Transform Your Triggers Today

In this episode, I dive into the real work of healing emotional triggers, especially when they show up in our relationships. I walk you through how to find the root emotion behind your reactions, why childhood experiences still impact us today, and why true healing happens when we allow ourselves to feel our pain instead of avoiding it.

I also share personal stories and practical tools you can use to start breaking old patterns, create healthier connections, and hold more unconditional love for yourself and the people around you. When we do this work, our relationships become more peaceful, authentic, and soul-aligned.

Transcript

Welcome to the Michelle Chalfant Show,

The next evolution of the Adult Share Podcast.

I am Michelle Chalfant,

And my goal is to help you to awaken to your true self.

Together we will break through your barriers so you can find your purpose and live a soul aligned life.

Each week,

I'll bring you powerful conversations with thought leaders,

Spiritual teachers,

Healers,

And change makers,

Along with actionable insights to help you to transform your life from the inside out.

Welcome to the Michelle Chalfant Show.

Hello,

Hello,

Hello.

Welcome to the Michelle Chalfant Show.

My friends,

We're talking today about triggers in relationships.

It's a good topic,

Right?

I am not talking about just partnerships,

Although it includes partnerships,

But even when we're triggered by mom,

Dad,

Sister,

Brother,

Friend,

Boss,

Whomever,

It doesn't matter who it is,

We're talking about it today.

Because if you're triggered,

There's a lot I'm going to say about that today,

And I'm going to give you ways to work through those triggers.

So then you,

Yes,

Get triggered less.

How's that for a show?

How fun is this going to be?

You know,

I've talked about triggers for many,

Many,

Many,

Many,

Many,

Many years.

I love triggers.

And I'm going to get into why and how actually empowering triggers can be.

All right,

Getting into triggers.

Today is the day.

We're talking about triggers in relationships.

I just hear it.

This is a topic,

Honestly,

That I just continue to hear over and over and over again.

Can you help me?

My mother's triggering me.

My partner's triggering me.

My husband,

My wife,

My girlfriend,

My boyfriend,

My whomever is triggering me.

And the classic question I have is,

And I had over all the years,

And I still get it.

How do I make so-and-so,

Let's fill in the blank,

Out there,

Whoever that person is to your husband,

Wife,

Girlfriend,

Boyfriend,

Mother,

Father,

Sister,

Brother,

Boss,

Whatever.

How do I make that person,

Whoever's outside of you,

Stop triggering me?

Michelle,

Help me.

What do I need to do to make them stop?

That's where we have it all wrong.

And I was there,

Too.

I'm just going to raise my hand right here.

Like,

I was someone that thought,

If I could just control that outside world of mine,

Then I'll stop getting triggered.

Well,

That's an endless battle.

I mean,

Honestly,

Can we really control everything out there?

Can we control our kids,

Our whomever?

You can't control anybody.

You cannot.

So stop that.

And not only that,

It's draining.

When we want to control everyone outside of self,

It's so incredibly draining and time-consuming,

And you'll never win.

It's truly a battle or game that you will never,

Ever win.

But here's the good news.

So that's the bad news.

I'll start with the bad news first.

The good news is this.

You ready?

Drumroll.

Here we go.

If you can hear my drumroll.

Triggers are such a great thing.

If you are someone,

And if you listen to this show,

I know you,

You are someone that values personal development,

Self-work.

You want to work on self in order to live with more peace or emotional balance in your life,

In order to grow a healthy adult self,

Right?

That's you,

If you're listening to this show.

That's what I'm all about.

So with that said,

Triggers are a good thing,

Because let me define my version of what a trigger is and what it does for,

Hear me say this,

For us.

Triggers reveal,

I'm going to use a lot of different words here.

Triggers are a gift because they reveal or help us to discover and uncover our unknown,

Unconscious,

Wounding,

Limiting beliefs.

Got it?

So when we're triggered,

It's our stuff coming up in front of us.

