If you react…. or not?
In a nutshell, if you react it means you were triggered. Nothing more, nothing less.
If you don’t react overtly, the same applies. You were triggered.
Neither makes you a bad person.
It just means you have some unresolved issues, like the rest of the world, and you’re reacting from that place, not from a calm level-headed place.
Any reaction is coming from an emotional place. Reactions come from emotions, not thoughts. See part 1 of this series for a review about that. Click here.
Triggers are Knee-Jerk Reactions
It’s called REacting for a reason. It’s reenacting the original emotion when the trigger first occurred. Every time there’s a trigger, you are acting the same way as the first time – re-acting over and over.
Triggers are a knee-jerk reaction. We often don’t know that we’re experiencing them so we just bam! React. The reaction can range from small to big depending on the person and situation.
For example, someone calls you a name, your first impulse is to name call back. That’s a knee jerk reaction. You reacted, coming from an emotional place.
There was no stopping to examine it and wonder, “Hey, maybe I shouldn’t say that because I’m really hurt about….”
No, most of us don’t do that.
We’re in reaction mode, hence the trigger.
Like pulling the trigger on the gun is igniting the action, someone’s verbal abuse ignites an emotional reaction in us. We pull the trigger or fire off a retort.
It all happened so fast that we didn’t even see it!
It’s like when you see a gun fired on TV. It happens so fast that you don’t even see the bullet!
You just see the damage that was done.
The same with us.
Someone says something mean, it ignites something in us as the explosion in the gun activates the gun powder. It’s so split second that we don’t see it. We don’t realize we’re doing it. It’s an automatic comeback.
Until we are able to hit the pause button or take a moment to reflect that we’re being activated, we will keep hitting the play button or rather reacting. Click here to read about hitting the pause button.
That’s how it works.
The best way to break the cycle is ahead of time because doing it in the moment often doesn’t work out so well because we are unknowingly caught up in our emotions. That’s why we keep doing it.
Take a Moment
Let’s recap for a moment. When we react, we are being ignited by something in the past. An old wound. Click here to read more about that.
Once we identify what the wound is, we can work on letting it go and healing it. Before that, all we have is awareness and mindfulness. Mindfulness is a wonderful thing because it forces us to see that we’re about to react and allows us to pause and pump the brakes.
That generally works better once we’ve healed or dealt with the wound causing it in the first place. Forcing yourself not to fire off some snarky remark when you’re mad is not easy for most of us.
Some people are able to control their emotions better than others, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ve healed the wound that’s causing the reaction that they’re covering up. It just means that they are better able to compartmentalize or stuff emotions.
Some people are truly able to let it go and not react. More on that later.
If you do react, let yourself off the hook, you’re still learning. Once you get that piece of information – what your trigger is – or the awareness that you’re triggered and about to fire off a rude comment – you struck gold! Now you can let it go, thus breaking the cycle.
You Can’t Know What You Don’t Know
We can’t let go of what we didn’t know we had.
We can’t stop doing what we didn’t know we were doing.
If all else fails, then remember that you don’t want to go there. Take a breath. Push the pause button for your mouth.
While you might be abusive too you are not aware of it. If you’re not aware of it, you can’t fix it. You can’t know what you don’t know. Then forgive yourself for reacting. You didn’t know you were doing it! That doesn’t make it right, that explains it.
Forgive yourself for acting like this. You were unaware that you were hurt. You were also unaware that your reaction was rude. Even if you felt you were standing up for yourself. If it was done rudely, it was rude.
Forgiving yourself is part of healing that old wound. It’s not letting yourself off the hook that you did wrong. It’s letting yourself off the hook because you didn’t know you did wrong. See the difference?
How can you know what you don’t know?
You don’t. But now you do. Now you can correct it going forward.
Bottom line, when you react from negative emotion you aren’t a bad person. It means you are a person like most of us with unresolved old wounds that get triggered once in a while.
For Those that Overtly Don’t React
If you don’t react rudely verbally, but you do in your head, that’s really no better. Complaining to someone else about it later is also no better. You aren’t verbalizing it to the other person so at least you’re not hurting them. But just thinking about hurting them is felt on the cosmic level. And you feel it. On some level you may feel bad about it. That means it’s not healed. You were still triggered, you just didn’t say anything out loud.
Not reacting at all, even in your head, could mean a lot of things. One reason could be that you have moved on. You’ve cleaned up your side of the street. You’ve healed most of your old wounds and learned to respond vs react from an emotional place. This is where we want to be, but for most of us it takes time to get there.
Or it could mean that responding to an abusive person even with a boundary will have no or worse effect. So, the best strategy is to keep quiet. You’ve learned to ignore it. Not because it’s right, not because you’ve accepted it. But because you feel it’s your best option. That doesn’t mean you’re not triggered, it means that you know reacting could be harmful to you. So, for your mental and emotional safety you choose not to react.
Being a Doormat
It doesn’t mean that you are a doormat.
The common belief is that a doormat is a meek mouse that has no backbone and can’t stand up for themselves. Unless a person has mastered the art of boundaries, standing up can spectacularly backfire. If that is you, then learn how to draw firm boundaries. That’s the opposite of a doormat.
Doormats need to be forgiven too. By themselves. Being a doormat isn’t bad; it’s just one way to deal with verbal abuse. It could be an inherent reaction based on personality type or a learned behavior. The danger in this strategy is that it often allows the abuse to continue because silence is often seen as a green light rather than a deterrent. The abuser can subconsciously believe the victim is accepting their behavior, therefore allowing them to continue.
They have no way to know it’s not.
That doesn’t make it right. It’s just an explanation of how it looks.
What it does say is that you’re probably not reacting out of self-preservation and possibly lack the knowledge how to set boundaries. They range from strong: “I will not tolerate you speaking with me like that,” to direct: “It’s not ok to talk to me like that,” to softer: “I’d appreciate you not speaking with me like that.” Pick what feels right to you and the situation.
Engage Your Superpower
Another way to tackle this is introspection. Put your biggest tool to use, your intuition, your superpower. Ask your intuition, your Higher Self, your inner knowing, “What do I need to know right now for my highest good?”
That allows any information to come through. You may not get the specific information of what your trigger is, but rather the bigger picture – that you’re being triggered. Just having that piece of information is huge. Like I said, you can’t know what you don’t know!
Once you know that you’re being triggered, now you can start the process of letting go. Before you can let go of something, you need to know there’s something let go of!
First you need to know that you’re reacting when you act a certain way. Your reaction is considered a form of abuse too. It may be milder than what was dished out to you. It may be totally unintentional, but the end result is the same – it’s some form of abuse.
Reactions come from a trigger which stimulate negative emotions which lead to negative retorts.
When you respond rudely back to someone not only are you also being abusive, you are reacting from an old wound in an emotional way. More than likely, you are unaware of it, or you wouldn’t do it. Ask your intuition for insight on the matter. Your intuition won’t steer you wrong and will give you the information that you need to hear so that you can heal and stop reacting. Give it a try! It always works for me.
Are you unsure if you have triggers? Do you question why you react? What do you do about it? Ask your intuition! It will guide you. It won’t steer you wrong!
If you want to learn how to listen to your intuition, how to talk to it and how to trust it by CLICKING
HERE.
Once you start listening to your intuition, you’ll be amazed how much your life clicks into place. Then you can truly start enjoying yourself. CLICK HERE to find out more!
