“DrDeb,” Kenny was complaining, “it’s only my wife that triggers me! I have lots of relationships – from work to my religious community to my kids’ schools where I’m very active – and I get along well with everyone else….
….so it must be that I married the wrong person.”
Actually, Kenny, what you’re saying tells me you married the right person.
“Huh?” you’re probably thinking.
I know. I know. It’s counterintuitive. But follow me for a minute and you’ll see where I’m going.
I had a friend who had a terrible accident and ended up paraplegic. She could not feel anything in her legs. One time, she was ironing on a lap-type ironing board and she didn’t realize how thin the padding had gotten. Long and short of it, she burned through the padding to her skin.
Only she didn’t know.
She couldn’t feel it.
Yes, it would have hurt terribly to have gotten burned with a hot iron. But the way things were, her burn was far worse than it would have been. She didn’t know she’d done damage until she smelled something wrong.
Being triggered is like that. It’s a trailhead – as Dr. Schwartz of Internal Family Systems fame calls it – of something that urgently needs attention but can lead you to some important – and healing – discoveries.
The fact that you got triggered by your wife, Kenny, is excellent because it leads you to something way, way back in your life that you have buried and no longer feel, but it needs healing just the same.
See, your wife innocently touched a raw nerve.
And, wouldn’t you know it, the only person in the universe with that much power to get past your defenses is your wife. What’s more, it’s not a coincidence.
It goes like this, according to Dr. Schwartz:
What really – I mean really – attracts us to the person we marry is because they seem like the right person to rescue/love/nurture the hurt parts of us.
I’ll repeat that: We are unconsciously attracted to someone who will be the guardian angel for our hurt parts.
This is either because the person we are attracted to is like the parents who hurt us…
… so it’s like giving a parent another chance …
… or it’s because they are the opposite of those parents so it stands to reason that they would come through like the knight in shining armor or the fairytale princess filled with love that we always wanted.
But they’re human, right?
So every time they mess up, their failure to come through reminds us emotionally of our original unhealed hurt.
And just to make it a little more interesting, there are two people involved, two people each with hopes and dreams for overcoming the original pains of childhood.
Two people who get triggered, even if it’s accidental and inadvertent, but who react and who then react to the reaction until it becomes a chaotic escalation.
But just suppose, for a moment, that when you feel yourself triggered, you note it and ask yourself why. You ask yourself, “What caused this in me?”
And just suppose it does exactly what it’s meant to do: It takes you back to a time when you were hurt in a similar way as a child.
And suppose further that you can comfort your younger self, telling him or her that they were a great child, not a bad one at all.
And you can see them in your mind’s eye leaving that painful place and feel the freedom and joy they feel at doing so.
That would be liberating, wouldn’t it?
à It turns out that our brains don’t distinguish between memories of real events and imaginary “editing” that we do to those memories.ß
That is why we can wake up from a dream in a mood that is completely different from the mood we were in when we fell asleep. That is precisely how hypnosis works, too, and why it is so effective.
What this means is that we actually have it in our power to alter the emotional tone of our memories.
Therefore, at the end of such an imaginary journey, you feel so much better that in your heart, you thank your partner for triggering you.
What would that be like?
This is not at all far-fetched, even though it may seem like it. It may seem like it because if we are used to being in pain and life is just tough, then something good doesn’t seem too likely. But it is likely; it is do-able.
In other words, your spouse is, indeed, your “helper” even if she/he feels as if they’re against you.
Yes, that feeling of being triggered and hurt is not a good feeling. But it’s useful to have so you can figure out just exactly why you were triggered – and to heal the entire experience.
Do you want this? You actually can have it. Really.