As I say,

On the silver platter,

It's right there.

And yes,

You're flipping angry and mad and wanting to rage at this person.

But guess what?

It's yours.

That's your issue,

Wounding,

Something for you to look at and something for you to learn and grow from.

Okay?

I did not use the word blame or judgment in any of that.

So please don't hear that.

Don't put that through a filter that's not there.

Because what I'm saying is,

When you work with a trigger,

It is the most,

One of the most empowering things that we can do for and with ourselves.

And one of the most beautiful things that we can do in a relationship is work with the stuff that's coming up for us.

So let me start here.

How do we know if it is a trigger?

People ask me this.

I love this question.

How do I know if it's a trigger or I'm just damn mad?

I'm mad at them because they did something stupid and that hurt my feelings.

And that makes me really,

Really,

Really mad.

Great question.

Here's the difference.

If you do something,

Someone out there does something,

And it makes me mad,

I'm going to be over it,

You know,

In an hour or so.

Unless it's a trigger.

If it's a trigger and I'm carrying around that pain,

That anger,

That whatever,

Then we know,

Okay,

Wait a minute,

There's something in here for me.

Now,

Here's the thing.

I'm not talking about extreme things.

Like if somebody,

If my husband goes and cheats on me today,

I'm probably going to be angry,

Hurt,

Sad,

Griefed,

Whatever,

In grief,

Whatever it might be,

Longer than an hour.

Okay,

That's a different story.

Or if someone I love gets tragically killed in an automobile accident,

I'm probably going to be in grief longer than an hour.

So that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about when someone says or does something to you and you're still,

That's not extreme like that,

And you're still talking about it and it's been an hour or two hours or days or weeks.

My friends,

That is a trigger.

That is an unconscious belief that has risen up and you're dragging it around behind you like I call,

You've probably heard me say this,

A cement suitcase.

And what we do is when we get triggered by someone,

You know,

My boyfriend said this to me or did this or my girlfriend,

Da,

Da,

Da,

It comes up for us.

And then instead of looking inward,

We go tell our friends all about it.

We want validation from someone outside of self that says,

Oh,

You poor thing.

They are jerks.

What an ass.

I can't believe they said that to you.

Yada,

Yada,

Yada,

Yada,

Yada.

They go on and on and on.

What happens is as that limiting,

Unconscious,

Unconscious,

Meaning we don't know what's there,

As it rises up for us and it's sitting right here in your face,

Right in front of you,

If you don't take a look at it and instead you go and you get validation from others that you're not at fault,

That the other person is at fault,

That beautiful belief that will change part of your life.

Let's face it.

When you look and work with your unconscious,

Unknown beliefs that are buried in the unconscious mind or what Carl Jung called the shadow self.

If you don't look at it,

It drops back into an unaware state,

Which is the unconscious mind,

And it just sits in the shadow.

The shadow is the dark.

It's the unconscious mind again.

It's still there.

It doesn't go anywhere.

What we want to do instead is we want to allow that trigger,

That belief to rise up and acknowledge that we're triggered and go,

Huh,

There's something here for me.

Now I might not be able to work with it in that moment.

I might be at work.

I might be on the subway.

I might be on an airplane.

I might be in a part at a party.

I might be wherever,

But we want to write it down.

Make a note in your phone,

Text yourself something and make time later to work with that belief that's risen up for you.

Okay.

So that's a big part of triggers that people really need to get clear about is that triggers are not due to other people.

Again,

When people say to me,

If you could just make my wife stop,

Stop triggering me,

I wouldn't have so much anger.

No,

You have anger.

You have beliefs that are inside of you that are yours,

That are rising up,

And it's time for you to start looking at those.

And when you look at your own beliefs,

Guess what?

When you look at your own beliefs and you work with those beliefs,

Those limiting beliefs,

I call them programs,

Limiting beliefs.

It's all the same thing to me.

