Hello Spiritual Warrior! This week we are discussing how to stay calm when you are triggered.
We live each moment of our life through the ebb and flow of emotions. It’s almost as if each beat of our heart, and every breath we take, move us in one direction or another. It is as if one moment we are joyous and carefree, and the next moment, we can be triggered and proceed to spiral out of control.
Or it could be that someone says something to us, and suddenly our mood shifts, we feel triggered, and we are suddenly not feeling ourselves anymore.Instead of calm, balanced, and happy, we are suddenly dysregulated, overwhelmed, and trying to choke back tears. Has that ever happened to you? We are a bundle of conditioned emotions that are primed to respond to the momentary assessment of whether our needs have been met or not.
Simply put emotions are subjective, conscious experiences that link our interpretation of a given moment to a biological reaction which creates a particular mental state. Have you ever yelled at someone after having a tough time or a difficult encounter over something that had nothing to do with them? Psychologists refer to this mis-direction as “emotional leakage.” When you are triggered and suppress your emotions rather than becoming aware of them in the moment, you’re likely to express them inadvertently in other avenues such as being sarcastic, snarky, retaliatory, biting, harsh, or downright mean to people who had nothing to do with your initial frustration.
Suppressing our feelings is now scientifically proven to lead to poor memory, relationship challenges, and deeper health issues as our body is influenced so strongly by our subjective conscious experiences.
We can rise above being triggered by heightening our emotional intelligence. In many leadership, psychology, and philosophy circles it is also known as “EI”. EI is essentially our ability to “own” these four capabilities:
1. Correctly perceive emotions
2. Retrieve and produce emotions to assist thought
3. Comprehend emotions and understand them, and
4. Effectively adjust emotions to promote personal development and growth
If you don’t know how you feel or why you feel a certain way, you will experience emotional overwhelm or confusion and won’t be able to communicate effectively, meet your needs, or resolve disagreements. But if we master our emotional intelligence, you will be triggered less, flow with less stress, more grace, and greater ease. And, the more successful we are at heightening these core skill sets, the happier and more fulfilled we will be.
The beauty of EI is that it’s not a function of simply being born with it. Emotional intelligence can be learned, developed, and mastered. Although daily intelligence is important to succeeding in life, emotional intelligence is key to achieving your goals. Remember, EI is an awareness of your actions and feelings – and how they affect those around you. It also means that you value others, listen to their wants and needs, and are able to empathize or identify with them on many different levels. In this process, you will be reduce the number of your emotional triggers and YOU WILL MEET MORE OF YOUR OWN NEEDS! brilliant!!!
