Hi there,
Welcome.
This is Ed Fox and I want to welcome you to a healing meditation for emotional triggers.
You know,
It took me a while to really get ready for this recording because there's so many things that are involved in emotional triggers.
So I took a nice long walk in the hills above my house in Boulder.
It was a beautiful,
Beautiful day,
Clear,
Warm in the 60s,
A lot of sun,
A lot of wind.
And I think I got my mind straight on how I want to present this very simple but intricate meditation so that we can overcome the phenomenon that affects everyone.
I'm laughing because it's so simple but yet it's so challenging.
And that is,
You know,
What do we do when we have great meditations,
Guided,
Individual,
Quiet,
Whatever it is,
We feel great.
And then we go out into our day and boom,
Someone says something to us.
Wow,
Someone looks at us and all of a sudden we're triggered.
The emotions go up,
The body gets tense,
We hear this voice in our heads screaming or loudly speaking to us about what that means.
We get upset about how our physiology feels and it gets us more emotional and we get on this emotional,
A bad felt sense feeling in the body merry-go-round and there's just no end to it.
It's funny because it happens to everyone but it's also funny because it seems that we have no control over it.
Today I want to share with you some of the tricks,
No they're not really tricks,
Okay,
Some of the tools that I've learned over the years that helps me to disengage,
Master and manage the emotional triggers in my life.
So if you're ready,
What I'll ask you to do is sit comfortably and close your eyes,
Feet flat on the floor.
And if you're listening to this,
You've probably done a lot of meditation on insight timer already and so you probably know how to get quiet and go within and that's perfect.
The only thing that I want to add to that is for you to have your attention on how does what I hear in this guided meditation,
How does it feel,
How does it resonate deep inside of me and it's either going to resonate strongly or it's not.
And in either case I want you just to be okay with that,
Alright,
Because if it doesn't resonate with you,
Allow yourself to say I'm not resonating with this but I'll do it anyway because resonating with something is a moment to moment phenomenon,
Okay,
And give yourself some openness.
So put your attention on your breath right now.
Take a nice,
Deep,
Comfortable breath in through your nose,
Filling your diaphragm.
You feel your diaphragm fill from the bottom and then eventually your chest will rise and let it out when it's comfortably full through the mouth.
Great.
And let's do that one more time.
Deep inhale.
Great.
Now I'd like you to recall,
I'd like you to think about the last time you got triggered by someone,
Something,
Some situation.
Maybe it was just five minutes ago,
Maybe it was last week,
But just take yourself back in time.
Imagine you're in that place.
Recall what time of day it was.
What were you wearing?
Who was there?
What were they saying?
What was the look on their faces?
What was the situation that was occurring just before you noticed that your body was excited and your mind began to race,
Let's say,
In the channel of reaction?
I'll give you a few minutes to go into that,
To feel that.
Good.
You'll notice that the body may respond just the way it did back then.
The mind is going to respond because the body and mind respond together,
Do they not?
The autonomic nervous system regulates that whenever the mind responds in a certain way,
The body will have a corresponding reaction and vice versa.
So feel what was once a memory now becomes a real feeling in this very moment.
Feel the tenseness in your body.
Notice your mind beginning to think those stories,
Those judgments of what happened or what might happen in the future or what they said or did,
What it means,
What it signifies in terms of what will happen to you,
In terms of how you feel about yourself,
Maybe even possibly in terms of how you honor yourself.
Okay.
And now I'd ask you to do one more thing.
Recall when this situation might've happened earlier on in your life.
When did someone make you feel that certain way that the story is sort of telling you that I'm not good enough or they don't like me or I,
I can't do this or I'm embarrassed or I'm in over my head,
Whatever it may be,
You will realize that this is a story that at a much younger age,
A much earlier develop developmental stage in your beingness that this happened and left its imprint.
And right now you're feeling at least two of those imprints.
Yes.
Notice how you feel in your body,
The tenseness feel the mental imprint by how strong that story is,
How indicative,
How personal it's become.
And now I'd like you to step beside yourself for a moment and notice and measure your emotional level.
How emotional are you right now?
You may be very emotional.
You may be not that emotional,
But measure it.
Take your emotional temperature,
So to speak.
Neither high nor low is good or bad.
Just notice it because in healing and letting go of any trigger,
We need to be comprehensive in understanding the three imprints that all wounds,
All situations that are painful to think about.
All those situations leave three imprints with us in our body,
In our mind and in our emotion.
And now we're recalling all three of these and we can move through them.
Feel the body.
Yeah,
I feel that in my heart.
I feel that in my solar plexus,
Whatever it may be.
Oh,
And I'm listening to the story about what happened,
Who's at fault,
Who did what to who.
Oh,
That's a story.
Wow.
Look at that story.
Look at that feeling in the body,
That imprint.
