Those Who Test And Trigger You The Most, Will Set You Free

Sometimes We Cannot Escape Healing Ourselves

“You can experience the magic of turning toward yourself when you get triggered and listening to what is being revealed, giving your reactions the accepting attention they need to transform.” — Mary O'Malley

Take a moment to think of someone in your life that triggers negative emotions within you. I realise it may be unpleasant, but notice the emotions that arise when you think of this person. Whilst it is difficult to understand, this person is pointing you towards your healing. They are a messenger to help you identify your emotional wounds. I too have such people in my life and whilst I continue to work through my emotional pain, I can see the gift this experience brings to my life. Healing takes place in layers and often requires revisiting something we thought we had transformed. People often ask me: “How will I know when I have healed my emotional wounds?” When the person no longer inflames the emotions, they once triggered.

As I write this article, I have an image in my mind of a Band-Aid removed from an area of the body when healing has taken place. The reason this person provokes you is that you associate them with your wounds. For example, if the person triggers anger in you, you are likely to believe: “This person makes me angry.” But they are not the source of your anger, they are the trigger for the anger already present within you. Does this make sense? Can you see how they are not responsible for your anger because the anger was there in the first place? I’m not suggesting it is your fault because we all carry emotional wounds. Those who heal deal with their wounds instead of allowing them to grow and fester, eventually find peace and harmony.

Sometimes, we cannot escape our own healing because we have no other choice than to deal with it. We may run away from the negative emotions or avoid those that trigger our wounds, but eventually another person will activate the very thing we are avoiding. We must experience the healing and invest our time to transform our wounds, to liberate ourselves from the darkness. You may ask: What does it mean to emotionally heal from a situation? Why do we want to heal our negative emotions? Healing means making peace with our darkness (shadows) and fragmented parts, by integrating them into the wholeness of our true nature. It means looking at them through the lens of compassion, and love so past traumatic experiences no longer dominate our emotional landscape. It requires resolving anything from our past that prevents us living a joyous and rich life.

Running Away From Negative Emotions

“Often, little situations trigger enormous reactions. Be there, present for it. Your partner will find it easier to see it in you, and you will find it easier to see it in them.” — Eckhart Tolle

Sometimes we don’t know what is holding us back from living a wonderful life until we confront our demons. Is this something you’ve experienced before? Have you hit a point where the only way to heal your emotions is to face them directly? Emotionally healing means to liberate ourselves from the negativity associated with the emotions. So, if anger is our core wound from childhood, we will carry it around and when someone activates it, we retaliate and go to war with them. We blame the other person for hurting us when they are merely the trigger, and if you follow the trail, they will help set you free. They are your liberator, if you are willing to go to the source and transform it.

It is difficult carrying our emotional wounds because it becomes burdensome and we may experience an emotional crisis or worse still, a breakdown. For some people, they will run away from their negative emotions their entire life and blame outside circumstances for their pain and suffering. Whereas, the core wound has been within them this whole time, like an animal with a thorn in its paw lashing out at those who help it. But we are not animals, we are sentiment beings with higher reasoning and logical brains. Therefore, those who test and trigger us the most will help set us free, if we are willing to do the work on ourselves. If not, we will find every excuse to be victims and blame those who expose our negative emotions.

But as mentioned earlier, they are messengers pointing you towards healing and transforming your wounds. I’ve written in an earlier article, how the work is never easy and sometimes it will ebb and flow. It will push and pull us and just when we think we’ve had enough, it will yank at us another time. We may be exhausted, angry and even disillusioned, yet this is when we will experience realisations and awakenings in the periods that follow. I’ve been fortunate to heal and transform many core wounds from my childhood and whilst I wouldn’t want to go through the process again, the triggers no longer dominate my life. The negative emotions do not own me because I have made peace with them and seen them for what they are; a smokescreen protecting my egoic self. So, whatever emotional triggers are present in your life, instead of blaming others, trace the pain back to your earliest recollection as a child and gradually heal the wound because your emotional freedom is worth it.