Awakened EQ - Powerful Ideas

How I Transformed my Triggers into Triumphs!

Here’s a candid truth . . .

Fifteen years ago, I was one of those people who was easily triggered. Of course, I didn’t think of myself that way. I am a natural optimist and have been focusing on the positive for decades as part of my spiritual practice. When I was upset by something, from my perspective, it was due to a lack of awareness in the people around me. Clearly, people weren’t paying attention to how their behavior impacted others. Or they just didn’t care. Despite my sunny disposition, I had a long list of how others were doing it wrong (and making me miserable).

Clients didn’t listen to me even though they had paid me for my guidance. My family refused to work together or communicate. My husband would be blind to my needs. Despite the peaceful centeredness I carefully cultivated in my meditation practice, it seemed like the minute I stepped out of my meditation room, the world just came at me with a hundred problems and a bad attitude to boot. And worst of all, I felt like the people who cared about me, didn't care enough to not hurt me. No matter how many thoughtful conversations I had with my kids or my husband, it just kept happening.

"I felt like the people who cared about me, didn't care enough to not hurt me."

Then I was introduced to a different way to relate to my emotions, the aggravation, and the pain I was experiencing. I began to see that much of what I was feeling was an echo of painful experiences in my past. Making this connection was an important part of transforming my triggers.

I developed a system for being able to recognize the signs of being triggered and most importantly, how to respond to these moments. This new approach not only made these moments less distressing, it actually made them go away! Some triggering situations just stopped bothering me -- I became immune to them. And others literally stopped happening! I stopped attracting these painful experiences and aggravating people into my life.

"I stopped attracting these

painful experiences and aggravating people into my life!"

Now, I am much more easy going - a word you would never have used to describe me before. I can still get angry with my husband (I am an Aries woman, lol) but it happens so less frequently, so less intensely. Our fights used to spin out of control; I felt unimportant and so wounded. Now our arguments can blow over in minutes. Before I would remember fights for years. Now, when my husband comes to check on me, to make sure that “we are okay” after a fight, I often don’t know what he is talking about; I am so thoroughly free of it I have forgotten that we had a fight!

--Not because I'm choosing to let it go.

--Not because I’m taking the high road.

Because the thoughts and feelings are completely gone. I am truly free of the triggered and intense emotions. I’m not choosing Zen. I am Zen! It is an amazing feeling.

"I’m not choosing Zen. I am Zen!

It is an amazing feeling."

The tools I have developed empower me like nothing else I have experienced. Despite all the years of therapy, self help books, personal growth seminars, and spiritual tools, none of them created the emotional freedom that these simple skills have. In those moments when I am triggered, I can recognize it and I know how to USE IT.

And these skills don't just solve that individual moment or conflict. They do something far better. They create healing that transcends that moment. No person or situation can trigger me in that way ever again. I'm effortlessly and automatically immune to it.

Plus, because my husband also has these tools, we can turn any fight into a healing moment for both of us. Imagine that: being in the middle of a fight with your significant other and then, on a dime, you are both healing something from your past and the argument evaporates into caring and deeper intimacy. We are so grateful for this work and know that we would never have made it to 25 years without it.

These tools also work with others who know nothing about this approach. Let's face it. If these outcomes were dependent on the people around us using them too, we'd all be screwed! Luckily, that's not the case and I have transformed painful experiences with doctors, friends, and employers without them even being aware that I was using my AEQ skills. All they notice is that they no longer have to "walk on eggshells" around me. (Boy, was I tired of hearing that from people!)