When you look at those beauties,

They stop rising up.

They start to change.

Guess what?

You start getting triggered less.

You start living with more emotional balance.

The problem is,

Is so many of us don't even know what the heck to do with triggers.

We have no idea.

So instead we want to,

Again,

We go into controlling out there.

We get mad,

We get angry and all the things,

And it does nothing to our triggers.

I was someone in my younger years,

In my 20s,

That,

Even teenage years,

I was like up and down,

Up and down,

Up and down with emotions because I was triggered all the time.

I didn't know what to do with them.

And the more trigger work I did,

It was kind of crazy.

Just the more in balance I was able to stay.

And I was just my own living example of how to work with triggers.

And I started realizing what a gift this trigger work is.

It's pretty powerful stuff.

So what I want to do is walk you through exactly how we work with triggers.

Okay.

It's such a beautiful and pretty easy process.

The process is easy.

Taking a look at our stuff without judgment,

Blame,

Guilt,

All that is what we want to work through or just say to those emotions that are coming up,

Like,

Wait,

Hold on.

I'm really doing some powerful work here.

I'm going to work with this.

And so when that judgment comes in,

Like,

What's wrong with me?

Why did I do?

No,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No.

Here's what you got to understand.

This is even crazier.

Our triggers,

These unconscious beliefs that limit us,

That keep us stuck,

That drive us into dead ends over and over and over again,

That get us triggered and angry and blaming others and all the things.

Carl Jung says that most of our triggers landed in the unconscious mind by the time we're around three.

Yeah.

So,

You know,

When your mom didn't come pick you up out of the crib in time,

You might have formed the belief,

Like,

I'm not lovable.

I mean,

Who knows?

I'm just making it up here.

But that's how these unconscious beliefs form.

And they're sitting around in your unconscious mind,

Rising up every single time that you're triggered.

That's the truth of it all.

So you did nothing wrong,

Is my point.

So when you start blaming or judging yourself,

It's an absolute waste of time because you were three.

There was no prefrontal cortex.

There was no discernment when you were three.

Everything just dropped in.

Now,

It's not to say there aren't additional beliefs and programs that are added on top of those.

But the bulk of them are around,

You know,

Between the age of zero to six,

Average age is three.

So just consider where the triggers are coming from and be easy on yourself.

So.

Yeah.

So let's talk about what we do when we are triggered.

So like I said before,

Write it down,

Figure out,

Wow,

This is coming up for me.

I am really hurting here or I'm really mad,

Whatever it might be.

First of all,

The first thing and the most important thing that most of us miss is awareness.

Catching ourselves when we have been triggered.

Most of us fall into what I call this unconscious state.

It's the adolescent chair.

If you follow along in the adult chair model,

It's the what I mean by unconscious.

I don't mean you're,

You know,

In the hospital on a stretcher unconscious.

When we react without thinking with our higher mind or our conscious mind,

We're basically unconscious.

We're reacting from an unconscious perspective.

So.

What we want to do is have awareness and we only have awareness in the adult chair.

That's when our conscious mind comes online and we say,

Wow,

I am feeling really overwhelmed.

I'm feeling really angry.

I feel really hurt because so and so said that thing to me or did that thing to me.

That person out there,

Fill in the blank of whoever it is,

Is making me feel something.

So whatever that something is,

Take notice.

Step one,

Have awareness.

Step two.

So you're noticing first that you're triggered.

You're noticing that you also are having emotions.

So what you want to do is you want to say.

Okay,

I'm,

You know,

So many of us fall into anger or hurt or sadness when we're triggered.

Notice that top.

So think about everything stacking.

The top emotion is I'm angry or I want to shut down.

I want to put my walls up.

I don't want to see or talk to you ever again.

That's how I feel,

Right?

That's when sometimes when we're triggered,

We feel like that too.

That's the top emotion.

What we want to do when we have time,

When we're alone.

