How to Stop Being Triggered: Use It as Opportunity

I used to avoid things that felt uncomfortable.

I still do that.

The last few days have brought up uncomfortable issues and images and beliefs for many people. I have been triggered on several occasions.

That is a good thing.

Signals for Surrender

In any practice of non-resistance, being triggered points to the area for growth. It is the opportunity to surrender wholly into an experience and view it with neutral perception.

Accept that somehow it serves without needing to know why.

My belief is that the flow of life has a plan. At the level of mind, we are designing our reality experience. As we transcend mind, we are the reality. Beyond that, we are simple awareness of all realities and non-realities.

The trigger is just a messenger. What matters is whether we receive the message or shoot it down.

Life as Mirror

That is a tough pill to swallow when life throws something at us that we are in deep opposition towards.

However, life mirrors to us our own patterns which we hold within. We meet opposition only when it serves us in some way.

Can our trigger points be signals for greater surrender? Jesus knew this to be so. Buddha knew this to be so. The gnanis all know this to be so.

Every spiritual tradition points to this truth. What we resist persists. What we fully accept transforms. The triggered sensation is an invitation, not an attack.

The Finger Trap

When my foot cramps, I used to scream in pain. Then one day I learned that if I began breathing deeply into the cramp, the pain would dissipate. The cramp triggered me and yet taught me a new level of non-resistance.

A Chinese finger trap is a tube in which you place a finger into a hole on each side. If you try to yank your fingers free, the tube tightens and traps with greater intensity. However, with the light, slow touch of non-resistance, one can easily free themselves from the trap.

Life works the same way. The harder we fight against what triggers us, the more trapped we become. The more we soften and feel through, the more freedom we find.

Grace in Practice

What has you triggered right now?

Can you surrender to it and let it bend you? Move you closer to that which is the flow of life?

Could it be here to teach you how to move through life with the light, soft touch of non-resistance?

In non-resistance, we let life work for us, discarding the notion that somehow our mind knows better than our essence.

This doesn’t mean becoming passive or accepting abuse. It means stopping the war with reality long enough to see what’s actually being offered. From that place, clear action becomes possible.

The Shift

The question isn’t how to stop being triggered. You can’t control that. Triggers arise from unconscious material that runs deeper than your preferences.

The question is what you do with the trigger when it arrives. Do you fight it, act it out, project it onto others? Or do you let it move through you and reveal what it came to show you?

This practice is my prayer. My meditation. This practice is grace.