Observation to Preservation
Emotions rise and they pass and if we can just know that whatever we are urged to feel in the moment, will pass, then we have greater awareness to be able to do something about it. Conflict is painful and often ugly and way too reactive and I have witnessed throughout my life what it can do. My dad, God rest his soul, was the master of reactive outbursts and like a dutiful daughter I learnt that way to communicate too. In my early teenage years for example, I kicked hell into the kitchen cupboards if I spilled sugar on the floor by mistake. I always felt bad but at the same time compelled like a battering ram to do whatever “came up”. Anger management was not my strong point !
Past painful memories and unresolved childhood wounds sit like snakebites in our bodies and minds waiting to be triggered so we can look at them and with the help of a partner, can heal and grow beyond them. Our intimate relationship can and will activate those snakebites and is the only relationship that creates the right conditions for this to happen. It is what “is meant” in the grand scheme of this Universal Plan, to help us return to our wholeness and allow the “real us” to show up.
So when you next feel triggered into reactive defensive behavior with your partner or loved one, wait a few moments and sit with what it is they are bringing up for you. Your body will let you know the signs immediately.
Cortisol, a reactive hormone is released in your body during these moments and prepares you for “fight or flight”. The first 20 mins of this cortisol reaction is the time when it is the most risky to express how you feel. You want to fire off a text (or 100 !), you want to chuck nasty words to wound your partner for daring to hurt you with their words, you want to stomp about the house and slam doors, or at worst you want to harm your partner physically.
In perspective, when you feel triggered it is 90% your stuff and only 10% theirs. What is arising for you is yours and no one else’s. You need to own it and more importantly take responsibility for it. You have a choice right in that moment. Reacting is exhausting so, with willpower, choose a different way. I guarantee it will be a better way.
Get into the habit of self-observation. Think “ahh I am being triggered” and be curious about it rather than engaging in the drama of the potential lava flow of emotions. Watch it as it surfaces in your body. Feel the sensations, the anger, sadness or whatever and simply “be” with it until it passes. It will, every time. Blocking it from arising will only create more fear in the long run as you start to live with the fight or flight syndrome and run from it time and again. Your partner’s job IS to push your buttons but in doing so, is helping you ultimately face the unhealed bits of you.
