Shining Light into Shadows: How to Resolve a Trigger

It's been a while since I've been able to make the time to write. I'm feeling compelled now because something exciting is happening. I've been working a lot with people around triggers and it's been awesome to see the relief and change that's happening.

Okay, wait, what do I mean when I say "trigger?" Yes, I'm talking about those moments where we have a strong emotional reaction to something. But it's bigger than that.

The paradigm I use when working with people around triggers is one of "Shadow Work." This is essentially, a fancy way of saying making unconcious forces conscious.

And pairing the energetic influences of acupuncture with guidance and somatic and verbal processing is a really powerful combination to working with the unconscious.

As Carl Jung said, "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it fate."

Before we dive any deeper I want to say this: relegating things to the shadows is a beautiful and wise survival strategy. It’s intelligent and clever to hide away things we can’t cope with until the day we’re ready and able. Gratitude and appreciation is the most fitting gesture to face the shadows.

And friends, with all of our responsibilities and the insanity of the world, it can be difficult to find (or make) the time and space to go on this adventure into the unknown. It requires tangible and subtle resources. You will know when you are ready.

There are 5 stages to "shadow resolution" (making the unconscious conscious), which is to say resolving a trigger.

Stage 1) Unaware: we are completely unaware that there is a problem. In triggered states people tend to engage in behaviors to distract themselves from and avoid the pain/discomfort cause by the unconcsious arousal. Things like drinking, smoking, yelling, escaping into work or exercise or television or porn or food. But at this stage, the individual isn't aware of their problematic/harmful behavior (or they're in denial that the behavior is problematic/harmful)

Stage 2) Symptom Aware: In the next stage they're aware of a symptom of being triggered (anxiety, rage and yelling, escape behaviors like drinking, overexercise, overworking, binge watching television...). Generally, the desire is to get rid of the symptom (l want to make the anxiety go away, I want to stop drinking). And that is wonderful and a great place to start moving towards a life of more integration. However, what they see as the problem, is really a symptom and resolving the symptom often, like in a game of whack-a-mole, leads to another symptom. Instead of drinking, I'm smoking. Instead of this, I'm now doing that. It may be a better healthier coping mechanism, but there's a more comprehensive way to address what's going on.

Stage 3) External Trigger Aware: At this stage of the process people are starting to realize that there's something on the outside that leads to the symptom at hand. "Whenever I have to talk to my boss, I drink too much" or "Everytime I get in a fight with my partner, I bingewatch Netflix." There's now an awareness of an external trigger that leads to the symptom. This is really good. Sometimes, we can eliminate the triggers, but some triggers cannot be eliminated (at least not without complete upheaval of our lives).

Stage 4) Internal Process Aware: Here we become aware of what's going on "under the hood." For instance, "whenever I get in a fight with my partner, I feel unsafe and Netflix helps numb me to that feeling or replaces that feeling with a sense of cozy safety." Or "Whenever I talk to my boss I feel angry and out of control, and drinking helps take the edge off the anger." As we begin to awaken to what's going on inside of us we gain a lot more agency and we become empowered with more options.

Now, if I'm feeling unsafe in the midst of an argument with partner, I can either step away and talk myself through how safe I am, or I can reach out to friend to get help reminding me, or I can take a chance and share that with my partner and maybe get support coregulating.

If I feel angry after leaving a conversation with my boss I can explore ways to feel and move that anger without drinking, and maybe I can even capitalize on that anger (after some processing) to assert myself in new ways in that relationship, or leave that job.

Stage 5) Healing the seed experience: This is where we time travel. It's tricky because you have to find “Doc” from Back to the Future and he's hard to find. Ha, no, but really, this is where we feel into our experience when we're triggered and try to remember the first time we felt that way. When we reprocess the original (previously Unconcious/shadow) memory that led us to react to these triggers in these ways we can actually heal and resolve it. Now, I maybe no longer feel unsafe when I enter into a conflict with my partner. Or I don't get angry when I talk to my boss.

I'm laying out this whole process because I think it can be really helpful to have the full trajectory of what happens and how and why. It's ultimately only one model for working with triggers and there are actually a number of different therapeutic interventions to support someone at any and every stage along the way. And I do recommend working with someone who can support this process.

I've also been going through these stages in little videos on instagram if you'd like to check those out and I walk through this process with a personal example on this podcast episode.

One more thing, the most important thing: This is all about Love and Freedom.

This whole process involves letting more Love into our lives.

Letting more Grace into our lives.

Letting more Beauty into our lives.

Creating space for more joyful relationships with the world.

You see, there’s a sociocultural shadow at play these days. It’s perfectionist and it’s always striving towards more growth and wholeness, to the point where it’s obsessed with self-improvement.

And, it’s positive in that it drives us towards healing, but it’s tormented and twisted and coming from a place of not-enoughness and of not feeling lovable. But we’re all worthy of love, and working with shadows and triggers doesn’t make us any more worthy.

Love is a gift the Kosmos is streaming towards us at all times, if only we can receive it.

I know this was a bit more didactic than my usual writing, but, hopefully, it's just as moving, just as useful. And do give credit where credit is due, I learned this from a beautiful human named Kim Barta.

If you have any questions, or want a better understanding of what this process might look like for you, or for your "friend", by all means please reach out.

Otherwise, please enjoy the delights of this moment of wiggling our way towards the equinox.

With so much Love,

Noah