Have you ever wondered why small, seemingly insignificant triggers can lead to unexpected and intense reactions?
You may say to yourself, “Where did that come from?”
Basic unconscious hurts, whether from a past partner or someone from your childhood, can generate a huge angry reaction above and beyond the issue you’re experiencing.
Unresolved, un-forgiven conflicts can pull you down and eat away at your soul.
If you’re a leader, this can have a negative flow-on effect to the people you’re influencing.
I believe that one of the greatest things you can do as a leader – be it a Parent, Teacher, Business Owner, Manager, Team Leader or Influencer in any sphere, is to work on yourself so you can communicate and influence from a healed place.
In this blog post, I unpack some of the ways you can understand your emotional triggers better, in order to heal your past.
For example:
- If you weren’t nurtured or made to feel special and significant as a child, you will crave the chance to be nurtured or feel significant as an adult.
- If you were deeply wounded through rejection, you will grow up with a filter of disapproval.
- If you were rejected through shame, it means you grow up living through a filter of guilt.
- If you were rejected through criticism, it means you grow up living through a filter of criticising others and always finding fault. This thought may seem gruesome, but getting rejected as a child could cause you to walk into a crowded room and believe everyone thinks you’re no good.
On the other hand:
- Growing up with encouragement means you’re more likely to feel worthwhile as an adult.
- Being raised with acceptance and approval means you’ll tend to like yourself later in life.
- Growing up in a nurturing environment with healthy friendships will most likely translate to finding love in the world.
No matter how you were raised, you can take major steps towards inner healing.
As part of my work, I help couples to help each other towards inner healing, as they use the resource of the relationship to set the scene for openness, vulnerability, and growth.
But as individuals, everyone needs to take responsibility for their own personal development before expecting any real healing or growth to spring up within their relationships.
So how can I take responsibility for my own personal development…for actually growing myself UP?
In terms of normal physical allergies, you could have a trigger that leads to an acute, even life-threatening reaction.
But you can also develop an emotional allergy and have an unexpected overreaction triggered by a past hurt.
With a physical allergy, you have to figure out the cause, so you can take care of yourself.
The same is true with an emotional trigger.
If you don’t put the time, energy and commitment into discovering what’s underneath your reactions, you’ll continue to experience these emotional allergies, or triggers, from past hurts, whether it’s due to your family of origin or any long-term relationship.
Intimacy can be enhanced in any close relationship if you and your partner are guided in a process that helps you each identify your triggers, thus enabling you both to seek and offer forgiveness.
It’s helpful to look at them in terms of a soul wound.
As an adult, you filter information. You may tell yourself, “That’s garbage” or “I don’t believe that”.
But when you were a child, you accepted everything uncritically, and that information becomes stored in your old brain.
The old brain is often forgotten. You may not be aware of it until a situation arises, and you respond with a knee-jerk reaction. It brings up past hurts and is based on not having your needs met.
For me, it’s when I feel not listened to or advocated for.
Being aware of this emotional allergy, I self-soothe by telling myself what I’d longed to hear in my past.
It helps me when that allergy strikes, and I’m overwhelmed by previous emotions. It can still hit, but instead of it having the power of Niagara Falls, it just seems like a little trickle.
As some wise person once said, “You can’t fix what you don’t name”.
So, identifying it, acknowledging it and being self-compassionate through it, will help in the healing process.
You may understand by now that no one can hurt you as deeply as your loved ones. If it’s an acquaintance, you can write it off, but with someone you care about, the words often stick and hurt.
The wonderful flipside is that no one can heal you as much as your loved ones.
You can repair your relationships if you’re willing and humble enough to genuinely apologise and listen.
It helps enormously in accelerating the healing process in any relationship.
Would you like more help healing your past and improving your relationships and wellbeing?
My upcoming workshop could be the exact thing you need.
It’s for you if you would like to improve your wellbeing, emotional health, mindset and relationships.
Drawn from my experience as a Clinical Co-ordinator for Relationships Australia, Relationship Therapist and published Author, I bring my decades of experience to help you elevate your wellbeing.
You’ll pick up the tools you can use to:
* Understand yourself and your behaviours better
* Navigate your current season well
* Understand and handle your challenges and your stressors
* Create a total wellness roadmap, so you can live your life by design rather than default.
If you want greater health and wellbeing in every aspect of your life, this workshop will give you all the tools to make decisions in alignment with your highest values.
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