During the first year of marriage, Jonny planned a spontaneous weekend getaway to this beautiful tiny house community. That Friday I drove straight from work to meet him. We talked on the phone about 30 mins before my arrival and I was excited about our weekend. When I got to the tiny house estates I realized that the gates were locked and since Jonny had already arrived he had our key. I called him. No answer. I tried again laughing to myself, still no answer.

I was worried about a car lining up behind me so I backed up and tried calling again. I called a few more times. Panic started to set in. Panic turned into annoyance as I kept calling over and over again. All logic went out the door and I got so angry I started my car and was about to drive the 45 mins back home. 

If he didn’t want to spend time with me for the weekend I was going home. I drove to a nearby neighborhood and tried calling a few more times. At this point I was sob crying. Snot dripping down my face and wailing as I sat in the car calling Jonny. No exaggeration! 

Still no answer 

After the 20th missed call the phone clicked and I hear a sleepy, groggy “hello?” I started sobbing and in a passive-aggressive accusatory voice demanded, “What were you doing? I was trying to call you over and over again. You didn’t answer your phone! I can’t get into the tiny house compound.” My reaction quickly threw Jonny into a fit of anger. He was just sleeping and was upset by my overreaction and accusations.

Let’s just say our weekend was quickly ruined because we continued to fight throughout the weekend. We were disconnected and didn’t know how to reconnect because neither of us understood why I reacted the way I did. 

So what happened? Why did I react like that? There had to be something bigger going on right? 

I was emotionally triggered

My reaction clearly didn’t match the situation. Jonny was sleeping. It wasn’t that he forgot about me or didn’t want to spend the weekend with me, or any other crazy idea that ran through my head in those 20-30 minutes. He was just sleeping and didn’t hear the phone. 

What is an emotional trigger?

According to Healthline, an emotional trigger is “anything — including memories, experiences, or events — that sparks an intense emotional reaction, regardless of your current mood.” 

Mull that over while I tell you another story. 

When I was a child, I got lost at a target. I was shopping with my mom at Target and following her around the clothes aisle. The clothes racks were so high I couldn’t see above them but I was circling them following my mom. I must have gotten distracted because when I went around the rack I couldn’t see her anymore. 

Panic started to set in. I remember yelling for her and looking everywhere. The more time passed the more panicked and scared I felt. As I searched, fear took hold of me and I dreamed up various scenarios. I thought I’d never be found. What if my family forgot about me and left Target? What if I never see my family again? The fear was crippling. I felt lost scared, terrified, alone, abandoned.

What causes Emotional Triggers?

When Jonny didn’t answer the phone I felt those same feelings: fear of loss, alone, abandoned. I just didn’t know it at the time.  

It wasn’t until we attended a marriage retreat, that we learned about emotional triggers and gained the tools for awareness, and more importantly how to stay connected when a trigger threatened to pull us apart. Let’s get back to the Healthline definition. My intense emotional reaction (lashing out in anger, passive aggression, and trying to leave our weekend getaway) was sparked by the memory and feelings from my childhood when I was lost in Target. That memory triggered an intense feeling of aloneness and abandonment. My intense reaction was built up by many little incidents that created this trigger of abandonment.  

Types of Emotional Triggers

There are many types of triggers. Here are a few to get us started: 

• Rejection
• Betrayal 
• Loss of control 
• Criticism 
• Feeling unwanted or unneeded
• Feeling smothered or too needed 
• Insecurity 
• Loss of independence 
• Disapproval

Each person has their own set of triggers and the corresponding events, memories, or experiences that instill those triggers. Do any of these words spark a feeling or memory within you? 

Wounds Spark Emotional Triggers  

Emotional triggers are sparked by childhood wounds, A childhood wound is an emotional event or distress that we experience in childhood that manifests in physical, emotional, and mental pain throughout our adulthood.

As children (and as adults) we don’t always have the tools to process pain and distress caused by an emotional event. That pain stays imprinted on us and other events start to cause an emotional reaction or trigger. 

