When I say I'm 'triggered', what I mean is that an event has happened (which might be someone saying something), and a cascade of negative emotion has occurred, which is disproportionate and / or inappropriate to the situation. This is particularly true of things that people say that do not reflect actual events or news of a change in situation. Literally nothing is happening, but I am reacting as though something is happening.
Where does this come from? Between the event (or verbal contribution) and my emotional reaction is a processing stage, which takes place so quickly within the brain that it can hardly be discerned ... but it is there. Obviously, the reaction is coming not from the event itself or the words but from my interpretation thereof. Interpretation is indivisible from perception. To save processing time, the brain automates reactions, so that, when I am presented with a stimulus, I need not work it through from scratch but can pull down the interpretation off the shelf, as it were. The mind construes patterns, and when I react I’m construing the immediate stimulus as coherent with some past stimulus.
To sum up so far, when I am triggered, I am pulling down an interpretation off the shelf, and that interpretation is really an old interpretation of a past event. This means I have left present reality: I am repeating an emotional reaction to a past event by reinhabiting my past interpretation of that past event in the guise of what is happening right now.
This means I have not healed: the negative interpretation of the past event is axiomatically an interpretation that I am being attacked in some way. This has a number of elements: firstly, I have not forgiven the other person for the 'wrongdoing' (the conduct is not even necessarily wrong: most people, myself included, have had a habit of personalising what actually has nothing to do with them); secondly, I am persisting in seeing myself as attacked. People’s behaviour may be unnecessary, practically destructive, unhelpful, unconstructive, wrong-headed, even malicious, but they are not unsafe or toxic in any objective sense. Salt doesn’t harm skin unless the skin is damaged. I’m not affected by so-called ‘unsafe’ or ‘toxic’ people when I’m intact. The lack of safety or the toxicity resides in my interaction with particular types of stimulus. Until healing has taken place and even whilst it is taking place, it can be wise to separate myself from certain types of situation or person; however, that reflects not the inherent nature of the situation or person but my own present vulnerability.
A person cannot be attacked; a person cannot be harmed. My physical body, my circumstances, my relations, my image of myself, my reputation etc. can be harmed. But I cannot. I am spirit. Therefore, that interpretation that I have been and can be attacked has to go. The absurdity of the notion that I can be attacked is most evident in relation to the physical body. Think of your fingernails: part of your physical body. You can cut them off and throw them in a fire. Are you any less yourself? I am not my fingernails. I am equally not any other part of myself. Even painful damage or organ failure does not harm me. My body is harmed but I am not harmed. My experience may be uncomfortable and my continued presence through the physical body may be threatened, but I myself am fine. This may seem bizarre and even alarming, but we have to remember we've been trained by civilisation and even maybe by evolution to be psychologically attached to our physical bodies: we adorn them and paint them and get upset if they don't look the way we want them to look. If someone compliments our bodies, we take it personally: we think people are complimenting us. How ridiculous!
Pitstop: when I am triggered now, I am not reacting to a current event but to a past event, which has not been healed.
The healing involves two stages. Firstly: heal from false interpretation of the past event (with Steps Four through Nine, plus Step Twelve: helping other people heal from their false interpretations of their past events). Secondly: retrain the mind by immediately reminding myself of truth when I am triggered: I am safe, nothing is happening, I cannot be harmed, no one is out to 'get me', what I am cannot be 'gotten'. Gradually, this rewires the brain and starts to inform the reaction in the moment. Painstakingly, particular stimuli have to be detached from particular interpretations, and that takes place stimulus by stimulus. For instance, interpreting every criticism of a piece of work as a judgement on my personal worth or future prospects; interpreting every failure or uncooperative feature of a piece of hardware or software as evidence of my powerlessness and vulnerability (yes, I get triggered by unwanted software updates).
This is very similar to going into a room where the lightbulb has broken and training oneself that the lightbulb has broken and that there is no point in trying to switch the light on. Eventually the message gets through, and not turning the light on becomes automatic.
I trained myself for many years to feel attacked. It has taken years to train myself not to feel attacked. The training, in both directions, is training in interpretation, and interpretation makes perception.
Not every shred of false interpretation has left me: I can still experience untimely, disproportionate, and inappropriate reactions to ordinary everyday events or reminders of known states of affairs, but when I am in my right mind I remember that the problem lies in the wiring and not outside of myself.
There is one tiny bit of bad news: whilst I see the cause of how I feel outside of myself, I cannot even begin the process. The process of healing presumes I have acquired one basic insight: I have been mis-wired or mis-wired myself, and I need rewiring. While I see the problem outside of myself, I remain trapped.
Postscript: Everyone has vulnerabilities; everyone has unhealed aspects of themselves. Very few people have a programme to help them heal. In the meantime, therefore, it absolutely behoves me to strip my words and behaviour, wherever possible, of what might upset others, within reason and without comprising immediate or ultimate objectives of shared progress or wellbeing (for instance: just as surgery necessitates some incursion into living tissue with attendant pain, spiritual growth necessitates challenging old ideas, and that is always painful). Similarly, it is my responsibility to help protect those who are vulnerable from deliberately inflicted or unnecessarily challenging stimuli. There is nothing inconsistent about knitting my own coat to keep myself warm whilst building a fire to keep warm those who are not yet able to knit themselves a coat.