The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four people is suffering from a mental illness. Look at your 3 best friends. If they're ok, then it's you.”
― Rita Mae Brown
How to master your emotional triggers ?? every now and then we feel either the world is mad or we are mad. In the given time everyone feels and behaves like a lunatic. And the charming thing is when we do it, its rational but when someone who is not ‘ME’ does it, it’s completely crazy.
How do we remain sane and yet enjoy our moments of insanity ?? In Mahabharata Krishna tells Arjun in one of the chapters in Bhagavad Gita, “It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection.” Taking this in context with our moments of losing control over situations, we instantly feel that I could have done better. The question is better than ‘self’ or better then someone ‘else’ ? Like a self conscious student fumbles in morning assembly pledge, he might freeze or run away or cry. Some other student put in similar situation might go and get the diary and continue reading from it. While the first child feels why I didn’t do the same. Krishna when stated that live your life imperfectly can be understood in the context that be aware of your triggers in life which make you feel incompetent or over competent. One of the many wonders of your brain is how masterfully it rationalizes your behavior.Something occurs, you react, and then your brain instantly concocts a reason for your reaction that seems to justify your behavior even if the reason makes no sense. For example, gossiping about a colleague in front of boss or other colleagues. You justify that to yourself by giving yourself noble reasons like its just happened as a part of conversation, you are doing good for him only etc. You ignore the reason that you are jealous and you wanted importance at the cost of someone else. You suppress your jealousy with your colleague or his life.
“The ingenuity of self-deception is inexhaustible,” wrote essayist Hannah Moore in 1881. The act of rationalizing is so quick, the best you can do is to recognize when it occurs and choose to consider what else could be causing your reaction.
How can you know what triggers reaction in you. What are your triggers which brings out the devil or politely put ‘the worst in you’.
First, Accept that you are living being and not a victim like the couch you have at home. (stop victimising yourself)
Accept yourself as powerful instead of as a victim to remove the veil of self-deception. When you seek to identify what is triggering how you feel in the moment, you give yourself the chance to feel differently if you want to. You will also have more clarity on what you need to do or what you need to ask for to change your circumstances.
What would your life look like if you were in control of your reactions? How free would you feel if you lived your life by choice?
Second, is to recognize that you are having an emotional reaction(a victim reaction) as soon as it begins to appear in your body.
According to neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, author of Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain,(courtesy psychology today) at any moment, your rate of breathing, blood flow, tension in your muscles and constriction in your gut represents a pattern you can identify as a feeling. The sooner you recognize that you are breathing quickly or not at all, that certain muscles in your body tightened, or that you feel pressure in your gut or heart, stop and ask yourself what you are feeling and why.
Don’t judge or fear your emotions. No matter what you learned about the evils of emotions, if you don’t recognize your feelings, you can’t change them negatively impacting your relationships, job performance, and overall happiness. And on the side note don’t judge others emotions till you understand your emotions and your body.
Third, is to determine what triggered the emotion.(now, this can be difficult as we sometimes don’t like what we see in ourselves, it will be like someone showing you the mirror and you might not like what you see)
What do you think you lost or what did you not get that you expected or desired to have? Did you not get the attention you wanted or someone simply hurt your ego or someone was wearing a better dress than you or you can’t afford the car you wanted ….…. etc
The strengths that have helped in life are also your greatest emotional triggers when you feel someone is not honoring one of them. When your brain perceives that someone has taken or plans to take one of these important things away from you, your emotions are triggered.
The quicker you notice an emotion is triggered, the sooner you can discover if the threat is real or not.
The following list includes some of the most common emotional triggers, meaning you react when you feel as though you aren’t getting or will not get one of these needs met.(Marcia Reynolds, PsyD. Dr. Reynolds)
acceptance - respect - be liked - be understood - be needed - be valued - be in control - be right be treated fairly - attention - comfort - freedom - peacefulness - balance - consistency - order predictability - love - safety - feel included - autonomy - fun - new challenges - independence
Choose three items from the list that most often set off your emotions when you don’t get these needs met. Be honest with yourself. Which three needs, when not met, will likely trigger a reaction in you? Identify the needs that you hold most dear
.The unmet need or threat becomes an emotional trigger.
Fourth, is to choose what you want to feel and what you want to do. (what you want to do with the victim you see in the mirror ?)
What you want to feel largely depends on your belief system and what you want to do depends on whether you will be accepted. So, try to strike a balance among both and dont be scared to make mistakes and make a fool of yourself for sometime.
With practice, the reaction to your emotional triggers could subside, but they may never go away. The best you can do is to quickly identify when an emotion is triggered and then choose what to say or do next.
Fifth is to actively shift your emotional state.(consciously try to see what you want to see in the mirror)
You can practice this step at any time, even when you first notice a reaction to help you think through your triggers and responses. When you determine what you want to do next, shift into the emotion that will help you get the best results.(Marcia Reynolds, PsyD. Dr. Reynolds, outsmart your brain)
Relax – breathe and release the tension in your body.
Detach – clear your mind of all thoughts.
Center – drop your awareness to the center of your body just below your navel.
Focus – choose one keyword that represents how you want to feel in this moment.
Breathe in the word and allow yourself to feel the shift.
Stop trying to manage your emotions. Instead, choose to have coffee with it. It may stop making you look crazy in front of the world. And even if it does you won’t be alone.
‘It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” - Dumbledore in ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.’