Is explore that this does not take hours,

By the way,

This takes minutes,

Minutes,

Minutes.

This takes no time at all.

So what we want to do is hit the top emotion,

Acknowledge it,

Feel it in the body.

Like,

Wow,

I'm so freaking angry.

I'm so freaking hurt.

I'm so freaking whatever it is.

There it is.

Top emotion.

What's underneath it?

Hmm.

Well,

Under the anger,

Just get curious,

Play with this.

Just like,

Get,

Get,

Let your mind go.

Well,

Under the anger,

You're probably,

Probably going to be feeling it in your body.

But under the anger,

I feel less than.

Where'd that come from?

I love working with people when I do the work that when I do trigger work with people,

They say,

Oh my God,

Where did that come from?

I had no idea.

I felt less than I had no idea that was there.

Yeah,

It's there.

And what's under that?

So I feel less than.

Okay.

Now what?

Now I feel like I don't matter.

Okay,

Great.

Acknowledge,

Feel,

What's under that?

Well,

I feel abandoned.

I feel like you don't love me.

How does that make you feel?

Keep asking yourself,

How does this make me feel?

Whatever that emotion word is,

Or that sentence or statement,

How does this make me feel?

How does this make me feel?

Just keep going.

You're going to hit the root.

When you hit the root,

Then you say,

Huh?

Wow.

So at the root is,

I really feel abandoned.

So basically we're going from,

I'm angry at you and I want to shut down and wall you off so I don't ever have to talk to you again.

And then at the root is,

I feel abandoned.

Okay,

Great.

That's the root,

The core emotion.

Then you ask yourself,

When did I ever feel this way before?

Is this a familiar feeling?

Abandonment.

And think back,

Let your mind go.

And it might be,

Well,

Wow,

I felt this when I was growing up,

When I was a little kid,

Because my dad died.

My dad was never around.

My father worked all the time.

My,

Whatever it is,

Fill in the blank.

My mother died.

So yeah,

I was very abandoned.

My mother died when I was four.

I felt abandoned.

I thought she left me.

Remember little kids,

We don't have a prefrontal cortex.

That means we don't have logic.

So if our mother dies when we're four,

We don't say to ourselves,

Oh,

Mommy died and she had cancer when I was four.

We instead build up stories.

We're trying to make sense of our world when we're that age.

And we assume mommy died because I did something wrong.

I'm not lovable enough.

I'm abandoned.

Everyone's going to abandon me.

So that's where these sorts of beliefs,

They get formed and they get,

They feel so bad.

We drop them into the unconscious mind.

Doesn't feel good.

So when we get to the root emotion and we feel it,

They go,

Wow,

That is,

That is just like when my mom died.

Wow.

Or that was when my dad used to work all the time.

He was never around.

He traveled all the time,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Whatever it is.

And we feel it and we go,

Oh my gosh,

That is so transformational.

When it comes to this work is being able to feel,

Here's the statement I love to use.

We feel through the pain.

We feel through that bottom root emotion.

And that's what most humans don't want to do.

We don't want to go there.

We don't want to feel the pain.

We want to come home and have a glass of wine or binge out on some show or do whatever in order not to feel the pain.

But I got to tell you something to feel our pain is to feel through the pain and on the side is where freedom,

Bliss,

Happiness,

Emotional resilience,

Emotional balance,

All of these things are on the other side of the pain.

On the other side of the,

I'm not lovable.

On the other side of I hate myself,

Whatever,

Whatever it is,

We've got to be willing to feel through it.

Okay.

So then you feel through it and you go,

That was the worst pain ever.

You may cry.

You may want to punch something.

All of it's okay.

Get it out.

Feel through it.

And then on the other side of it,

You ask yourself,

So what's true right now in this very moment?

Is it true that people abandoned me?

Like whatever the circumstances in your current reality today,

You ask,

Is that still true that everyone abandons me?

Well,

No,

Not at all.

Well,

What is true?

