Triggers: How to deal with them tactfully and wisely

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Viktor E. Frankl

Triggers or stimuli can be… events or situations or things or people that cause us to react or respond or behave in a certain way.

In our home, I have a 6-year-old German Shepherd dog. His name is Charcoal. Since the age of 4 months old up until now, Charcoal has almost always been barking every time there’s a motorbike passing by our home. So, in this case, a motorbike’s sound is obviously a trigger for Charcoal’s barking behavior.

A trigger can cause us to respond or behave in negative ways or exhibit undesirable or unacceptable behaviors towards others. Just like Charcoal’s case as an example.

So, how to deal with triggers tactfully and wisely?

Most of the time, we cannot possibly control the triggers that happen to us. So, the best way to deal with triggers is to… be fully present and become fully self-aware. Because when we’re fully present and fully self-aware, we have freedom to make a choice of our decisions, actions and behaviors.

Back to Charcoal’s case, Charcoal doesn’t have his ability to stop or pause in between his trigger (a motorbike’s sound) and his response (barking).

Technically speaking, he doesn’t have his self-awareness. That’s why every time, he hears a motorbike’s sound passing by our home, he will automatically and instinctively bark at it. Charcoal is always in the auto-pilot mode for his trigger!

As Dr. Viktor E. Frankl, an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor, put it so insightfully that… “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Also, another great quote of his, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Obviously, my handsome Charcoal doesn’t have his freedom to choose when he gets triggered by a motorbike’s sound. Simply because he doesn’t have his “self-awareness” in order to pause and then, choose his response to the trigger.

As human-beings, we’re exclusively offered with this “self-awareness” gift. So, it’s absolutely up to us whether to choose to equip ourselves with this special gift or not.  

To claim and equip with this special gift, we do need a consistent practice throughout the day, every day. Because this special gift is also a life skill! And a life skill or any skill does need a practice.

If you want to learn how to claim and equip with this special gift, then let’s talk!