Triggers are not proof that something is wrong; they are invitations from the body, showing you where old stories and unmet needs still live. When we pause, breathe, and trace the thread back to its origins, we transform reactivity into awareness and make informed choices. In that space, the body teaches us how to respond with love instead of repeating the past.
Where the Trigger Becomes the Doorway
There was a time when the slightest spark set me off.
A raised eyebrow.
A shift in tone.
A silence just a little too long.
My chest would tighten.
My breath would shorten.
My whole body was bracing for a storm, even when it was only a drizzle.
For years, I thought the problem was outside of me.
If only they spoke differently.
If only he didn’t shut down.
If only they could love me the way I wanted to be loved.
The truth was more complicated to face: the storm wasn’t theirs.
It was mine.
It lived in me all along.
The First Shift: Recognition-The Power of Awareness
The first step was learning to notice.
Not the story. Not the blame.
Noticing the sensation.
The heat crawling up my throat.
The sharpness in my chest.
The way my jaw locked as if to hold back what I wanted to say.
At first, I resisted these sensations. They felt like evidence that something was wrong with me. But slowly, through breath, through practice, I learned to stay. To notice without abandoning myself.
That’s where the work began.
The Second Shift: Responsibility
Every trigger brings a choice: collapse into the old story, or pause and ask.
What is this showing me about myself?
The hardest lesson was this: my triggers are mine. They arise from my nervous system, my history, my unmet needs. They are echoes of times when I needed more care, more safety, more attunement than I received. Knowing that my triggers are mine doesn’t mean others can act however they want. Boundaries remain essential; it does mean my system’s reaction is data. It shows me where repair and re-patterning are needed.That realization changed everything.
The Third Shift: Tracing the Thread
When I became curious instead of defensive, I began to see the roots:
The tightness in my throat? The child who learned that speaking made love disappear.
The ache in my chest? The teenager who swallowed her needs to stay pleasing to others.
The heat in my spine? The young woman who had convinced herself that worth depended on giving more than she had.
Every trigger had a lineage.
Every reaction carried the fingerprint of a younger me still waiting to be seen. By tracing those threads, I became more intimate with myself, more aware.
The Fourth Shift: Making the Unconscious Conscious
I realized my life was being shaped more by old beliefs than by reality.
The belief that I was “too much” made me shrink in rooms where no one was asking me to.
The belief that love always leaves made me push people away before they had a chance to stay.
The belief that I had to earn desire made me hide my hunger and contort into what I thought was lovable.
These beliefs had been running my life without my consent.
Once I named them, they lost their power, because a belief, once made conscious, can be rewritten.
The Body as Teacher
This learning didn’t happen in my mind.
It happened in my body.
It happened when I placed my hand on my chest and said, ‘Stay with me.’
It happened in the trembling of my thighs when I let grief move instead of holding it in.
It happened in the widening of my ribs when I spoke a truth I thought would destroy everything, and it made love deeper instead.
The body doesn’t lie.
It doesn’t perform.
It tells the truth
And when I began listening, everything shifted.
Living the Medicine
Now, when a trigger flares, I meet it differently.
Instead of collapsing, I breathe.
Instead of blaming, I get curious.
Instead of pretending to be calm, I let myself tremble and find strength in the presence of the trembling.
I treat the flare as data.
I trace it back.
I name the belief.
And then, I choose differently.
My awareness does not make me invulnerable; it makes me alive. This awareness enables me to remain present during conflicts.
Awareness allows me to be someone who can say, ‘I want to understand your feelings, and I want you to understand mine.’It makes me someone who no longer abandons herself when things get hard.
The Invitation
So here is my invitation to you:
The next time your chest tightens, your jaw locks, your body braces
Pause.
Place a hand where it hurts most.
Whisper: What are you showing me?
Welcome the flare.
Trace the thread.
Name the belief.
Breathe.
And let your response, not your reaction, carry the love you want to live.
This is the alchemy of triggers
This is the return to yourself.
This is the work.
