Can triggered emotions or feelings be your friend?
Absolutely it can, in fact it can be the doorway to your inner peace, calm and joy, BUT only when you know how you are feeling in any given moment.
Most people have become so accustom to feeling like rubbish, that it has become the norm, and I’m here to say that is absolutely BS.
Feelings are transient in nature, they are just energy in motion, and if we allow them to be, they will shift far quicker. Instead, we do all sorts of activities to stuff, repress, distract or avoid feeling, which in time causes untold damage to our bodies.
“Never make permanent decisions based on temporary feelings” - Unknown
In complete honesty, feelings were not my friend, and I focused all of my attention on being logical, fact and data based and had no time for any shade of grey. No wonder I was so highly strung. I refused to acknowledge any triggered emotion and did whatever I could to stuff it down, and instead became hyper highly functional to just “get on” with the job at hand. Whilst this seemed to serve me and work for a long time, the cracks were starting to appear and I could not longer just stuff these feelings down.
What resists persists” Carl Jung
When I finally allowed myself to acknowledge how I was feeling, boy did the flood gates open up. I never even knew I could have that many tears, but in this journey, whilst painful at times was so liberating to finally, not only allow myself, but give myself permission to feel. I felt comfort in knowing that this triggered feeling or emotion was just held up by a repeating self limiting belief that I could easily uncover through self inquiry, and once uncovering that self limiting belief, I could transcend the emotion with ease.
Through this process I discovered I had a repeating set of emotions regardless of the situation or event that triggered it, and if you engage on this journey, you’ll notice this pattern as well.
This, my mighty friend is YOUR POWER, as it brings about awareness, empowerment and CHOICE, so I could either drown in the never ending cycle or make a choice to show up differently. In time, this broke the repeating cycle of events, and what seemed like magic, was actually very predictable. When I changed, my outside environment changed, so what used to trigger, just no longer did.
I would like to preface though, just because we can easily identify and acknowledge how we feel, it does mean we get to use the triggered emotion as an excuse or identify with it. For example, “I did this because YOU made me so angry” or “I am just so annoyed and frustrated”. Instead, we recognize that an event triggered an emotion that was already inside of you, there is the age old quote of, “Nobody can make you feel anything, unless you allow them”. Instead of identifying with the feeling of “ I am”, we use language of “I feel X in this situation”.
Once we have acknowledged the feeling, and done some self inquiry to identify the self limiting belief that was propping the feeling up, we need to make choice whether we are going to drown in the emotion or shift and release it.
The many tools that are used in a coaching session to facilitate this process, however there is plenty that can be done on your own.
“Feelings are much like waves, we can't stop them from coming but we can choose which one to surf.”
Jonatan Mårtensson
5 ways to shift a mood:
Blast your favourite music and dance like nobody is watching
Drink water – our brain is made up of 60-70% water, so it could also by dehydration that is keeping you stuck
Tap, Tap, Tap – using EFT to tap on the emotion so that the body can shift it
Get some fresh air, by going for a walk, standing barefoot on the ground or engaging in your favourite form of exercise
Close your eyes, in your mind, take yourself back to a time when you felt unstoppable, joy and happiness. Your brain does not know the difference between a real event happening or one imagined in your mind. In NLP we have amazing tools where we can neurologically program resourceful emotions into parts of your body that you can activate when needed.
In summary, triggered emotions are your doorway to inner peace, joy and calm ONLY if you do the inner work to uncover the root, i.e. the self limiting beliefs holding it up, and transcend the repetitive nature of reacting. Instead you can become aware, step into your power and choose again to respond in alignment with the truth of who you are.
If you would like to learn how you can go from constantly triggered to calm and chill, get in contact for a free 20 min chat by emailing, info@chantalkhoury.com.au.
Chantal is an Accredited and Certified Nutrition & Wellness Coach, EFT & NLP Practitioner that helps empower and inspire mums and women just like you to lovingly nourish and nurture their body and mind so that they can show up as the VERY best version of them self, authentically, on purpose and by design.