Exercise 11: Your Emotional Triggers

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had the power to predict our emotional patterns? Do you ever know when you are going to have a huge blow-up fight with a friend, spouse, or client with just one phone call or meeting? If we could, we would all live in a more peaceful world. However, we don't and according to these exercises, the best way to live harmoniously with one another AND with yourself is to dig up dirty old feelings from this life.

So to answer the first question, YES, it would be wonderful to predict our emotional patterns, which we in good faith did from Exercise 10. The next step is to examine how these patterns affect our present situations. In your journal (you really should have one by now!), write the feeling that is currently your biggest problem from the list of 3 in the previous exercise. Here is mine:

Name the feeling: Longing

Next list four situations briefly you recall when you had this feeling, regardless of how you handled it. You can write actual events or typical ones. You can also use the example from Exercise 2. Here is my example:

Four situations that made me feel this feeling:
1.    My husband at the bar with his friend, and I did not know when he would return. This was the day of his birthday party. I only knew of one bar he went to, which closed at midnight and it was 2 am when he was still not at home. I know he isn’t a cheater, just absent-minded when he is drunk.
2.    The same man did not come home after his scheduled work and did not call. I thought he had died. He was supposed to be home at 5 am. At 7 am, he was still not at home or answering his phone call. He finally called at 9:30 when I was on my way to his work. His boss gave him another job when he returned from his trip and he thought to call me later when I was awake since I usually slept in during the summer.
3.    When my mother-in-law and I were having a hard time understanding each other. I just could not get along with her or make her understand our situation without her crying (in front of me or in front of other people). I longed for a good relationship but it was not possible if there was no understanding especially on her part. At the time she first moved here, it seemed that she expected me to conform to her ideas on many things.
4.    The husband making plans to do other things when he is at home besides with me and our daughter. He would come home from being gone throughout the week to ride his bike and play golf, which was nothing we could do. If he did things with us, he wanted to include his parents, which were okay every once in a while but I longed for just our family time. And that (just us) happened maybe two or three times during the first two years of our marriage (all other times included EVERYONE).

After the brief stories, answer the following questions to try to find some common factors:

1.    How many people besides yourself are usually in your stories?
2.    Which person in your stories causes the problem?
3.    Is there an imbalance of power or an injustice in your stories?
4.    Is there loss in your stories or are there needs not met?
5.    Is anyone being evaluated in your stories?
6.    Is there deception in your stories?
7.    Do your stories tend to take place in any particular type of setting?
8.    Do you have any particular physical or emotional vulnerability at the start of any of your stories or in the background?
9.    Are you active or passive in your stories?

My example:

1.    How many people besides yourself are usually in your stories? 1
2.    Which person in your stories causes the problem? Me, I let their problems get to me.
3.    Is there an imbalance of power or an injustice in your stories? Always. Life is just not fair!
4.    Is there loss in your stories or are there needs not met? Yes. There was always miscommunication. My needs are to be told directly. Like for the husband, as long as he calls, I am okay. With the MIL, I would hear things that were indirect. My husband and father-in-law understood what she felt because she told them. She rarely told me anything directly – it was all heresy. This used to bother me. I realize now that she is the mousy-type and avoids any type of confrontation, which I have accepted and not take personally. I used to think she was "stabbing me in the back" which now I know better. Nobody can literally "stab me in the back" and not leave scars.
5.    Is anyone being evaluated in your stories? No
6.    Is there deception in your stories? WHAT!? NO!
7.    Do your stories tend to take place in any particular type of setting? At home. I'm calm now.
8.    Do you have any particular physical or emotional vulnerability at the start of any of your stories or in the background? No
9.    Are you active or passive in your stories? I am extremely active (and towards the end especially) when it came to dealing with my husband and his family. Things are much better now.

The purpose of these questions are to help dig up the essential pieces of the past emotional scenarios that easily upset your emotional balance. With that, finish the following phrase to give yourself a forewarning of your emotional trigger:

To avoid being emotionally overwhelmed, watch out for ...

My example:

To avoid being emotionally overwhelmed, keep lines for open communication available. It’s okay for me to tell other people what I feel and what I need. If they choose not to understand it, I am still okay.