Here’s a fictional example. We’ll start with the initial wound that created the trigger and walk the example back to a present trigger. 

Charlie, a seven-year-old, loves basketball and shooting hoops in his driveway. His dad played basketball in high school and a little in college. Charlie’s hope and desire was to play basketball with his dad after work.  He would practice every day and wait for his dad to come home. 

Triggers and Secure Attachments

Every day Charlie eagerly waited to play with his dad. But each time his dad came home, he’d rush into the house and tell Charlie not now. One day, he angrily pushes Charlie aside, saying, “Don’t you know how exhausted I am. I work hard to provide for you and your mom. Why can’t that be enough?”. As a child, Charlie doesn’t understand his dad’s words or the interaction. He has no context or emotional maturity to feel secure in their relationship. 

A secure attachment is a bond that meets a child’s need for security, safety, self-awareness, empathy, and trust.

The next day, the basketball hoop over the garage was gone. Charlie doesn’t understand why and they never talk about that interaction or basketball again. This experience leaves an open wound for Charlie that is never addressed. 

Fast forward twenty years, Charlie has been married for one year to his beautiful wife Sarah. While cuddling on the couch watching a show, Charlie asks his wife if she’d go hiking with him over the weekend. She says, lovingly but dismissing, “Babe, I’m exhausted, can you just go without me?” 

Something starts to boil in Charlie’s body. He tenses up and pulls away from his wife. He passive-aggressively turns off the tv and goes upstairs to his room. He meets her answer with silence. Sarah is confused. What just happened?

His wife’s subtle rejection reminded Charlie of the time when he was a child. Charlie was triggered. And he reacts to triggers by shutting down. And that causes him to disconnect from his wife. 

Charlie’s Trigger of Rejection

His wife’s kind but dismissing comment reminded Charlie of the disappointment and rejection he endured every time his dad came home and dismissed his love for basketball and more importantly his desire to connect with his dad. As a kid, Charlie didn’t know he was looking to connect with his father but loving basketball, wanting to learn and play with his father were ways he wanted to delight and be delighted in by his father. 

Play is an important part of childhood and connection. So when his wife rejects his desire to go for a hike, it reminds him of how his dad dismissed his desire to play and connect.

His wife didn’t mean to reject him, but the trigger causes him to feel rejection and the correlation with his childhood wound intensifies the hurt. Charlie feels rejected and ultimately unloved, uncherished, unseen. 

Triggers Cause Disconnection 

When we feel pain from our triggers and wounds, we push away the ones we love. In my fictional story, Charlie resorts to passive-aggression, pulling away, and shutting down. I do the same. I shut down and pull away from Jonny. Or I hold on so tight I end up suffocating him (figuratively). Jonny on the other hand lashes out in anger and leaves (whether that’s emotionally or physically). 

Whatever our reaction, it often causes us to disconnect from our loved ones. 

Disconnection is normal. We disconnect from ourselves and others all the time. The art is in reconnecting in the least destructive way possible. 

I say least destructive because we are flawed humans. We will cause some kind of havoc because we are broken. Our goal? Find ways to reconnect healthily and ultimately be attuned with one an other. 

Created for Connection

God created us for connection and when we have unresolved pain from childhood wounds and triggers, we disconnect from loved ones and from ourselves. And when we disconnect from our loved ones and ourselves, the brokenness creeps in, isolating us further from people and God.  

“Humans have a deep desire for connection to others but yet we find ourselves alone and isolated from the very thing that gives us life.”

So how do we fight for connection? How do we work through the pain of emotional triggers so that we can strive to stay connected to the loved one that brought up the trigger? 

How to be aware of Triggers? 

Dealing with triggers in a healthy way takes lots of time and practice. The first step is to be aware of our triggers and notice when we disconnect from our loved ones.

Notice Patterns

Start noticing displaced feelings and strong reactions.  Does your reaction match the subject matter or does it feel a little off?