What is true?

Well,

What is true is that my father did die or my father did work all the time,

But he did love me.

And this person sitting in front of me,

Call it your friend,

Your boyfriend,

Your girlfriend,

Your whomever.

They actually really love me and they're not abandoning me.

This must be my wound.

So then we feel the truth in that.

When we feel whatever the word is,

The thought,

The belief,

That's where the magic happens.

That's where the transformation happens.

You have to feel it.

You just can't think this stuff.

We can think it.

You got to drop it in the body below the chin,

Feel it transform.

That's how we heal a trigger.

So in relationships,

That's why I love triggers because in specifically,

Again,

This can be mom,

Daughter,

Sister,

Whatever.

All this stuff also comes up in our relationships,

Our primary relationship with someone.

This stuff comes up back and forth,

Back and forth,

Back and forth.

If you're triggered all the time,

It doesn't mean you need to separate or get a divorce.

It means you keep doing your trigger work and you can do this together.

You can do this together and learn how to work with each other in relationship to your triggers.

So then you identify your own trigger.

Then you can share it with your partner.

Say,

Wow,

This is coming up for me.

But the thing is,

Is we want to do our personal work within the primary relationship.

We want to personally work with our triggers inside of the relationship.

I have a whole relationship reset course on a lot of this stuff.

It's like,

How do we learn how to reconnect and reset relationships?

This is one way to do it.

So the more work you do with yourself,

Okay,

The healthier you become.

And then you're able to actually see through what your partner is going through and what their triggers are.

This is the coolest thing.

So the healthier that I became throughout the years,

The more I was able to see my husband's stuff.

Again,

I please do not get the idea that Michelle Chalfant is sitting here and never triggered.

I am sometimes far less than I ever was.

So please don't think I'm perfect because I'm certainly not.

But I'll say this.

I am hardly ever triggered.

And when I am,

I know how to manage it and I work through it very quickly.

But in relationships,

I noticed when my husband was triggered,

I used to then,

Of course,

Come right back at him.

What do you mean you're saying that?

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

You know,

We get in an argument.

Now I'm in a place where I can actually notice this trigger and you start to see through what they're going through.

You see through this illusion that they're in.

You see through their trigger.

You see that they're actually in a younger version of self,

Whether they're a manip.

Again,

I'm not saying that Graham does this.

I'm just saying in general,

When other people are saying things to you,

Let's say,

You know,

I've worked with a lot of people that have like a narcissistic parent.

If that parent is saying something to you and they're manipulating and passive aggressive and all this,

The healthier I am,

The less that person out there triggers me because I see through what they're doing.

I can sit there and say,

Oh,

That's my mom.

She is manipulating me again or trying to,

And I'm not falling for it.

I always encourage people to what I call drop the rope.

Think about being in a tug of war with someone.

How do you win?

You don't have to pull the rope.

You just drop the rope.

When you drop the rope,

Game over.

I'm just not going to engage in that way.

I don't participate with people that are going to manipulate me or be passive aggressive.

I just don't.

I just don't engage.

It doesn't mean I'm walling them off.

It just means not playing that game.

No,

Thank you.

And the more trigger work that we do,

The more we can stay aligned,

What I call soul aligned.

We stay aligned with our true self.

We can hold ourselves in balance with boundaries.

We can stay grounded and all these things.

This is why we want to keep doing trigger work.

Because the more trigger work we do,

Guess what?

The more grounded we can stay and remain.

The more boundaried we can become.

Because so much about triggers has to do with our energy.

And we've got to have the energy within us in order to set those boundaries.

And when we do the trigger work,

Our self-worth starts to build.

I mean,

So many things happen when we do our trigger work.

It is absolutely imperative if you want to have a healthy relationship,

For sure.

But with Graham,

I have to say,

I started to see through.

I'd say,

Wow,

Look at him.

I didn't judge him.

This is not a judgment,

My friends.

