Ep 8: What To Do When Your Partner Triggers You 

Does this sound familiar?

• He left his socks on the floor again. You snap at him / make a critical comment. You’re sitting on your bed making a pros/cons list because it feels like he doesn’t care. He’s just wasting your time and you should probably just leave.
• You get triggered by an event and don’t know how to manage it, which leads you down a spiral of relationship anxiety, rumination, and doubt – and eventually, you either collapse in shame or deflect and attack your partner. 
• You keep having a fight where you’re seemingly speaking totally different languages. 
• You feel immediate tension in your chest when your beloved suggests a romantic getaway and sees it as a sign you need to leave. 
• When your partner disappoints you, you see panic instead of alchemizing the moment into deep presence and connection.
  
  

What is a trigger? 

There are 2 ways to look at this. 

1. Something that activates an emotion or energy inside. An event that occurs has a strong emotional reaction. Not necessarily negative. 
2. From a trauma perspective, it can also be something that propels you back into a state where you perceive you are in the traumatic experience. 
3. In general, regardless of whether it is a trauma-activating event or not, it is an event where you go from neutral, to having urgency, aversion or a desire for a certain thing to be true. 
4. It points us to a belief we have that may be somewhat one-sided or a pain, or conflict inside of us. 
5. Triggers occur out of a love of truth and bring light to an internal conflict. 
6. This also means that when you trigger someone else it is simply shining a light on a pain inside of them. 
7. Eg. if I say something you are already insecure about you will get triggered 
8. “We think that if that one thing is true then the rest is a lie”
9. We have to become better at holding different truths are empowering at different times. Expanding into a different view. Noticing where you are standing in the view of someone else eg. social media,  your Mumetc. Come back into alliance with your own truth and your partner. 
10. This process of expansion is quite uncomfortable at times. 
11. We also expand our capacity to handle discomfort around other people’s decisions 
    
    

What to do: 

1. Get regulated – use the EASE method – DM me for the PDF 
2. Emotional alchemy – move the energy from the pain above 
   1. What am I aware of? Sensations, emotions, thoughts
   2. What ELSE am I aware of? Get curious 
   3. What am I making this energy mean? 
   4. Could I move this energy out of my body? Could I embrace, care for and love this energy? Could this energy even be connected to pleasure? 
3. Look at where you are holding beliefs and truths about life that could be conflicting and expand into the version of yourself that can hold all of these truths/possibilities. This might look like seeing things through different lenses, seeing the world through your partner’s eyes, through the lenses of the different parts of yourself. Nourish the parts of you that are in pain. 
   1. What am I making this mean and why would it be so terrible if it were true? 
   2. Arrive at the belief. Eg. “if that were true I would need to…” 
   3. If that were true, why would that be so terrible? Keep going. 
   4. You might land on a memory of when you learned that that’s your truth. Nourish that part of you, make it feel safe. 
4. Expand into the sensations of sitting with the discomfort of their pain and allow it to be there, allow it to be okay – stay regulated. 
   1. Find relief and follow it. 
5. Align with your values, your view and yourself and want to embody and experience instead and take a loving action according to that. 
6. Begin cultivating a sense of relief and safety inside, it’s a skill. It lives in you, come home to it. 
   
   

What’s next? 

Now that you have the foundations, it’s time to apply this to your life and see changs. You’re about to receive a tried and tested framework that works with your mind, body and soul so that you can actually see some changes in your life and through your triggers. 

Introducing… What To Do When Triggered

A 2 hour workshop, we bring together the most important aspects of body-based regulation and inner enquiry so that you can spend less time ruminating over your relationships or going back and forth in fights that you’ve had a million times and more time cuddled up on the couch and out dancing with friends. 

In this immersive 2 hours workshop, I bring you a 6-step framework for transforming triggers into authentic connections that will guide you from confusion, tension and emotional turbulence towards clarity, connection and pleasure. 

Click here to transmute your triggers. 

Podcast Music Composer – Upturned: 

For enquiries about custom composition for podcasts and audio-visual projects please email upturnedduo@gmail.com

Share/review: 

HELP EXPAND THIS PODCAST

I share this show from the bottom of my heart to help people find a free and easy way to return to their hearts. If you love this show and want a free and easy way to help it grow, the most effective way you can help is to:

1. Subscribe to the show by clicking “subscribe” on iTunes or “Follow” on Spotify.
2. Write a review on iTunes
3. Share this show with one friend right now!

These simple and quick actions help this project reach more people. The algorithm uses ratings and reviews to know who to show our show to in their app. Thank you for your support. 

With love,

Sheridan