 2:

Next, draw a line from the trigger and write down what triggered you.

Step 3:

Draw a line from the ammunition and write down what emotion was/is present inside you.

Behind any uncomfortable emotion, there is a dysfunctional thinking pattern or a limiting belief we hold. Investigate this. This part can be challenging because most of our beliefs are stored in our subconscious mind. If you need help, check out the book Vio and I wrote on the topic.

Step 4:

When you identified it - ask yourself what would you love to happen in that case and why. The "why" you will discover is usually a value of yours.

Step 5:

Take an action aligned with that value. This is important to make your brain remember this.

Bonus step 6:

Appreciate yourself for dealing with triggers consciously and saving your time from emotional drama!

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All the best,

Elena

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