When triggered, it’s important to remind yourself - the true you - what your ego wants. It wants one thing - to be right. That requires the person(s) you are in conflict with to be wrong.
Your ego will use its megaphone in your head to take control of your thoughts and create all kinds of reasons why you are right. It will start with justification. Your egos arguments will appear rational, measured even. But know that they are anything but. You have entered into an irrational state and you are no longer in control, your ego is. Your ego will attempt to build an irrefutable legal case as to why you are in the right. It wants to blame.
The next thing your ego will lead you to do is recruit. You will easily recruit allies that agree wholeheartedly with your egos assessment of the situation. It is lost on you that they are only hearing one side of the story. If chosen properly, they will quickly join you in your disdain for the person(s) you are in conflict with and your one-sided assessment of the situation. Many enjoy drama, so your egos well chosen recruits will enthusiastically participate in piling on. Their egos might even give you some suggestions at how to best get back at the person(s).
Finally, your ego will go too far. It will start to horrify the other person(s), even if you considered them a friend before the altercation. Heck, even family and loved ones. Especially them. This is when your egos true colors, and lack of character, will emerge. It will start to feed you very bad thoughts, some even criminal. Cause it wants you to believe so firmly in its assessment that the other person(s) intent was evil that any measure necessary to stop them is fair game and should be placed on the table. After all, you must protect yourself at all costs right?
Triggers are messy. So is working through them. I’ve learned to catch them early by identifying them as such. I now know when I’m triggered, so I know the egos gameplan and what it will do next. This is helpful as it gives me a chance to stop the cycle before I begin to recruit others that will agree.
I’m proud of myself. Yesterday I was severely triggered by a dear friend. After spending a fair amount of time justifying that I was right in my thoughts, and arguing my positions with the other person, I was able to realize what was happening. My ego had fully taken over my thoughts. It was my CEO for the foreseeable future. It had the wheel.
Feeling the gravitational pull to recruit (the Egos goal), I pulled a judo move by calling my best friend. My ego thought it won, as surely my best friend would side with me and my disdain. Only my ego did not comprehend why I called this person first. You see, in addition to being my best friend, he is also my presence practice coach. A judo move for help, cause, well, fuck you Mr. Ego! You do not have my best interests at heart.
After allowing my ego to run amok to start our call, my secret plan began to work. Instead of taking my side, my best friend recognized an opportunity to instead be my coach. He suggested a simple exercise.
He said, “do something for me. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and say hello to yourself in your mind.”
After doing this, I recognized that the actual me was still active. The loving, caring, supportive, positive, inspirational, and fair person that I am, wanted to retake control. The ego had been in charge long enough.
I even called him an hour later to file an official complaint. I was now hearing Lionel Richie sing the word hello in my thoughts every five minutes. Make it stop please!!!!!! 😜🙈
The ego is very talented at re-emerging any time it wants, so the battle raging in my mind did not end immediately. However, as the day progressed, it got better. I woke up this morning free of the trigger altogether, ready to move on.
I now have the tools to fight off triggers. I embrace that I am still an amateur at this. I realize that I will suffer from more triggers. I am pleased to report though that I was able to end the fire drill in my head in less than 24 hours (an accomplishment as they can sometimes rage for days) and that I, the real me, is firmly back in control.
I can acknowledge that what happened actually did happen. I can accept it and move on. I don’t feel the need to rationalize or mansplain it further to myself, or recruit anyone else. I stopped short of allowing my ego to horrify the other person.
I see this all as tremendous progress on my #1 goal of 2022 to implement a presence practice I can rely on. And not just to create more joy, but also as a defense when my ego wants to go to war. Peace is self-love.
I hope this share inspires you to work at developing your own set of tools to combat your Egos desires.
