Jim Cogley: Reflections Tues 3 Oct – Mon 9 Oct

Triggers – Some more material in relation to our reactions as this topic has such broad appeal.

Tue 3^rd Oct – Emotional Triggers

It’s a familiar feeling when someone makes a joke at our expense or expresses a comment that might not be a huge deal to another person, yet it totally destabilises us for the rest of the day. Suddenly, you find yourself feeling off-centre and thrust into a bout of anxiety, guilt, or shame. It can seem like a much younger and inferior person has taken over the wheel of your life and he or she has not yet learned to drive! We all have emotional triggers. It can be challenging to identify what exactly those triggers are, but the process of getting to know and understand them can help us heal, cope better, and grow in awareness.

Wed 4^th Oct – Why We Trigger?

Why do we all have triggers? In short, because we were all children once and we came into the world carrying ancestral baggage. When we were growing up, we inevitably experienced pain or suffering that we could not acknowledge and/or deal with sufficiently at the time. The child may be hurt by the parent but to express that anger might result in rejection that is tantamount to annihilation. The result is that the feelings go inward and become buried. So as adults, we typically become triggered by experiences that are reminiscent of these old painful feelings even when we don’t know where they come from. Similarly, our ancestral story can be activated, and we can experience feelings that are older than ourselves. As a result, we typically turn to habitual or addictive ways of trying to manage our painful feelings.

Thurs 5^th Oct – Common Emotional Triggers (1)

• Someone rejecting you or appearing to – Can activate a childhood rejection or school bullying. Even a womb rejection can be awakened.
• Someone leaving you (or the threat that they will) – Can activate an early memory of abandonment or being left on one’s own.
• Helplessness over painful situations – Can activate a time of crisis and feeling powerless, especially from childhood.
• Someone discounting or ignoring you – Can activate a time of being compared or overlooked from very far back.
• Someone being unavailable to you – Can activate memory of a parent who wasn’t present (perhaps as a result of a bereavement) and basic needs not being met.

Fri 6^th Oct – Common Emotional Triggers (2)

• Someone giving you a disapproving look – Can activate a time when approval and encouragement were lacking or when a parents look of disapproval went deep.
• Someone blaming or shaming you – Can activate memories of being blamed in the wrong or being told ‘You should be ashamed of yourself.’
• Someone being judgemental or critical towards you – Can activate a strong inner critic and being hard on myself.
• Someone being too busy to make time for you – Can activate childhood memories of parent/s being too busy to be present.
• Someone I perceive as a threat – Can activate feelings of inadequacy and inferiority.

Sat 7^th Oct – Common Emotional Triggers (3)

• Someone not appearing to be happy to see you – Can trigger memories of never really been seen or being wanted, going as far back as the womb.
• Someone coming on to you sexually – Can activate memories of sexual abuse and boundaries being infringed.
• Someone gives us the silent treatment – Can trigger childhood memories of silence in the home or being ignored.
• Someone being bossy and wanting to control you – Can trigger memories of an overbearing parent who was always ‘giving out’, or a sibling.
• Someone being needy or trying to smother you – can trigger memories of a needy or depressed parent whom no one could help.

Sun 8^th Oct – The Stone Rejected

There was a legend, well-known in New Testament times, that in the building of the Great Temple in Jerusalem by Solomon, most of the stones were of the same size and shape. One stone arrived, however, that was different from the others. The builders took one look at it and said, ‘This will not do, it does not fit,’ and sent it rolling down into the valley of Kedron below. The years passed, the great Temple was nearing completion, and the builders sent a message to the stonecutters to send the chief cornerstone that the structure might be complete. The cutters replied that they had sent the stone years before. Then someone remembered the stone that was so different from all the rest that it somehow did not seem to belong. They realised that they had thrown away the cornerstone. They hurried into the valley to retrieve it. Finally, from under vines and debris, they recovered it and with great effort rolled it up the hill and put it in place so that the great Temple would be complete: the stone that had been rejected had become the chief cornerstone.

If I might share a few thoughts on just how the stone rejected might relate to ourselves. As we reflect back over our life, what was the most difficult period, what was it that we found most painful and that we felt like rejecting the most? What is it that we find most difficult to talk about or have never shared with anyone? Most of us don’t have to look too far to find that particular something and most likely we locked it away some place in our minds where we thought was most safe in the hope that we would never have to revisit it again as long as we live. What we generally find is that something we try to keep hidden will keep coming back to haunt us until we make room for it in our lives.

It might be an issue to do with one or other of our parents or even both, in relation to how we felt treated. Most parents would claim to love all their children equally but in practice this is not the case. They do have favourites and if you were made feel the ugly duckling in relation to others then that does leave a big wound.

Even after all the abuse scandals being highlighted in recent years there are still a huge number of people who have never got the courage to tell their own story of how they were shamed and had their boundaries violated.

There may have been a heart rendering loss in your life, even early, that rocked you to the foundations and made you question the goodness of life.

You may have been married for years and then discovered your partner was having being unfaithful. Suddenly your world goes pear shaped and you find yourself on your own. It feels as if life has let you down and been unkind to you.

These are all the cornerstones of our personal story that we are inclined to reject as something we don’t want in our lives. At the time of their happening it’s impossible to see how we might ever find a place for them let alone give them a position of importance.

Yet the greatest healers in the world have themselves been deeply wounded by life but they have not allowed their hurts to define them. Instead, they have faced them with courage and transformed them into sources of healing for others.

The ones who work best with abuse victims have usually their own horrendous story of being a victim themselves and having faced their own pain it gives them compassion and understanding.

Many who have been betrayed in relationships, rather than take the view of once bitten twice shy have gone on to form very meaningful second marriages. Many would say that what they learned from the first disaster was like a cornerstone for the next, thus ensuring that the same problems would not happen again.

It’s really a marvel to our eyes to witness how something so tragic as sexual abuse, or a violent childhood, can become the cornerstone of a person’s adult identity and makes them who they are. Yet it is the testimony of so many that having had the courage to face their pain, and engage with their issues, something that was utterly horrendous could be so transformed as to become the cornerstone of their lives. That same challenge is there for all of us. What we most reject has the potential to become the cornerstone.

I would like to conclude with a quote from Pope Francis. He said recently: “Don’t focus on the question of ‘Why did this happen to me?’ Rather focus on ‘How can I make what has happened to me to become a source of healing and a means of helping others?’”

Mon 9^th Oct – Owning Our Gunpowder

A trigger can activate a popgun, a shotgun or a landmine. The extent of the explosion bears no relation to the size of the trigger, yet whatever it is, it is entirely our own. No one has upset me except myself; no one has disappointed me, except myself; no one has made me feel inferior, except myself. It’s all too easy to blame the trigger and fail to recognise that the source of my annoyance lies within and is entirely my own. To accuse the other saying ‘You made me feel this way’ is entirely without merit since it is not what you have said or done but rather my reaction that has left me miserable. Taking full ownership of the explosive material that is ‘mine’ (pun intended) is essential for growth and awareness.