A trigger is any provoking factor, event, or phenomenon that entails a certain reaction.
For example, you were walking down the street and heard swearing between a man and a woman, was this the reason that you remembered the swearing of your parents, which you often heard in childhood?
And because of this trigger in the form of swearing, you began to experience negative emotions: anger, longing, irritation, anger, apathy.
Why do I need to work with triggers?
Because they can often provoke you into impulsive actions with undesirable consequences…
The Mysterious World of Triggers: Why they are so important in psychology
Each of us has experienced a strange, inexplicable feeling at least once in our lives: some seemingly insignificant sound, smell or word caused a storm of emotions in us, disproportionate to the situation. A careless remark from a colleague makes us explode with anger, even though we understand that the reaction is excessive. A familiar melody suddenly engulfs a wave of longing, which makes it difficult to breathe. The smell of a passerby’s perfume causes a feeling of anxiety that does not go away for hours. What’s it? Weakness? Bad mood? Or is it something that works deeper, at the subconscious level, affecting something that we ourselves may not even remember?
These are the triggers. A term that came from psychology and became part of everyday language, but is often used inaccurately and superficially. “A trigger” is not just “something that pisses me off” or “the reason I’m upset.” This is a mechanism that triggers a powerful, often uncontrollable reaction related to past experiences, especially traumatic ones. This is the key that opens the door to old pain, forcing us to relive it over and over again, sometimes without realizing the connection between the past and the present.
Understanding the nature of triggers is not just an interesting psychological theory. This is the key to liberation. Liberation from the power of old wounds that continue to bleed in the present. Freeing ourselves from impulsive reactions that we may regret for years to come. Liberation from the fear that restricts our lives, not allowing us to try new things, build healthy relationships, and be ourselves.
The purpose of this book is to help you understand the complex and often frightening world of triggers. We’ll look at what a trigger is, how it works, and what types of triggers exist. We will see how triggers affect our lives, creating emotional storms, destroying relationships and blocking development. And, most importantly, we will learn how to work with them: to be aware of our triggers, manage our reaction to them, create new associations and, ultimately, gain inner freedom in which triggers cease to be our masters.
What is a trigger and how does it work?
Triggers in our lives
Analyzing the concept: what events, phenomena or signals can become a trigger
The word trigger comes from the English trigger, which means a trigger. In psychology, a trigger is any stimulus that causes a strong, often uncontrollable emotional or behavioral reaction related to past experiences. It’s like a trigger that triggers a chain reaction in the psyche, forcing us to react not to the current situation, but to the one that was a long time ago.
Triggers can be very different. It can be a sound: a door slam, reminiscent of childhood fear, a siren, returning to an accident experienced once. It can be a smell: the smell of a hospital, causing anxiety, the smell of perfume, associated with an ex-partner who caused pain. These can be visual images: a certain color, shape, or photograph. These can be words, phrases, intonations. Even the time of day or the weather can be a trigger.
Triggers as part of a traumatic experience: connection to past experiences
The key feature of a trigger is its connection to past traumatic experiences. Trauma is an event that the psyche could not process at the time of its occurrence. It could have been a serious injury: violence, loss of a loved one, an accident, a catastrophe. Or there could be a microtrauma โ a situation that would have gone unnoticed for one person, but for another, due to his vulnerability at that moment, it became a deep wound.
The psyche, in order to protect itself, packages the traumatic experience, but does not process it to the end. And the trigger becomes the key that opens this package. When a trigger is triggered, we don’t just remember the pastโwe relive it. Our body reacts as if the danger were here and now, although outwardly the situation may be completely safe.
Examples of the manifestation of triggers in everyday life
Imagine a person who, as a child, often witnessed parents quarreling when they shouted loudly at each other. Years have passed, he has grown up, lives separately, there are no conflicts in his life. But one day, when he hears the neighbors shouting behind the wall, he feels his heart start pounding, his breath catches, and panic sets in. He understands that this is not his conflict, but his body reacts as if it is in danger.
Another example: a man suffered humiliation at school when he was ridiculed in front of the whole class for giving an incorrect answer. Years later, he is afraid to answer in meetings, even if he knows the topic well. The trigger is the situation when people pay attention to him, when he needs to speak out publicly.
The smell of certain perfumes can bring you back to the violence you experienced. The tone of the voice is a childish fear of punishment. The silence in the house leads to a feeling of abandonment experienced in early childhood. Triggers can be so individual and unobvious to others that the person they trigger may not understand what’s going on.