And also look at how your emotional temperature is rising and begin to realize that these three imprints are what we call in general,
The wound within us,
The wound from having experienced something uncomfortable,
The experience of either feeling abandoned,
Violated,
Ignored,
Feeling invisible,
Not being heard,
Not being good enough,
Not being pretty enough,
Not being smart enough.
All of that.
I want you just to marinate in that for a few moments.
Good.
Very good.
Now,
That's the wound.
Your attention is on the wound and because you're in a quiet state,
Your attention is very powerful.
And I want you just to be able,
And you may need to imagine this at first.
I want you to imagine all three together.
Good.
All right.
This is the wound.
All right.
So,
As you notice these three imprints on the three areas of your being,
Let's take the first one.
I want you to notice where in your body you feel the sensation.
Where in the body?
Is it in your solar plexus?
Is it in your heart?
Is it in your lower back?
Possibly your gut?
Check those areas of the body and see how,
Where they are.
And once you find where it is,
Put your attention on it acutely and allow it to bloom.
Allow it to come out.
Embrace it.
Invite it.
Say,
There you are pain.
There you are sensation.
I give you permission to come out and I will not judge you.
I will feel you come out of my body,
But I'm going to turn the stories off right now and just feel.
Yes,
That's right.
We are going to feel without judgment,
Something new.
Feel it without judgment and you can let it come out now.
And what happens is when the body is allowed to be felt by your consciousness without judgment,
It is free to heal itself.
Just like your body can heal when you're sleeping and not thinking the wounds of the day,
The cuts to bruises just as easily and effortlessly as your body begins digest your dinner without you giving it one thought you're releasing right now the power of your body to heal by allowing it to be felt completely without a mental component to it without a judgment,
Without anything too excited,
But its own healing nature.
I'll give you a few moments to do that.
Good.
Now,
As you feel that sensation in your body begin to diminish,
Keep your attention on it and then once it's gone,
Then let it go.
What you will notice is that the mind now is free to think another thought.
It's no longer locked into that pain,
To that discomfort.
Now the body is healed and the corresponding reaction on the other side of that autonomic nervous system is the mind's relaxation.
What you might also find is that your emotion has subsided.
Your emotions have calmed down because your emotions is a reaction to what goes on in your mind.
It goes on in your body and as your mind and body let go,
Finally emotion releases and balances.
And in this way,
You are using the three elements of your being to detach from the trigger.
Now,
In this subtle state,
I just want you to imagine something.
Bathe in this calmness.
Understand what has happened.
You have removed the wound in this moment for as much as you have cleared it in this moment.
You've removed the wound that gets touched by the outside triggers.
And when you remove the wound or subside the wound or heal the wound,
People come along and say things but they no longer touch a wound because the wound is no longer there.
You see,
Healing the wound makes the trigger useless.
There's nothing to trigger.
It's like having a gun with no bullet in the chamber.
You pull the trigger and it goes click,
Click,
Click.
Nothing happens.
So,
What does that mean?
As you feel this release going on,
Know in the back of your mind deep,
Also deep within you,
That you are healing the actual cause of your explosive trigger,
Explosive reaction.
Because you cannot control,
We cannot control the outside world,
Can we?
There are triggers abound in the world,
Politics,
Finance,
COVID,
All the things are out there.
Can we control them?
No.
Can you control your ex-wife?
Can you control your boss?
No.
But you can take the wound and heal it inside so your boss doesn't touch it,
So your ex-wife doesn't touch it,
Or ex-girlfriend,
Or situations.
And what happens is when you heal the wound and you see that the trigger is not the problem,
Then you no longer become a victim of any circumstance,
A victim of any person,
A victim of any situation.
You've removed the wound,
You've removed the bullet,
You've done a loving thing to yourself,
You have empowered yourself,
And therefore you are loving yourself in the best possible way you could do in this moment,
In this situation.
And what happens is the empowerment that you feel takes you,
Moves you,
Elevates you from a hopeless,
Hopeless situation to an empowered,
Self-loving situation.
The idea that we were helpless or hopeless is only the mind's idea of an old way of thinking.
Our awareness,
Our ability to work with our mind and body and emotions gives us the power to overcome anything.
So just let this information float within you as you still sit in a comfortable,
Maybe not a deep,
Deep state,
But a deeper awareness state that you can take this in and you go,
Yes,
Yes.
And then anytime you get triggered,
You find the opportunity to sit somewhere,
Either in that moment or you excuse yourself or you wait till you get home and you sit and you do this practice again.
And by doing it again and again and again,
Your triggers will be released.
You'll always remember those times of uncomfortableness,
But they will not elicit a cataclysmic,
Existential crisis for you.
They'll just be a memory,
A memory without a reaction.
And isn't that what we want?
Isn't that the solution?
Heal the real wound,
Not trying to fix everyone and trying to fix the trigger.
So as you come out slowly,
Give yourself the opportunity to reengage slowly back into your day.
Remembering coming back to this meditation as often as you like to remind yourself that you are empowered and you can release your triggers.
Have a great day.
