When something happens in our life that triggers us, we usually try to keep from feeling the feelings that arose from the trigger. To avoid these feelings, we may medicate ourselves by using alcohol, shopping, TV, working, or exercising, slamming the person who triggered us to friends or reacting or projecting onto someone else. This type of behavior is to get ground under our feet. When we are triggered we get knocked off our center. The problem is how we try to get centered by medicating just doesn’t work.
There are inevitable truths that all human beings experience. We all experience old age, we all get sick, and in the end, we all die. These are constants. They are unavoidable, and we can always count on them. Things happen in life that make us feel secure, and then things happen that pull the rug out from under us.
It’s how we react to these moments that really count. We can fall deep into our inner-child and react by looking for ways to artificially feel better, or we can lean into the feelings around the trigger and feel the sadness, anxiety, loneliness, until it passes. Then track the old beliefs that are behind the emotions, and not buy into them.
If we look closely, we can see that most of our hopes and fears arise from us not wanting to undergo any kind of suffering. We don’t want to feel our sadness, anger, frustration, or hopelessness. However, healing begins when we give ourselves the room to explore all of our feelings and really be with them; then track where they came from, and practice not falling into the old belief systems.
