Unit 1: Understanding Trauma
IN THIS LESSON
Allowing triggers to dictate your response can have a devastating effect on relationships.
Continuing to ignore triggers erodes trust and a feeling of safety in relationships.
Triggers are takers. Like a masked robber, they steal from you each time you allow them the upper hand.
What can they take?
Your feeling of movement and progression
Your self-control
Your patience
Your ability to relax
Your ability to put others ahead of you
That’s an incomplete list, but it shows you how much is at stake when we let triggers dictate our reactions and behaviors.
Each time we react to a trauma trigger in a negative way, we give that trigger power to erode. And it not only picks away at us from the inside, but it deteriorates our relationships with others as well. Let’s face it: Nobody wants to be around a person whose trauma triggers cause them to blame others, have emotional outbursts, act sullen or grumpy, and make them feel less than. Each triggered episode chips away until the relationship collapses.
This can happen with any relationship, not just a lover or spouse. It happens with family members, including children, too. It creates incalculable, and sometimes irreversible harm.
Maybe you’ve seen it happen to you already. Maybe that’s why you’re reading this book. The good news is that this cycle can be broken.
Time to Reflect
Question 1: Triggers are takers. In addition to the list above, what other things can trauma triggers rob you of?
Question 2: In what ways have you “lost” when it comes to trauma triggers that you’ve allowed to erode?