This is,

It started happening a few years back.

I remember he'd be upset with something and I'd look at him and think,

Feel.

It was more of a feeling of,

Wow,

He's like 10.

This is so fascinating.

He's reacting from an old wound of not feeling wanted or feeling like he doesn't matter.

And I could hold myself solid like a boulder and I didn't budge.

And I was able to give him love even when he was totally thrown or even when he was triggered.

That's powerful.

That is such powerful work right there.

And then I was able to tend to that part of him that was speaking from the wounded perspective.

And again,

I'm not going to argue with someone that's 10 or 5 coming at me.

And the more work you do with yourself,

The more you can see this,

The more you feel it when the other person is acting from that perspective and the more love you give them.

And I say this all the time,

Love wins every single time.

So the more that person then can become vulnerable and you can reconnect them in a new way and your relationship starts to change.

And since doing that work with Graham many years ago,

And we always are working on this stuff because relationships do take work,

You know,

As we continue to work,

The more he could hold that state when I would fall into a trigger.

And what happens is that other person then can rise up and exit the trigger faster.

They can work through it faster.

They can actually,

You can actually dialogue then with your partner about what's happening for you.

And they can just be witness and hold space for you when they're triggered.

So this takes time to get there,

But I'm telling you,

This is the pathway to healthy relationships,

To triggers in relationships and how you can work with triggers in relationships,

But you've got to work with yourself first.

You've got to work with yourself first.

The last thing you can do is again,

It's sort of like what I just shared with you,

But to hold such love for someone and not sway and recognize that when someone is triggered,

This is why when you know the behind the scenes of what a trigger is,

The more you can hold love,

Unconditionally loving,

Unconditional loving acceptance for them.

And you realize not from a judgmental perspective,

But from a place of pure love,

Wow,

This is their wounding speaking.

This is their little kid speaking to me,

Man,

They need love more than anything right now.

It's okay.

I'm not going to react.

I'm not going to respond.

I've sat with Graham and he's like so mad about something and triggered clearly.

And I'll just look at him and go,

Thanks so much,

Babe.

I'm so sorry.

I'll apologize.

And I had nothing to apologize for,

But I know he needs to hear that.

And then I'll say,

I love you.

And then we end up working with it.

And then we talk all about it and it all comes out what we want to do.

And we,

It takes time again to get here,

But to create that beautiful,

Sacred,

Unconditionally loving space for that other person.

So they can be mad,

Be in that wounded child part and let that little part get everything out.

But when I can meet that part with love,

That part can be really vulnerable.

And then that gives the other person the opportunity to drop into their pain.

And I'm just going to hold the space and let them drop through the pain.

And I can hold it for them as they do it.

Nothing can shake me,

Right?

That's the place we want to get in.

Now,

Again,

Sometimes I get shaky,

But you get to the point of being able to hold space.

And it's harder,

Of course,

When you're working with someone that you love that's in front of you,

But again,

It gets like so easy as we go through this,

But to be able to hold space for somebody with love is such a beautiful gift.

I'm not saying anything about fixing the healing happens.

Transformation happens just in holding space with them and for them and being able to speak to them from that healthier adult perspective and giving them grace for wherever they are.

That's how you bond in relationships through triggers.

So all of these things start happening when you start working on your triggers.

It's the common denominator to healthy relationships because I don't care who you are.

Every relationship has triggers.

It's just because we're human.

You can't not.

You can't.

There's not a human that does not have childhood wounding or some sort of wounding along the way.

Lots of it.

Now,

Some have more than others.

We just want to learn how to navigate life,

Our lives,

And do our trigger work because it literally affects every single other human that we have interactions with.

And if you have a primary relationship,

This is the biggest work you can do for yourself and for your relationship.

Ah,

All right.

Thank you,

My friends.

This was so great to share this with you.

All right.

All right,

Everybody.

Thank you so much for joining me.

I'll see you right here next week.

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