Watch for patterns. What makes you react and what is the feeling? What happens when those feelings come up? Do you shut down, do you leave, do you get angry, do you pull away? Are there other patterns that come up? 

What do you do when you disconnect? When I disconnect, my pattern is to comfort myself with eating. I now notice when I feel the need to get in my car and drive to McDonald’s I’m probably feeling disconnected from Jonny.

Own your Feelings 

You can own your feelings and your relationships will be the better for it. Let’s take my story above from Jonny’s perspective. He’s confused, angry but mostly doesn’t understand why I’m yelling at him. I can’t necessarily change my actions and my words in the moment, but I can own that my reaction didn’t match the situation. I can say, “there seems to be something else going on here and I’m taking it out on you. I’m sorry about my reaction.”

Owning my feelings lets Jonny know that my reaction isn’t something he did. I can apologize for my reaction. I can be there for him, and if he’s up for it, he can be there for me in my pain. When we own up to our feelings we can reconnect and be connected to fight the trigger.

Be Kind to Yourself

Dealing with Pain, the root pain is so difficult so be kind to yourself. We are all broken, we all feel pain and it’s hard to stay connected to ourselves and to God, let alone others. What keeps you grounded? What brings you joy? Maybe tap into your child-like wonder and into something you enjoyed as a child. 

Find ways to connect to your inner child, the child that felt the initial pain. And when you connect with yourself and with God, it’s so much easier to connect with others. 

Get Professional Help

Becoming aware of emotional triggers is hard and unlocking your memories, especially from childhood can be a lot to take on. Feelings of abandonment, rejection, when we face it head-on, it’s painful! I’ve seen a counselor for two years now and it’s good to have a sounding board, someone in my corner that helps me work through my pain. The goal is to work through the painful triggers so that as they come up they cause less and less chaos for you in the present. 

Me getting lost in the target was no one’s fault. I was not abandoned because I was found, but the moment created a resounding fear of being abandoned or left. Once I acknowledged that memory I can remind myself that I’m okay, my loved one is just around the clothing rack. If I wait, I’ll be found again. That God is always with me even when I feel lost and abandoned. 

Seeing a counselor helped me to come to these conclusions. I worked through some of my pain around abandonment and I will continue to work on it with my counselor. I highly recommend it. 

Equipped to Fight Emotional Triggers

Once we are aware of our triggers we will continue to face new ones, work through old wounds and heal. Triggers won’t go away but we can equip ourselves with the right vocabulary, understanding, and work through them as they come up. 

My trigger of abandonment will always be there but I now have the vocabulary and understanding to talk through it with Jonny or anyone else that it comes up with. 

If I was equipped with the knowledge that I have now, I could have handled the situation at the tiny house very differently. I would have hopefully captured my worst thoughts of Jonny, ‘he doesn’t care about our weekend getaway, he’s doing something bad.’ and think through my strong emotional reaction. Instead, I could think, I know Jonny, there’s a perfectly good reason why he isn’t answering the phone. Maybe he’s taking a nap (shocker! I know). I could self-soothe. 

Even though he’s not answering the phone, I am okay. I will be okay without him answering the phone. If I understood my emotional trigger of abandonment, I could have left to go get a coffee and try again in a little bit. It really wasn’t that big of a deal. 

Jonny loves me, sometimes he “leaves” me emotionally or takes a nap but he won’t abandon me. And most importantly God won’t abandon me. I am loved and cherished. I’m fully known and fully seen. 

Ready to Get Started? 

There you have it! We’ve defined emotional triggers, we’ve talked about different types of triggers, and we talked about the first step, awareness. Did a trigger stick out when reading this blog post? Or a particular story of a recent experience where you might have reacted differently than what the situation called for?  What images come to mind when you think about the emotions that you were feeling? Be on the look out for our  journal prompts to help you get started

If you want to bounce ideas off of me, I’m here and always available to talk. I love digging deeper into my own triggers even when they are painful. Reach out to us through our newsletter sign up or sign up for an in-person group.