Integritus Prime

Over the last several months, I’ve been working with my therapist on how to manage my emotional triggers. What I learned has changed me – it has made me less reactive and more free. I wrote a book about it, because I realized how important this inner work is for all of us. In this post, I want to share four ways our new book, called Triggers: From Painful Patterns to Personal Power, supports healing our triggers.

Here are the four ways you can empower yourself:

1. Identify triggers – start noticing when your reaction is way bigger than what caused it. Make notes about how you felt. What were the big emotions that came up, and how quickly did they take over? See if you can pinpoint what triggered you, what you felt, and how you reacted.
2. Identify patterns – notice if your triggers are similar to anyone else’s in your family. Often, we absorb emotions and reactivity from the environment in which we were raised, and that includes our parents and caregivers.
3. Identify impacts – see if you can honestly look at the impacts of your triggers on you, and on those you lash out at – this isn’t easy but it’s necessary. You may realize that triggers and the patterns in which they occur wield a lot of power in your life. You may feel powerless to stop yourself from being triggered. Notice this.
4. Map out the triggers – once you notice patterns, you can use tools to map out your triggers. This is the beginning of your empowerment. By looking at your triggers, you can start to detach from them, and get curious about how to heal them.

In my book, I give you my experience in full: how I identified my triggers, the harmful emotional patterns in my family, and impacts on me and others. I share tools I developed with my therapist to cope and heal. I can say that this is life-changing work, and most importantly, don’t get the book and don’t read it, unless you have support from a qualified person. This is heavy stuff. You’ll need help. And, you will emerge from this process victorious, if you see it through with support and self-love.

Having done this deep work, I can attest to the peace and detachment I feel now, which I’ve always wanted.