Emotional Triggers

[Bruno]

How to deal with emotional triggers ?

In the episode "True growth vs Fake groth" Leo says that a sign of true growth is to look at the emotional reactions in any specific area of life.

So, how is that managed ?

[Elton]

By completely feeling every emotion.@Bruno

[Telepresent]

Hi @Bruno,

I've done very well by CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy), which is entirely about learning to recognise how your behaviour and mental state are connected.  To begin with, if you have the resources available to you, I would highly recommend checking out this kind of treatment (even if it's only an online course, you can learn A LOT)

The best suggestion I can offer in terms of learning to recognise emotional reactions is to write them down.  When you write something down, it helps you to remove yourself from the immediate situation: you can return to it later, and see things you weren't able to in the moment.

So, for your question, I would suggest that you choose an area of life you want to improve: say, family life.  Get yourself a notebook, piece of paper, or electronic doc, and make two columns: what happened / what did I feel?  If you want, you can add a third column: why did I feel?

Keep it with you!  Every time you experience an emotion - good or bad - related to that category, write it down!  Write down what happened, and what you felt (and maybe why you think you felt like that).

The reason for this is that it can be very hard for us to see why we react to things in particular ways, as we get dragged around by our emotions.  But as soon as we see it written down after a week or two... oooh boy is it clear!  Incidentally, that's also why friends and family sometimes know you better than you do!

 

[Bob84]

@Bruno By not cherishing the thoughts that cause the emotions.
Note: this does in no way mean you should ignore them as that is also cherishing them.