This week, three clients asked what they need to do when they are getting triggered by a person, issue or situation. The answer is simple, but getting there requires effort.
In the moments when we’re triggered, it’s rarely the person or situation before us that’s to blame, but rather our conditioned response to what’s happening. It may be true that the people and situations around us aren’t always nice or fair, but how we react to them is as important as what they represent. In triggered moments, fear, anger, jealously, unworthiness and disappointment—among so many other emotions learned in our youth—tend to sabotage our present and call forth our lesser selves. Essentially, when we’re triggered, we’re responding to old traumas or dramas. It’s only by changing our consciousness around our triggers that we stand to change our behavior. And when we change our behavior, we evolve into our best selves.
Introducing the Saboteur & the Sage
Any event or stimulus in our lives offers our neural pathways two possibilities: the road of the sage or the road of the saboteur. When we are negatively triggered, two possibilities are at play: either a person or situation is stepping on one of our values (formed from the sage perspective), or the person or situation is calling forth our saboteur—the inner critic who stands in the way of our personal evolution.
Since the creation of our species, humans naturally respond to a stimulus through our reptilian brains first, typically triggering some kind of fear-based response to our survival. However, tens of thousands of years later, saboteurs more often serve as road blocks our happiness than survival tools. Shirzad Chamine’s bestselling book and online course, Positive Intelligence, explains that “every saboteur lies to you about helping you be happier or more successful.” In reality, saboteurs do the opposite; they may care for your immediate needs of the ego in the short-term, but in the long-term, they hold you back from becoming your best self.
In coaching, we work to name and understand your saboteurs. Then, we retrain your brain to tap into your sage, rather than the saboteurs. Mindfulness is the key to rewiring the neural pathways. It’s a practice of self-awareness, understanding of our saboteurs, and a conscious choice to react differently. When we look to the sage, or our inner leader, we begin to think, speak and act with more compassion, equanimity and understanding for ourselves and others. In essence, it allows us to respond from a place of wisdom instead of ego.
How to Choose the Sage
Chamine’s course details specific methods that you can use to channel the sage, a practice he calls “PQ reps,” or mindful moments that keep us grounded and in the present. His research shows that taking breaths, rubbing two fingers together, and listening for background sounds can get us to the sage quickly. Taking mindful breaths in the line at the bank, in traffic, or in the face of an angry friend can quickly set us on the path for a newer, fresher and kinder response. Having played with these tools myself, I attest that they work, but they are only part of a larger practice that’s necessary for bringing about long-term change.
Chamine’s book sidesteps the link to meditation, which I would argue is short-sighted. For those who embrace a regular meditation practice, such mindful moments can become automatic, facilitating a larger experience of acceptance that pours into every aspect of our lives. Those with anxious minds often find sitting down to meditate unnerving. That’s because many believe that to sit and meditate means to empty one’s mind completely. While that’s the long-term goal, that’s by no means the practice of meditation. Buddhists who practice Vipassana meditation, also called “insight meditation,” explain that the mind naturally wants to control us, making the human condition painful and sorrowful. By nurturing a meditation practice, we retrain the brain to look to our inner sage and lead us down the path toward enlightenment. Chamine’s “PQ Reps” are a great place to start, but cultivating a regular meditation practice has far more powerful and far-reaching benefits.
Science has proven meditation’s benefits over and over again. It’s invaluable for cultivating clarity and compassion, reducing stress, and creating peace of mind. When we sit in meditation, thoughts and emotions will flood our minds. That’s typically the time that many think they are meditating incorrectly, but that’s actually how we know we’re on the right track. In those moments, it is our job to give names to those emotions and thoughts as they arise, and then return to our breath. As we name the emotions as they come, one by one, they pass quickly like clouds on a windy day. Acknowledging these emotions diminishes their power and leaves us with greater self-awareness and self-acceptance. Contrary to popular belief, meditation is not a game of “chilling out” and trying to zone out into perfect quiet and nothingness. Rather, it’s about giving names to our difficult emotions, seeing them for what they are, and consciously letting them go.
Cultivating a Meditation Practice
Start by sitting quietly, preferably upright in a chair or comfortably on a floor cushion, for five minutes a day, then increase gradually up to 20 minutes. If you’re feeling ambitious, try 20 minutes in the morning, and then 20 minutes at night. You can use a basic egg timer to track your time, but I personally use a phone app called Insight Timer. They have over 40,000 free guided meditations, and you can see how many people are meditating around the world with you at one time. If you’re new to meditation, consider trying a guided meditation to get in the routine and then move to timed meditations on your own. The guided meditations do all the talking for us and help create the practice of meditation, however, it is in a silent meditation when we are doing the real work of naming our emotions.
When we start getting comfortable with sitting in quiet, we begin to empower ourselves to new heights. We learn that the anxious mind is natural, and that when we take the time to acknowledge our thoughts and feelings, then we get clear about what’s at the core of our triggers. Then suddenly life begins to feel more graceful: our judgments of ourselves start to allow for more acceptance, the next family holiday seems easier to manage, and a typically challenging relationship with a coworker gets smoother. When we understand our saboteurs and our triggers, we therefore are not just helping ourselves, but helping to create a wiser, more inclusive, and more accepting world around us.