Understanding Triggers and What They Mean

Clare Lane

4 min readNov 16, 2018

A trigger is when you have an extreme reaction to an everyday situation.

Flight or fight

It is the moment you are reminded, subconsciously, of something traumatic from your past.

Your body reacts and goes into fight or flight mode. Your mouth goes dry, heart races, hands shake and knees go weak.

Sometimes it can manifest as you feel the need to lash out at someone or deep and unaccountable anger.

Or you feel the need to run and hide away. This is how we react to stress: the anger is the fight and to hide is the flight reflex.

What is a trigger?

A trigger can be something as simple as a word, an expression, a smell or a taste or a sound which prompts an emotional flashback.

Triggers are so confusing and complex because it can take such a seemingly insignificant thing to prompt such a reaction.

Your triggers are deeply personal because they are from your experiences. No-one else will ever understand them, nor should they.

Difficult to recognise a trigger

It is very difficult to recognise a trigger because you are subconsciously involved in the trauma not in reality.

It is an old and familiar pathway you’ve walked many times before, without questioning it.

Until you process whatever incident triggered you, it is not possible to move forward, and the trigger will repeat itself.

Feeling scared out of proportion to situation

Now, this is the key to understanding your triggers, recognising them for what they are.

If you feel scared in a situation that does not merit it, this is the start of a trigger.

The rush of adrenaline you experience during a trigger is meant to keep you safe. It would help if a pack of hungry lions were chasing you. If this is your feeling in an everyday environment, then this is a trigger.

Impossible to avoid triggers

Due to the subconscious nature of triggers, it is impossible to avoid them. And expect other people to be aware of them.

Anything can be a trigger. As we are often not aware until it happens, we have to find a way to work through them.

What to do during a trigger

The best thing to do when you feel panic is to find some time and space alone. Take some deep breaths.

Often repeating a mantra, such as ‘I am safe’, can help. Recognise that you are responsible for your trigger.

Take your power back because you can get through it.

You are no longer in your past trauma.

Ask yourself what set you off.

There will be a root cause of the trigger in some way you will feel that your needs have not been met.

Observe yourself

Try to take yourself out of the situation so that you can observe your emotions without fully experiencing them.

This will take practice and a lot of self- awareness.

If you can master this skill you can take back control of the situation. make informed choices that will serve you best. Creating a distance between you and the situation will enable you to see the whole situation a lot more clearly.

Triggers indicate healing that needs to be done

There are many that would disagree with me, but I think that triggers are a good thing.

If we can process them it shifts a little of the trauma experience from our past. Our subconscious forces us to deal with unprocessed trauma.

Whilst it’s not an enjoyable experience it means that we can be a little freer after each triggering experience.

Triggers are a part of life. There may never be a time when you are completely free of them, but with each one, the power over you fades.

Dealing with them is a new shift

Each of the triggers I have experienced recently has been the beginning of a new shift in my recovery process.

I have felt a certain amount of reassurance that there is nothing wrong with me when I react in such an extreme way.

Now I know the warning signs, I choose to take the time to reflect before I act.

In being reactive I know that I follow the same old toxic pathways that got me nowhere.

Taking that moment to check in with myself, means I garner a greater understanding of myself. Then in understanding myself, I trust myself that much more.

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