How to Stop and Heal Emotional Triggers

Do you have emotional triggers?

Anytime you experience strong emotional reactions to situations; an emotional trigger has set you off. Emotional triggers are stored in your body and are subconsciously activated time and time again. The stronger the emotional response you have to situations, the more easily you can be triggered when similar situations reoccur.

Removing detrimental triggers can be a difficult process as they become a part of who you are – a part of your personality that can restrict your personal growth. I spent my life removing many emotional triggers as I endured physical, emotional and physical abuse in my childhood. I explain the methods on how to reverse and undo the damage in my book “Freeing the Unloved Girl”

Triggers are a survival response

Emotional triggering is a survival response. Your brain creates powerful associations between the things that hurt you and the intimate details of what occurred. Emotional triggers don’t have to be from childhood; however, you are most vulnerable and impacted in that period of your life. Every day, you are responding to stimuli and triggers from your past that you may not realise.

For example, if a person commented, “I love Christmas!”  this would indicate they inevitably experienced a happy Christmas in their childhood. Compare that to someone who says they hate Christmas or don’t want to celebrate it – this would indicate there were sad or painful memories associated with Christmas from their past.

You Become Emotionally Addicted to Your Problems

Dr. Candace Pert Ph.D., author of Molecules of Emotion, Everything You Need to Know to Feel Go(o)d and biologist/contributor on What the Bleep Do We Know, discovered that thoughts transform into molecules the moment you think them.

Pert explains that emotions are not merely chemicals in the brain. They are electrochemical signals that affect the chemistry and electricity of every single cell in the body. The body’s electrical state is modulated by emotions, changing the world within the body, which confirms that emotional states affect the world outside of the body.

Her research shows that thinking activates the hypothalamus (a “control center” near the base of the brain) that transforms thought into millions of neuropeptides (amino acids) which represent the dominant emotion associated with that thought. The thought becomes a molecular messenger of emotion then floods the bloodstream with these neuropeptides.

The neuropeptides insert themselves into the cells and interlock with a particular receptacle (custom made for it) on the cell’s membrane. The amino acids are absorbed by the cells and the more times this pathway is created, the more the cells crave the neuropeptides, and instruct the hypothalamus to produce them.

It’s the same as a drug addict; the more these receptacles are used, the less effective they become. The body then produces more “problem receptacles” for the damaged and worn out ones. It then requires more neuropeptides to be produced for your triggers to be “fed.”

Like drugs, it becomes a vicious cycle getting off the merry-go-round to stop the addiction. Your body is craving the feelings you had in childhood of the same traumas and patterns.

How you are triggered by your five senses

1. Sight; when you see something that reminds you of a person or situation from your past, it activates the same feelings you would have felt when you were previously around them or in that situation.
2. Taste; the foods you eat are also stored with memories of your feelings, so they activate when you eat the same foods. This can cause ‘unexplained’ allergies to some foods.
3. Smell; Perfumes, foods, odours all store memories and are activated when you smell them again
4. Hearing; Tone of voice, accents, music, writing on a chalkboard etc. are all examples of sounds that can enable your triggers when you hear them again.
5. Feelings; Places and people are “energy” and thus, cause you to feel a certain way. These feelings are triggered when you encounter the same places or similar or same people from your past.

Past Life Triggers

When I was touring in the UK, visiting the old castles, I felt terrible! I experienced sorrow, darkness, and depression and could not run fast enough to get to the exit gates!  My business manager visited the same places, and he felt powerful energy and had a positive experience. I surmised that in a past life, he must have been a person of authority putting people like me in the dungeons!

Frozen in Time

The most obvious triggers are photos as they are memories, frozen in time that can be activated the moment you look at them. Perhaps a family home you revisit will trigger many memories, even the toys from childhood will hold the memory of how you felt when you owned them. Not all triggers result in negative responses, but many of these situations can ignite a gamut of unresolved emotions. These can cause you to over-react in ways you would not normally.

Triggers from my own past

In hindsight, for many years I was triggered continually without being aware of it. I recall in my 30’s, the moment I read my primary school reports, it instantly triggered feelings of sadness and distress. When I was trying to find the truth of what happened to me as a child, I revisited my family home which triggered feelings of overwhelming fear. Still today, certain situations and family members affect me. However, the happier I am, the less effect they have as I move on to better things.

Truth sets you free

Overcoming a traumatic past can be facilitated when there is an acknowledgment of the wrongdoing. This is not always a possible scenario, so I have listed some steps to help you move forward from the people and situations that trigger you.