Triggers are Medicine
Women are gatherers. Not just in relation to what we eat but also to information, knowledge, wisdom, insight and experiences.
And with what we gather, we learn to discern what is ours to keep and use and what is not meant for us, as a sovereign woman.
Here’s the truth, the inner experience of your life is medicine. The challenge is that these experiences can be triggering, sending us into wild and dark spaces, leaving us lost and confused, worried and consumed.
And as real and visceral as these experiences can be, our triggers are messengers with valuable, important and transformative information that can gives us a greater understanding of who we are, thus help to deepen our connection and relationship to the self.
As gatherers, our triggers give us the chance to unravel what is sitting inside of us; the experiences we have not yet had the chance to sit with, in curiosity, understanding and compassion.
Sitting in the Aries energy of Coven, we explored these truths with some steps on how to face your triggers to experience inner liberation.
Step 1: Acknowledge
Here you want to bring our awareness to the fact that you’ve been triggered. That you’re feeling activated by a current situation. This is information. And the first part of this is the awareness of our inner world.
Steps 2: Pay Inner Attention
You want to take a step back so you can fully be with yourself and what is happening inside of you. This is the uncomfortable work because you’re being with your feelings, not trying to bypass them but rather acknowledging the feelings and sensations inside your body. This is the big pivot: taking the attention off what’s happening outside of you, to what’s happening inside of you.
Step 3: Get Grounded
You want to bring yourself out of fight or flight because this is what happens when we get triggered. We cannot be in a proper state of reflection, to be fully open and objective about an experience when we are activated. When in survival mode we are looking to survive, not thrive. Grounding practices that bring back to a parasympathetic state and into the here and now can include breath-work practices and moving your body.
Step 4: Reflect with Curiosity
Once grounded, you can start to reflect on the situation from an objective perspective which means taking your inner experience and relating it to the external event. Being curious with your reaction including where you felt sensations and feelings in your body.
Step 5: Ask questions
What is it about the current situation that brought up these feelings? Why am I feeling what I’m feeling? Why might I have had that reaction? Is there a connection I have about this situation that is similar to something that happened in the past?
Finally, normalize that although there are many steps to uncovering triggers, they don’t always go in order and reflecting can at times feel re-triggering. So continue to ground yourself and take your time to build connections so you can heal and access the medicine within.
Resources to offer support and expansion in your healing journey:
The Magical Mind, Witch Session
The Nourished Nervous System, Witch Session
Healing Sisterhood Wounds, on the Grimoire
Full to New, A Nourished Tea Journey, in the Market Place