Lisa McDonald

Empowering Women And Men To Get Unstuck, Walk Their Own Path, And Have A Great Life

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02/10/2018 by Lisa McDonald

How Your Emotional Triggers Keep You Stuck

How Your Emotional Triggers Keep You Stuck

We all have emotional triggers where people, words, opinions, circumstances, or environmental situations hit a ‘raw nerve’ inside us.  It’s like someone pulled the rug out from under our feet, and it can make us feel sick in the pit of our stomach.  It provokes an intense and excessive emotional reaction within us.  Then, seconds later, there is a response.  For some there’s an outwardly noticeable response, while for others it’s an internally contained buried response.

Why do we get triggered?  What happens when we become emotionally triggered?  Why is it important to identify our emotional triggers?  How do they keep us stuck? Read on to find out.

How You Become Emotionally Triggered

The Situation

Virtually anything can be an emotional trigger.  You could be on your own or with a partner, family member, friend, colleague or other.  The trigger could start with a tone of voice, a type of person, a particular viewpoint, a single word, anything.

In any case, it arises when a situation occurs in the present which hits that ‘raw nerve’ – awakening the memory of a past experience.  It’s a source of emotional pain to us , because it is connected to a perceived inadequacy we have about ourselves.

The Reaction

These past memories bring up an emotional reaction, a feeling that ‘it’s happening again’ or ‘he’s doing it again’.  By reminding us of our past pain, it creates an associated emotional reaction within us.  Emotions commonly triggered include anger, rage, sadness, insecurity, rejection and fear.
Emotional triggers cause us to react, which we experience through the following ways:
  1. Body: Experiencing a fight, flight-or-freeze stress response (‘deer in the headlights’).  The body has a number of responses to this, some of which include changes such as:
    * Breathing – Shallow breathing, choking feeling or difficulty with breathing
    * Heart- rapid heartbeat, palpitations and chest pain.
    *  Stomach – churning and sick feeling in the stomach; nausea
    * Temperature changes – hot flushes; chills;
    * Other trembling – dizziness or faintness or sweating
    * Can also be a feeling of detachment/unreality (known as dissociation);
  2. Emotions: Experiencing intense feelings such as hatred, disgust, anger, fear, terror, or grief
  3. Mind:  Thoughts of woundedness,  a victim, deflecting by blaming and judging others.
  4. Actions:  Self-protective behaviour such as shutting down/withdrawing inside, shouting, arguing, insulting, belittling, defaming, sabotaging, assaulting, and even murdering or otherwise emotionally reacting.
  5. Results

The Response

Triggered responses can vary depending on the situation and person.  Some of the common responses include yelling, arguing or insulting. The person could respond by crying, shutting down/withdrawing or leaving.  They might become a people pleaser, become needy, or blaming.  Or, they may respond by turning to an addiction – such as food, drugs, alcohol, sex, porn, shopping, work gambling and so on.  Or any other behaviour which helps us to escape the pain.

Reasons For Emotional Triggers

Ultimately our emotional triggers come from our past experiences,  memories and emotions.  They are based on our perception of not having one or more of our deepest needs or desires met.  It may be an unmet need in the past, in the present or in the future.

Additional Causes:

  1. Traumatic experiences.  When a person has had a past traumatic experience (eg war, rape or violent attack), they can re-experience that event.  Just seeing, hearing, tasting, touching or smell something that reminds them of the previous trauma, can cause them to re-experience it.  The reaction is often extreme fear and panic (or in some cases, anger).
  2. Opposing beliefs and values.  They reflect what we hold as true and important in life.  They help us to feel safe and comfortable.   When we strongly identify with our beliefs and values, we may find it difficult to be tolerant when people disagree or challenge them.  Reason being that they are calling into question, the truth and legitimacy of what we hold dear
  3. Identity.  Our sense of self is composed of thoughts, memories, cultural values, assumptions and belief structures.   Its primary purpose is to protect us from facing what we fear most  – death of the self (as we know it).  It does this through developing elaborate “self-protection” mechanisms in the form of beliefs, ideals, desires, habits, and addictions.  Threats or challenges to our identity are likely to trigger emotions immediately.

The Importance of Identifying Emotional Triggers

If you want to create different results in your life, then it’s important that you consciously identify your emotional triggers. Otherwise, you’ll be constantly manipulated by your emotions. Furthermore, this underlying tension can drain your energy, trip you up, and strain relationships.  Alongside that, if you don’t address these emotional triggers, you will continue to repeat the same patterns.  You will continue to find yourself:

  • in triggering situations,
  • feeling the emotional reactions,
  • behaving in response
  • having the same results

Emotional triggers can interfere with your ability  to clarify your direction, make decisions and take action.   They disempower you and sabotage your success, blocking you as you try to make progress. Consequently, they affect your ability to achieve what’s important in your life.

If you are not achieving the results you want, then sit down and reflect.  Look for the patterns which are holding you back.  Similarly, consider how are those patterns being triggered?  Next, commit to getting them sorted out.  If you can’t identify or resolve the patterns and triggers yourself, or simply want to do it in a faster and more effective way, then I encourage you to seek out assistance.

Time to breakthrough your emotional triggers so you can achieve different results?  If so, it’s time to take action.  I have a proven step by step process for assisting people who are ready to breakthrough their emotionally triggered  patterns.   Simply click here to book a chat to find out how I can best assist you.

Ultimately, it’s up to you to create the life you desire – take at least one action step today towards achieving your important goals.

 

Warm regards

Lisa

 

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19/10/2017 by Lisa McDonald

Courage Is The Key To Life and Other Success Tips

 

Courage Is The Key To Life

Hi There,

Today’s ‘quote “Courage Is The Key To Life” comes from American actor, producer and narrrator Morgan Freeman.  It comes from a short interview video. 

Today’s blog includes some interesting facts about Morgan Freeman and his “10 Success Tips”.

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Morgan Freeman first credited appearance was in 1971.  Since then he has [Read more…]

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11/10/2017 by Lisa McDonald

Is Pigeon Thinking Blocking Your Success?

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I was sitting in a museum garden the other day and there were a few grey pigeons under foot.  My son pointed at it excitedly saying “bird … bird”!  In his eyes he saw this amazing living creature moving around and was excited to see it was up close.  I nodded eagerly in agreement with him, wanting to encourage his enthusiasm for life.  It got me thinking about how pigeon thinking creates success blocks, keeping us stuck and preventing progress towards our goals … [Read more…]

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25/08/2017 by Lisa McDonald

3 Blocks That Sabotage Your Success And What To Do About It

 

We all know that goal success does not come easy, especially if it’s a big goal.  It takes more than just writing out a clear goal on a piece of paper.  Instead, we have to work our way towards our goals.  Along the way there are a variety of things that block and hinder success.  Today’s blog outlines three blockages which can sabotage success and five powerful ways I’ve found to overcome them.

Self Sabotage

How many times do you find yourself asking? “Why did I do that?” or Why did I say that?” You know you should have shown up for that job interview, it was your dream job, the job that you have been looking forward to for some time.  Or you should have put your foot down and said no to that slice of chocolate cake as you were on a low carb diet, but you didn’t.  You know and are aware of what you should have done, but you didn’t do it and defied all logic and reason. But for some reason, you end up sabotaging yourself and doing the opposite.  Why?

Self-sabotage is the process of going out of your way to prevent yourself from achieving your desired goal due to fear, lack of self-confidence, [Read more…]

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